Alaska & Hawaiian Post Q4 Earnings
Both Alaska and Hawaiian announced their earnings reports for both Q4 and 2020 today. Alaska was up first this morning, and the Seattle-based airline said it lost $430 million in the quarter, capping off the year with a total loss of $1.3 billion. This compares to a $181 million profit for Alaska in Q4 2019, which ended a year that saw an operating profit of $769 million.
Any hopes of improvement in January were dashed when the airline said revenue is expected to to be down 60-65% from January 2020, the last month that was completely free of Coronavirus concerns in the United States. Alaska will operate with 30% less capacity this January and expects a load factor shy of 50%. The airline closed the year with $3.3 billion in unrestricted cash and a debt-to-capitalization ratio of 61%.
Hawaiian released its Q4 earnings shortly after the market closed — the time when management finished catching some morning waves — on Tuesday, with a net loss of $162 million for the quarter and $511 million for the year.
Hawaiian notes it began its recovery from rock bottom on October 15 when the state of Hawai’i launched its pre-travel testing program, re-opening the state for tourism. Hawaiian raised $41 million during Q4 through the sale of stock, giving it $864 million in unrestricted cash. The airline has an outstanding debt of $1.3 billion that includes POG juice futures and thousands of leis in a storage room in Honolulu.
JetBlue Wants Help in London
JetBlue Airways filed a complaint with the DOT, alleging that its plans to expand to London are being hindered due to the challenge of finding slots at London-area airports.
JetBlue claims it is being “locked out” of the major airports in London due to the UK delaying its decisions to address the unused slots available at both Heathrow and Gatwick… even though it did secure some slots for Gatwick service. JetBlue wants the DOT to politely nudge the UK government to honor the commitment to slot transparency signed under the new US-UK Open-Skies Agreement.
JetBlue specifically points out issues at Gatwick, where Virgin Atlantic has left indefinitely, and Norwegian has announced its plan stop all long-haul flying. Both airlines have still maintained their slots at the airport.
All options are on the table for JetBlue, including the possibility of redoing the restrooms on its new A220 aircraft that it designed with NYC subway tile as a nod to its hometown. Some UK officials have said off the record that if B6 would change the restrooms to look like London’s Underground Tube stations instead of NYC, the UK would release the slots JetBlue desires immediately.
Sun Country Announces New Cities & Routes
Minneapolis/St. Paul-based Sun Country Airlines announced it would be adding nine cities to its route map this summer while adding 16 new routes.
The nine new cities that will see Sun Country flights are:
- Cincinnati
- Fairbanks
- Hartford
- Houston/Intercontinental
- Indianapolis
- Jackson Hole
- Kalispell (MT)
- Orange County
- Raleigh/Durham
All nine new cities will see service to Minneapolis/St.Paul. Orange County (SNA) will see 4x-weekly flights to MSP beginning May 6. Fairbanks will see Saturday-only service beginning May 29 while the rest operate twice weekly. Orange County will also get Dallas/Fort Worth flights while Hartford and Indianapolis will receive flights to Orlando. Additional new flights include twice-weekly flights from Houston to Cancun and Las Vegas along with flights from Dallas/Fort Worth to Puerto Vallarta and San Antonio to Cancun.
The domestic expansion shows hope from the airline that the vaccine rollout will grow in numbers, encouraging Americans back to get back in the skies this summer. It’s either that, or that it had a bunch of leftover pushpins when cleaning the office and someone put them on random spots on a map in the office, not realizing it was used by its route planning team.
Lufthansa Discovers New Brand
Lufthansa announced its plan to launch a new brand for long-haul flights to leisure-oriented destinations, naming it Eurowings Discover. You have to really respect the logic of announcing a new brand that is an offshoot of Eurowings which already exists as a subsidiary of Lufthansa’s to begin with.
Eurowings Discover will operate exclusively long-haul flights on behalf of Eurowings, on behalf of Lufthansa. It might eventually also operate short and medium-haul flights within Europe, but for now that will remain being flown by Eurowings on behalf of Lufthansa and Lufthansa on behalf of itself.
Flights will have three classes – Economy, Premium Economy and Business Class. Eurowings Discover will operate using Eurowings existing long-haul product, making it the same as Eurowings, just with a different name on the outside of the airplane.
Non-Essential Travel to Belgium Banned Through March 1
Belgium is closing its borders between January 27 and March 1 with the lone exception of travel deemed by the government to be essential. By closing its borders, the country is rejecting the advice of the European commission, which expected EU states to continue to allow unfettered travel across the EU’s internal borders. The commission said that travel between EU states that is non-essential should be “strongly discouraged,” but stopped short of supporting the outright ban.
Belgium has had some of the strongest restrictions in the EU, having a 10 p.m. curfew in place since October, closing all indoor sports venues, and keeping only essential businesses open. Belgium was able to go from one of the highest positive test result countries in the EU in September to now being the lowest thanks to its tight restrictions. By closing its borders, Belgium ensures it will contain the entry of the virus and that no visitors will be eating any Belgian chocolate over the next several weeks, leaving more for its own citizens.
Air Belgium and Brussels Airlines will be forced to suspend nearly their entire schedules due to the ban, leaving only the bare-minimum required to meet essential travel needs. Both airlines are giving three choices to travelers: refunds for anyone scheduled to travel between tomorrow and March 1, the option to travel later in the year, or the equivalent value of their tickets in waffles, french fries, and/or beer.
Airline Potpourri
- Alaska announced that pilot Daniel Elwell is joining the airline’s board of directors.
- ANA is cutting service to both New York/JFK and San Francisco from Tokyo/Narita into April. It is also suspending two flights from Haneda, its daily flight to San Jose, and one of its two daily flights to Los Angeles
- Greater Bay Airlines applied for 104 route permissions from Hong Kong as it continues to plan its launch. Forty-eight of the 104 destinations are in mainland China, and none of them will make any money for the airline.
- Southwest has become the latest U.S. airline to ban emotional support animals. It will continue to allow emotional support cabin crew to work its flights, however.
- Vietravel Airlines, a startup in Vietnam, began passenger operations on Monday. The airline is operating five routes from its Ho Chi Minh (SGN) hub.
- West Atlantic Airlines took delivery of its first ATR-72F.
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
My friend today was frantic today asking me if I had seen his dog bowl. “No,” I told him, “I didn’t even know your dog knew how. But I’d love to.”