Would You Like Fries With That: Hawaiian to Offer Drive-Thru Virus Testing
1 On the heels of United offering virus testing at SFO, Hawaiian Airlines is poised to offer drive-thru testing for its passengers prior to departure beginning October 15. On that date, the state will allow visitors to bypass the mandatory 14-day quarantine with a negative test.
Hawaiian is partnering with Worksite Labs to offer drive-thru PCR testing for passengers prior to departure for Hawai’i. Service will first be offered in both Los Angeles and San Francisco at locations near the airport, with the airline expanding to its other mainland gateways in the coming weeks.
The cost for the test is $90 — $10 more than United’s mail-in version — guaranteeing a result within 36 hours. For those who wait until the last minute, an express day-of-travel option is available for $150, a bargain compared to United’s $250 plan. Rumors that Hawaiian will give a discount to anyone who shows up with a can of spam appear to be unfounded.
Southwest Extends Companion Pass Promotion One More Day
2 Earlier this week, Southwest launched an ambitious promotion… offering a free companion pass to anyone who booked a flight by September 24 (yesterday), to be flown by November 15. Anyone who completed that measly challenge would receive a companion pass for seven weeks in January and Feburary.
It appears that the companion pass promotion did not go as well as planned as the airline has extended the deadline one more day — to today. The idea was to sell an extra ticket that someone may not have wanted, and allow them to bring someone along in January & February when planes would likely be empty anyway. But Southwest extending an extra day makes it sound like Southwest might not have gotten the volume of response it was hoping for.
Reports out of Southwest’s Dallas headquarters say that if today’s extension does not go well, the airline will up the offer early next week to entice more sales. Some ideas they’re kicking around include an early-early bird buy-up offer, whereby passengers are bussed to the city their plane is coming from, allowing them to board the plane before it even arrives.
It’s also considering an on-board sales program where Very Important Businesspeople who purchase the promotion will be granted two minutes of mic time on each flight to peddle whatever it is they sell to their fellow passengers. We hope to have more on this in Monday’s Cranky Daily.
Air France Flight 66 Final Report Released
3 The BEA — French Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority — released its final report from the investigation of Air France Flight 66 that was scheduled to fly from Paris to Los Angeles on September 30, 2017.
The flight declared an emergency over Greenland due to an uncontained engine failure — that’s where the bits and pieces make it outside the engine itself — when it was diverted to Goose Bay Airport (YYR), landing without incident or injury to any passengers or crew.
The report determined that the fan hub in the fourth engine failed due to cold dwell fatigue. Gotta hate when that cold just won’t go away. The error caused most of the fan and engine to separate, causing light damage to the wing. At the time of the flight, cold dwell fatigue was not known to happen on this alloy, so it was not flagged as a potential problem. Luckily this incident, which resulted in no injuries or deaths, brought the cold dwell fatigue issue to the forefront to prevent future accidents.
McCarran Airport to Renovate Concourse C
4 Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport will begin a renovation project next week to revitalize Concourse C by adding more space for passengers, updating flooring, and improving passenger-friendly amenities. That probably just means more slot machines, but if we’re lucky, maybe a craps table or two. Imagine the pained decisions passengers would make during a hot roll…do I board my flight to Tulsa, or do I press my bets another unit?
Concourse C is Southwest’s main base of operations at Las Vegas, and the renovation will cause the airline to move most of its flights to Concourse B for the time being. Southwest has a smaller presence at Concourse B, operating at just six gates, compared to 17 at Concourse 17. The airport will be able to make some gates available at Concourse C using rolling closures as the project moves along to help alleviate some of the stress on Southwest’s operation.
The project will begin next week and is supposed to finish by Summer 2021. Want to bet it’s not done in time? No seriously…it’s Vegas…want to bet?
Crowdfunding Saves SA Express
5 SA Express, a government-owned airline in South Africa that serves seven domestic and three international destinations was in danger going out of business until its 800 employees stepped up and saved the airline from collapse via crowdsourced fundraising.
SA Express’s employees will become the owners of the airline after receiving approval from the airline’s creditors and the South African government to move forward. The airline, which went into bankruptcy in January will now avoid liquidation and plans to continue flying.
While the details of the ownership and management structures still have to be worked out, the staff already have some ideas about how they want the new SA Express to be run. The airline is expected to be the first in the world to allow unlimited vacation days for all employees.
Additionally, the airline has declared every day to be casual Friday, with the new uniform being a t-shirt and jeans with the airline logo prominently displayed.
Airline Potpourri
- American politely asked the federal government if it could end subsidy-free EAS service to Joplin (JLN) and Sioux City (SUX). The government said no, at least, not unless someone else wants to come in.
- Asiana extended its current, reduced schedule into November.
- Avianca plans to resume international flying next week on September 28. Initially it will serve 16 cities from its hubs in Bogata (BOG) and Medellin (MDE) including Miami and New York/JFK.
- Emirates is resuming flights to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Harare, and Mauritius, as it now serves 92 worldwide destinations.
- KLM extended its seasonal service to Cairo into March 2021.
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
An invisible man married an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.