American Eliminates Change Fees on International Tickets
When most U.S. airlines eliminated change fees at the end of the summer, they did so on domestic flights in addition to limited international flights — mostly to Canada and the Caribbean. American Airlines is now the first airline to take the removal of changes fees all most of the way. It is eliminating change fees on all non-basic economy fares that originate in North or South America, regardless of destination.
The new policy does not apply to the handful of customers booking AA while originating in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Antarctica, the Moon, or Mars. Those poor bastards will still have to pay up, likely because American’s joint venture partners didn’t like the plan.
American is also removing service charges when booking a ticket through AA reservations — whether on the phone or in-person at the airport. The fee would also be waived at city ticketing offices, but good luck finding one in 2020.
Southwest Sets Sarasota & Savannah Schedules, Adds Hawai’i Gateway
Southwest Airlines announced several schedule updates today, including its fifth mainland gateway to serve Hawai’i. Southwest will begin once-daily service on March 11 from Long Beach (LGB) to Honolulu. Southwest has taken over as the dominant carrier at Long Beach in recent months as once-omnipresent JetBlue slowly receded from the airport. Southwest will join Hawaiian Airlines as one of two carriers flying to Hawai’i from Long Beach.
Meanwhile, Southwest loaded schedules for its new service to Sarasota/Bradenton. The airline will begin service on February 14 to four cities: Baltimore (3x daily), Chicago/Midway (2x daily), Houston/Hobby (1x daily) and Nashville (2x daily). Book now if you want to reserve a spot for your wheelchair since there is likely to be very high demand.
Next, Savannah schedules were loaded. That airport will see Southwest flights begin on March 11 from five cities: Baltimore (2x daily) and Chicago/Midway, Dallas/Love Field, Houston/Hobby and Nashville (all once daily).
Lastly, Southwest is resuming international service from Orange County, with once-daily service to Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta beginning March 11. That’s likely expected to outperform Southwest’s more business-heavy routes from the airport for the near future.
Airline CEOs Threaten to Disrupt Vaccine Distribution
Airlines For America (A4A), the main lobbying group for U.S. airlines, sent a letter to Congressional leaders late Wednesday signed by the CEO of the country’s seven largest airlines. The letter includes a veiled threat regarding the ability of airlines to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine without additional payroll relief before the end of the year.
U.S. airlines received $25 billion in federal aid between March and September and are asking for a second round of support to avoid further job cuts.
“As the nation looks forward and takes on the logistical challenges of distributing a vaccine, it will be important to ensure there are sufficient certified employees and planes in service necessary for adequate capacity to complete the task,” the letter said.
The letter would go on to say that all seven executives plan to feature just one movie onboard their aircraft this holiday season — the 2018 Bollywood hit Blackmail starring Irrfan Ghan, Kirti Kulhari, and Urmila Matondkar — for, uh, no particular reason.
Alaska Introduces In-Seat Stowage to Carry Additional Freight
Alaska Airlines, in conjunction with Alaska Air Cargo, is introducing a new in-seat stowage system, that allows the airline to use passenger aircraft in a cargo-only configuration.
The interior package stowage containers allow Alaska to fill the main cabin with 13,500 pounds of cargo — or about 270 salmon — on top of what it can already transport in the cargo hold beneath the main cabin.
Alaska Air Cargo has three dedicated freighters for cargo-only service, and it will add one Boeing 737-900 that is normally used for passenger operations to its fleet for the foreseeable future.
Alaska’s cargo flights are flown with a crew of four — two pilots and two Cargo Load Agents. The Cargo Load Agents oversee the cargo from load-in to load-out and also provide the goods with two beverage services throughout the flight and ensure they do not tamper with or disable lavatory smoke detectors.
Etihad & El Al Sign Agree to Potential Codeshare
Etihad Airways and El Al Israel Airlines signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Thursday, bringing the two airlines closer to working together on operations from Israel to the UAE and beyond.
The MOU contains a wide-ranging list of plans between the two airlines including the ability to codeshare with each other in addition to greater commercial cooperation in the fields of cargo, engineering, loyalty, destination management, the optimal use of pilot and cabin crew training facilities, and destroying Iran.
Etihad currently plans to begin service between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv on March 28.
Airline Potpourri
- Orsha Air of Belarus is to be liquidated as soon as next week.
- Qantas launched its first flight between Canberra (CBR) and the Sunshine Coast (MCY) on Thursday to challenge its rival Alliance Airlines which began flying the route weeks ago.
- Qatar will launch 3x-weekly service to Abuja, Nigeria via Lagos on November 27.
- Ryanair is considering acquiring A320-200neo and A321-200neo aircraft for its Lauda Europe subsidiary.
- Ukraine International Airlines will resume service to Yerevan, Armenia (EVN) on December 4.
- Vietnam Airways had a $520 million rescue package approved by Vietnam’s National Assembly.
- Virgin Australia and Alliance Airlines have been granted permission to cooperate on pricing, scheduling, and revenue sharing on 41 regional routes and two short-haul international routes.
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
What does a CIA agent do when it’s time for bed? He goes under cover.