Oops, Our Bad: In yesterday’s Cranky Daily, we mistakenly mentioned the Hyatt Regency in Oakland as a potential candidate for a hypothetical super-merger between several different otherwise-unrelated entities. We have since learned that there is no Hyatt Regency in Oakland. According to TripAdvisor, the best hotel in town is a Best Western. We regret the error.
Spirit Lands New Slots in Orange County
1 Spirit Airlines is continuing its expansion in Southern California as it adds additional flights to its Orange County schedule prior to beginning service.
SNA is not slot-restricted in the traditional sense in that it’s not limited to a specific number of takeoffs and landings. Instead, the airport caps the number of annual passengers that can pass through, altering the number of flights based on aircraft type and flight schedules.
Spirit announced in September it would be adding Orange County to its route map with flights to both Las Vegas and Oakland. But earlier Thursday, the airline it obtained the slots to add a second-daily flight to Las Vegas, as well as flying once-daily to Phoenix.
Spirit will begin flying from SNA on November 16, with six daily flights — three to Oakland, two to Las Vegas and one to Phoenix. All passengers flying from Orange County on the first day of service will be subject to a $12.99 Airport Inauguration Fee.
British Airways Slashes U.S. Flights Due to Lockdown
2 In a letter sent to travel agents, British Airways said that in light of the reintroduction of a lockdown in the U.K., the airline has decided to slash flying to the U.S. beginning today and lasting either until the lockdown ends or never, whichever comes first.
Boston (BOS), Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Newark (EWR), and San Francisco (SFO) will each see their daily flight suspended completely. Both Atlanta (ATL) and Philadelphia (PHL) were going to operate 3x weekly, but those will also not operate. Suggestions that BA should leave a 787 parked in Newark and operate it as the nicest restaurant in town have been ignored.
The only remaining U.S. service will be from London/Heathrow (LHR) to Chicago/O’Hare (ORD), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), New York (JFK), and Washington/Dulles (IAD). Each will offer a single daily flight which is the same as the previous schedule everywhere except at JFK which was supposed to have 2x daily. Houston/Intercontinental (IAH) will have 3x flights a week and Seattle (SEA) will have 4x, as previously planned.
No Foolin’: Emirates Ends Partner First Class Awards
3 Emirates will be ending partner access to First Class award redemptions, effective April 1, 2021. The airline, which boasts one of most-desired first class cabins in the world will restrict award access in the exclusive cabin to members of its own frequent flier program, Skywards.
Currently, and until the program ends on April 1, Emirates First Class can be redeemed through three partner airlines — Alaska, Japan Airlines, and Qantas. Alaska said that the decision to block first class awards for partners was made by Emirates and is due to its lack of first class seats with so many aircraft parked due to the pandemic.
In the meantime, those who want to enjoy the perks of Emirates first class with partner award redemptions better do so quickly. With the pandemic, it’s not like there’s anything else to do with our miles, so this seems as good an idea as any.
Lufthansa Group Posts €1.3 Billion Loss in Q3
4 Lufthansa Group posted its Q3 earnings report, and its airlines reported a combined net loss of €1.3 billion compared to a net profit of €1.3 billion in Q3 a year ago. So one positive way to look at it is that if you look at just absolute value — there was no change from a year ago.
Gross revenue saw a large drop from €10.1 billion in 2019 to just €2.7 billion this year. Expenses were cut 43% YoY to limit some of the damage, but not nearly enough.
On the bright side, Lufthansa Cargo saw a positive quarter, turning a €169 million profit. Unfortunately, the figure served as a figurative drop in the ocean — the very ocean that most of Lufthansa’s cargo freighters flew over while transporting the profitable cargo.
The group ended September with €10.1 billion cash on-hand plus €6.3 billion in bailout cash available from the governments of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium. The four nations plan to meet in Frankfurt for a five-day soccer tournament. The nation that finishes last will have to pay the bailout money first.
Rex Takes Delivery of First Boeing 737 Aircraft
5 Australian regional carrier and all-around good boy Rex Airlines took delivery of its first Boeing 737-800 aircraft when the plane arrived in Sydney earlier Thursday. It’s the first of six leased 737s the airline plans to operate when it launches service in March on the highly-competitive Melbourne-Sydney route.
Rex has previously operated as a regional airline using Saab 340s but is taking the pandemic as an opportunity to forge its way into the big Australian domestic markets, starting with Sydney to Melbourne flights and then adding service to Brisbane shortly after Easter. The airline plans to release the new livery for its domestic fleet by the end of November and sources say it’ll be doggone good.
Airline Potpourri
- CityJet retired its last ARJ-85 and will exclusively operate CRJ900LRs going forward. This appears to have been the last BAe-146/Avro RJ operating scheduled service in Europe.
- Delta and WestJet have been granted an extension to November 20 for the comment period on the JV agreement between the two airlines.
- Eastern — not the British one or the defunct one — plans to launch weekly service between Miami and Asunción this Sunday, November 8. The route will increase to twice-weekly beginning in December.
- Ethiopian‘s ban on serving Shanghai/Pudong is being extended to January 1.
- Gulf Air will resume flying from its Bahrain hub to Casablanca with once-weekly service beginning this Saturday.
- Iberia converted its first passenger A330 into a freighter and will use it for 4x-weekly cargo service between Madrid and Los Angeles.
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
So what if I can’t spell Armageddon? It’s not the end of the world.