Southwest Announces a Slew of Leadership Changes
Southwest Airlines announced changes within its senior leadership team, with two retirements leading to a cascade of promotions across the company.
Executive Vice President of Daily Operations Greg Wells and Vice President of Customer Relations/Rapid Rewards Jim Ruppel both will be retiring at the end of this month. Wells has been with Southwest since 1981 when he started as a ramp agent before working his way into the corporate office. Ruppel began with Southwest in 1978 having held several leadership positions across the airline. Both will take advisor roles as part of their retirement. CEO Gary Kelly presented both with a LUV voucher in the amount of $50 and four drink vouchers in honor of their retirements.
Among the promotions in the wake of the two departures, Senior VP of Air Operations Alan Kasher is being promoted to Executive VP of Daily Operations. As a former pilot for Southwest, Kasher found comfort in being in charge of air operations for the airline and will spend the first weeks of his new job adjusting to working on the ground.
Sam Ford will be promoted to Vice President of Operational Strategy & Performance meaning his new role will consist of making sure the airline’s boarding placards are properly spaced out at gate areas across the country to reduce confusion amongst boarding groups.
Julie Landrum has been promoted to Managing Director of Financial Planning & Analysis which is the role at Southwest focused on selling Early Bird upgrades and controlling the stash of all those drink vouchers. Lastly, Chris Johnson is being promoted to Vice President Ground Operations on February 1. The former Southwest ramp agent will be tasked with selling items on eBay from all luggage that doesn’t make it into the cargo hold and was accidentally left on the ground near the aircraft.
SkyWest Announces Q4 and 2020 Earnings
SkyWest released its Q4 and 2020 financials prior to the markets opening on Friday morning, announcing the airline lost $59 million on its pre-tax revenues for a Q4 net loss of $46 million.
SkyWest’s full year saw a total loss of $7 million, an amount that most U.S. airlines would kill for right now. No, literally they might actually be willing to kill for it. It helps that SkyWest does its flying on behalf of other airlines and has a defined cost and revenue structure before it carries one passenger. But no matter the reason, it’s still a decent result following a year that put nearly everyone deep into the red.
SkyWest ended Q4 with $590 million in revenue, down 21% from 2019 as the airlines it operates for dramatically reduced its schedule. But Q4’s revenue figure was up 29% from Q3 as some demand returned for SkyWest in the final quarter.
The airline ends the year with $826 million in cash, a significant increase from the $520 million it had at the end of 2019. A large portion of the cash increase comes from SkyWest flight attendants offering to sell Delta credit cards on-board during flights. SkyWest is not actually authorized to sell credit cards on behalf of Delta, so the flight attendants pocket the money earned from unsuspecting passengers and split it 50-50 with the airline.
Frontier Covers All Its Bases
Frontier Airlines will establish two new crew bases this year in Atlanta and Tampa. The Tampa base is expected to open in May with the Atlanta base opening sometime late in 2021. The addition of the crew bases is a sign that Frontier wants to increase its presence in both cities.
Tampa will see growth this summer when it increases from roughly eight daily flights on Frontier in 2019 to more than 14 daily in June. It’s unclear why anyone would want to fly to Tampa in the summer, but presumably we’ll see even more growth when winter shows up again.
Even though the Atlanta base won’t open until later this year, an increase in flying is already planned for this summer with daily flights going from 10 in June 2019 to 17 this year. After Frontier announced its plans, Delta quickly announced it couldn’t compete and would fold up shop.
UK to Begin Hotel Quarantine on February 15
The United Kingdom will implement a required 10-day stay at approved quarantine hotels for all passengers flying into the UK from 33 countries on its hotspot list. The quarantine requirement will go into effect on February 15, because until then, COVID has agreed not to infect people destined for the UK.
The government has asked hotel owners to set aside up to 1,000 rooms at hotels near all major airports in the UK including three London airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, and London City. Other airports on the list include Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. Currently only UK citizens and permanent residents can even enter the country.
The traveler will be responsible for the entire cost of the hotel, any minibar charges, and room service tea. Travelers will be permitted outside on the hotel’s grounds to get some fresh air or have a smoke, provided they are accompanied by a security guard. Amazingly, that entire sentence seems to defeat the whole purpose of the quarantine. Nightly lodging costs for quarantined travelers are expected be approximately £80 per night per person plus, apparently, the cost of cigarettes.
Nigeria Tells Emirates to Take a Long Weekend
Nigeria banned Emirates Airline from operating outbound flights back to Dubai for 72 hours due to the airline skirting Nigeria’s virus guidelines.
The suspension began yesterday and continues through the weekend. Nigeria is accusing Emirates of airlifting passengers out of Nigeria and using rapid tests at unapproved locations. Nigeria requires a 72-hour PCR test at a government approved testing center for travel in and out of the country.
This is not the first dustup between the Nigerian government and Emirates. Earlier this year, the Nigerian High Court required the airline to reimburse an American drug mule businessman $1.63 million after he alleged Emirates lost his briefcase with that much cash in it during a trip to Nigeria in 2009.
Nigeria banned other airlines for their handling of the pandemic in the country including Air France, KLM, and Lufthansa. All three airlines had their bans lifted within a month.
Airline Potpourri
- Aeroflot announced its Q4 and 2020 financials, and being a Russian state-owned airline, we can totally take the figures at face value. The airline posted a loss of $1.3 billion for the year on revenues of just over $3 billion. Do keep in mind that Aeroflot gets to keep all the money from airlines overflying Russia, so… that’s gotta help.
- Air Senegal is adding two European destinations from its Dakar (DSS) hub. It will begin service to both Milan/Malpensa and Lyon. Both will operate 3x-weekly, with MXP service beginning on February 17 and LYS on March 28.
- Air Serbia is taking all of its assets in New York including its jetway, signage, podiums, and reams of paper on the AirTrain as it moves from JFK’s Terminal 4 to Terminal 1.
- Fly Angola is again living up to its own name as it resumed operations for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.
- Rwandair is seeking DOT permission to again serve New York. The airline proposes one-stop service from its Kigali (KGL) hub to New York/JFK with a stop in Dakar, Ghana (DSS).
- Wizz Air is adding three new destinations from Larnaca, Cyprus (LCA). It will operate to Oslo, Tel Aviv, and Kharkiv, Ukraine (HRK) beginning March 31.
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
What do you call a line of people grilling food while waiting to get their haircut?
A barberqueue.