December 29, 2020

The 737 MAX Makes its Return to U.S. Skies Today

American Airlines today became the first airline in the United States to operate the Boeing 737 MAX since its grounding nearly two years ago. The flights were completely uneventful, much to the dismay of all 24-hour news networks.

Aircraft N314RH — first delivered in 2018 and parked at American’s maintenance base in Tulsa during the grounding — departed Miami on-time at 10:40am this morning (considering this is AA, maybe that should be the real story) as AA718 for New York’s LaGuardia with 87 passengers onboard the 172-seat plane. The return flight back to Miami from LaGuardia was nearly completely full.

American is operating one-daily roundtrip flight with the MAX between Miami and LaGuardia, with service on the plane ramping up in the coming weeks. Its current schedule will peak with 91 daily MAX flights between mid-February and early-March. 

United and Southwest both have announced plans to operate the aircraft in 2021. United plans to operate the MAX from its Denver and Houston hubs from February 11 while Alaska plans to begin flights up and down the West Coast on March 1. The first returning aircraft for Southwest is currently holding pass B11 for re-entering service, but only airplanes in the A group are currently boarding. It is expected that the B group will be called up in Q2 of 2021.


Ryanair Undergoes its Own Brexit

Ryanair wants to make it clear to those who care about these sorts of things that it is a European-owned and operated airline, and it is definitely not British. Reports from HQ state that CEO Michael O’Leary has spent the holiday break binging the Netflix series The Crown and is horrified by what he’s seen, ordering that Ryanair sever all ties with UK nationals.

Beginning January 1, which is — checks notes — Friday, the airline will restrict the voting rights of its British shareholders to make sure it remains majority-owned by European Union (EU) shareholders in order to retain full licensing and flight rights in the EU.

Currently, 55% of the airline’s stock is held by EU nationals with 20% owned by UK citizens. The remaining 25% is held in a lockbox at Ryanair’s HQ that no one has seen a key for in years. Ryanair’s concern is that if the 20% of its shareholders that are UK-based began to grow its numbers, it could potentially threaten Ryanair’s status within the EU.

With this declaration, the 20% of UK-based shareholders will not be entitled to attend, speak, or vote at any general meeting of the airline. They will, however, still be entitled to enjoy the buffet, which in Ryanair fashion is not complimentary but is charged by weight when you get to the end of the line.


Alaska No Longer to Accommodate Emotional Support Animals

\

Alaska Airlines is the first U.S. airline — and very likely not the last — to announce it is no longer going to allow emotional support animals on its aircraft. The new policy comes after the DOT announced earlier this month it would put an end to the scam practice where passengers invented reasons for their dogs (or horses…or turkeys) to accompany them onboard the aircraft without paying a fee.

Alaska’s new policy will still allow service dogs, which are specially trained to perform tasks for the benefit of a qualified individual with a disability. 

The new policy will be effective for all flights booked on or after January 11 and for travel beginning March 1. Alaska will post a form for those bringing legitimate service dogs on its website on January 11. To ensure that the form is filled out properly and the dog qualifies, the form must be filled out completely by the dog, without any help from its human.


Japan’s Skymark Airlines Avoids Furloughs with Four-Day Workweek

Japanese LCC Skymark Airlines is avoiding layoffs and furloughs by dropping its workweek from the traditional five-days down to four. By chopping off one day of the week, the airline is giving its employees a 20% cut in salary but will be able to keep all of its staff employed as it navigates the pandemic.

We’ll go out on a limb and assume — though we don’t have confirmation — that this new four-day workweek does not include the operation of the airline. If we’re wrong, then watch out Wednesday. You’re in trouble.

Skymark flies an exclusively-domestic network based at Tokyo/Haneda. It has seen its revenue hurt less by the pandemic than its chief rivals — ANA (also a minority owner) and Japan Airlines — due its domestic-only operation.


Mesa AAdds Five AAircraft to AAgreement with AA

Mesa Air amended its new capacity purchase agreement with American Airlines today by adding five additional CRJ-900 aircraft by March. The new deal originally had Mesa contracted to operate 40 CRJ-900s for AA through 2025, but we assume American decided to take advantage of the “buy 40, get 5 free” deal that Mesa offered over the holidays.

American retains the option in the new agreement to withdraw any of the five new aircraft with 60 days’ notice. To prevent this from happening, Mesa has bent over backwards, even agreeing to continue AA’s tradition of way too many boarding zones by having each of the aircraft’s 23 rows serve as its own boarding group.


Airline Potpourri

  • Air China is suspending CA770, its service from Shenzen to Los Angeles, for two weeks by order of the Chinese government due to the number of positive COVID-19 cases on the flight in previous weeks.
  • AirCalin has taken delivery of its first A320neo. Try to contain your excitement.
  • Alitalia, which supposedly is starting a new airline that will be the same as the old one, shows that governments still proudly will throw good money after bad, as the EU commission approved €73 million in state aid for the airline.
  • Burundi Airlines will be the name of a startup airline that launches next year in — shockingly — Burundi. The government plans to merge its current airline, Air Burundi, with its ground handler SOBUEGA to form the new airline.
  • EVA has fired eight employees — four pilots and four cabin crew — since March for violating COVID protocols.
  • Emirates will resume its 4x-weekly service to Seattle on February 1.
  • Greater Bay Airlines, a Hong Kong-based startup airline, has hired former Cathay Dragon CEO Algernon Yau Ying-wah to the same position.
  • Hawaiian has been granted a waiver from the DOT to suspend its EAS routes to Lanai (LNY) and Molokai (MKK) immediately. Mokulele Airlines will pick up the slack left by Hawaiian’s absence.
  • Qatar will up its daily frequency to Montréal from 4x-weekly up to once-daily effective February 25.

Andrew’s Moment of Levity

What happened to the Irish man who thought about the evils of drinking in the New Year? He gave up thinking.