Southwest Points its Skis Towards Colorado Again, Reveals Miami and Palm Springs Schedules
1 Keeping with its current strategy of adding cities frequented by outdoor enthusiasts, Southwest Airlines is adding a second Colorado ski town to its route map. Service to Montrose (MTJ) — the gateway to Telluride — from both Dallas/Love Field and Denver begins December 19. The flights from Love Field will operate once daily, with Denver seeing up to 3x daily service on the route during the peak winter season.
In addition to Montrose, Southwest recently announced new service to three cities — fellow Colorado ski town Hayden/Steamboat Springs (HDN) along with warm-weather destinations Miami and the now absurdly popular air travel destination: Palm Springs.
For those warm-weather spots, Southwest has now released which cities will be connected. Miami will see four cities served including Baltimore (4x daily), Chicago/Midway (1x daily), Houston/Hobby (4x daily), and the biggest surprise, Tampa (3x daily). Palm Springs will see service on Southwest from Denver (1x daily), Oakland (2x daily), and Phoenix (3x daily). Fortunately, Southwest did not follow JetBlue’s lead and try to connect these two warm-weather destinations to each other.
Japan and South Korea to Resume Business Travel
2 Travelers on short business trips between Japan and South Korea will be exempt from the required 14-day quarantine for travel between the two countries provided the travelers can show proof of a negative virus test.
Japan has had a ban on foreign visitors into the nation since February but has been slowly opening its borders to countries with diminishing positive tests. In other words, the US isn’t even remotely under consideration. The opening with South Korea for short-term business travel marks an important point in the reopening of both nations.
Those traveling between the two nations on long-term trips or for non-business travel will also be permitted to transit between the two nations, but will be required to adhere to a 14-day quarantine upon arrival.
Cathay Pacific Braces for Layoffs
3 Rumors are flying that Cathay Pacific is planning to eliminate up to 2,600 jobs, including 1,500 flight attendants, 700 pilots, and 400 management staff.
The airline sent notice to flight attendants that it was suspending an arrangement allowing crew members to swap flights, similar to notice sent to pilots earlier in the summer. The move goes against Cathay’s long-standing policy and has many believing it is a precursor to layoffs.
The airline’s flight attendant union is trying to downplay the rumors, saying that it will be meeting with the airline today to discuss the outstanding issues and for its members not to panic. The union also issued a statement to Mary Todd Lincoln telling her to enjoy the play and not worry about rumors regarding her husband’s life.
US Startup Airbahn Gets Its Certificate
4 After an avalanche of startup airline announcements earlier in the summer, we’ve had our first in a long time actually make it through the gauntlet. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for Interstate Air Transportation to Airbahn this week. What the lengthy string of words from the DOT really means is that Airbahn is on its way to legally transport people and property in the United States. Upon hearing the news, the SARS-CoV-2 virus laughed loudly.
The airline says it would be based in Southern California, likely at Long Beach (LGB) or Orange County (SNA). Both airports have capacity controls — slots at the former, passenger caps at the latter — that seem to suggest this plan isn’t viable.
Airbahn hopes to operate the A320 at launch, leasing two from Airblue, a Pakistani airline also owned by Airbahn founder Tariq Chaudhary. The airline initially plans to operate up and down the West Coast of both the United States and Canada with all planes & staff returning to their base at the end of the day. Good luck to them.
58 Fake PIA Pilots Now Actual Pilots
5 The Pakistan Airline Pilots Association announced in a statement that 58 pilots who were previously suspended have since been cleared and that the union is committed to flight safety and service.
This is the same flight union that represented pilots that were not actual pilots saying that it is committed to safety. Okay. The union said it has never compromised safety, and that the pilots who broke the rules have been reprimanded.
The union also says that of the 141 pilots in the crosshairs for faked licenses, 26 were charged incorrectly. While that may very well be true — and those 26 deserve to get their jobs back if that’s the case — it’s an awful weak hill for the union to die on. It’s basically saying “we were accused of having 141 pilots fake their licenses, but really it’s just 115! So who’s the fool now?!?” The answer, unfortunately, is still the pilots and their union.
Airline Potpourri
- Aeromexico flew 708,000 passengers in September, a 10% increase from August and an even bigger increase compared to every year prior to 1903.
- Boutique Air has added its third destination in Oregon, Redmond/Bend (RDM). It will connect RDM to Portland with 2x daily service.
- Icelandair is selling three Boeing 757s for a total sale price of about $21 million. Coincidentally that’s probably about what Boeing can get for three 737 MAX aircraft as well.
- Israir received a $20.4 million bid to purchase the airline from Israeli businessmen Rami Levy and Shalom Haim.
- TAROM had €19.3 million in aid from the Romanian government approved by the European Commission.
- Virgin Atlantic had an A350 suffer tug damage at Heathrow on Wednesday. Good thing it has plenty of spares these days.
- Volaris plans to inaugurate service between Mexico City and Dallas/Ft. Worth with 2x weekly flights beginning December 12.
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
My neighbor tripped and fell into an upholstery machine at work, amazingly, for the second time. Luckily, he recovered.