December 17, 2020

JetBlue Announces Four New Cities, 24 New Routes

Apparently JetBlue missed the memo that YESTERDAY was route announcement day. Today, the airline unveiled a blizzard of new service with four new cities — Guatemala City, Key West, Los Cabos, and Miami — along with 24 new routes.

Miami, located just 30 miles from JetBlue’s Fort Lauderdale focus city, will see flights to Boston, Newark, New York/JFK, and Los Angeles begin February 11. The flight to LAX will include Mint on JetBlue’s A321, giving JetBlue’s “partner” American a run for its money.

The other move of note is JetBlue’s effort to turn Raleigh/Durham into a true focus city. It will get flights to Austin, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Newark, Orlando, San Francisco, and Tampa to complement the flights it added earlier this year.

The rest of the adds are connecting dots in the JetBlue network, trying to find leisure demand anywhere the airline can.


British Airways to Drop Long-Haul Routes

British Airways is dropping more than 15 long-haul routes worldwide in response to the extreme lack of demand, especially for long-haul international travel.

BA’s cuts will affect flights around the world to cities large and small. In North America, Pittsburgh, Calgary, and Charleston (SC) will receive the axe, while Seoul/Incheon, Kuala Lumpur, and Osaka will not see BA service anytime soon. Muscat, Jeddah, and Abu Dhabi will also lose service, in addition to temporary suspensions in Sydney, Bangkok, and San Jose, CA. 

British Airways will of course offer customers a refund or rebook them on a oneworld partner to their destination. The process is sure to be excruciating, including long waits on hold with BA customer service and discussion with an agent who will offer you the most inconvenient and nonsensical routing possible. On the bright side, those who are rebooked in a premium cabin will receive the opportunity to fly in an actual premium cabin on a different airline, instead of whatever BA is masquerading as premium service these days.


Rex Takes Aim at Big, Bad Qantas and Australian Government

Rex, the goodest boy in all of Australia, is calling for the government to stop subsidizing Qantas on money losing routes as the two airlines begin to clash more often.

According to Rex, Qantas is using federal government subsidies to support a strategy that consists of flooding the market, especially on regional routes to squeeze out the competition. Qantas is able to take a significant loss on the operation, offering flights at steep discounts thanks to the subsidies.

Qantas has launched or will launch service on five new regional routes that have a range of just 5,500 to 65,000 annual passengers on the route, most of which fly Rex. Qantas intends to squeeze Rex out with great frequencies at a great loss to send its competitor packing.

Rex is asking the federal government to cease all grants to Qantas if it persists with this overly-aggressive strategy. Of course, Qantas may also like to call Rex’s new efforts to invade the Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne triangle an overly-aggressive strategy, albeit one without government subsidy.


Spirit A320 Taxis Off Runway

A Spirit A320 taxied off the runway this morning at 6:18 a.m. in Baltimore while turning a corner when its front wheel ended up in the mud, a pretty good metaphor for 2020.

The plane was a redeye arriving at BWI from Las Vegas where it departed as NK696 last night at 11:06p PT. No injuries were reported and the plane eventually taxied to the gate.

Those on-board were met by medical units and fire crews to help passengers off the aircraft. Customers who wanted assistance off the plane by the fire crew were charged a $12.99 non-jetway disembarking fee by Spirit, and the airline also has a $23.99 medical fee in the fine print of its tickets. Passengers could pay a bundled $30 to receive both fire department assistance off the plane and medical attention. Flight attendants accepted card-only payment (plus a 2.9% processing fee) on-board the plane.

The bus provided by BWI was free of charge for transport back to the terminal as the airport provided the transportation, not Spirit. Passengers who declined to pay the disembarking fee will remain on-board the aircraft indefinitely.


Aeroflot Introduces Special Seating for Pro-Covid Passengers

Those passengers who are in favor of continuing the spread of the COVID virus will find a home for themselves on Aeroflot, the largest airline in Russia.

The airline will reserve the back two rows on the right side of its economy cabin for those who refuse to wear a mask. The airline is not reversing its policy of requiring masks on board — that’s still the case — but it is making arrangements for those who cause disturbances on-board.

Aeroflot does not currently have a Basic Economy product, but one can infer that they’ve been waiting until now to roll it out. If all the old-timers out there thought sitting a row in front of the smoking section was terrible… this is worse. The airline plans to reserve the 3rd and 4th last rows on the right side of the plane for any potential Basic Economy passengers. “Don’t want to sit in front of the anti-maskers and breathe their air,” the airline asked in a statement. “Then don’t buy Basic Economy.”


Airline Potpourri

  • airBaltic‘s final Boeing 737 was re-delivered to new owners today, leaving the airline with an all A220 fleet.
  • Cathay Pacific flew 37,815 passengers in November, a 98% drop from November 2019.
  • Hi Fly Malta retired its one and only A380.
  • JoyAir is asking permission to move its main hub from Tianjin (TSN) to Xi’an Xianyang (XIY).
  • UPS Airlines has taken delivery of a brand-new Boeing 787-8F.
  • Virgin Australia‘s lounge in Canberra is expected to reopen in early 2021.
  • Viva Aerobus will launch four new routes this week from its Mexico City hub. Service will begin to: Durango (DGO) and Los Mochis (LMM) today, with Chicago/O’Hare and Ciudad Obregon beginning tomorrow, December 18.

Andrew’s Moment of Levity

I went on a date last night with a woman who works at the zoo. It was a great time — she’s a keeper.