February 18, 2021 – Cranky Daily

AA & JetBlue AAnnounce More Northeast AAlliance Details

American & JetBlue unveiled the first round of schedule additions designed to bring the two airlines closer via their Northeast Alliance. Today’s announcement revealed 80 new codeshares, 33 new routes, and greater schedule coordination designed to complement and feed each other’s flights in New York and Boston.

The codesharing will begin next week, on February 25, with tickets on-sale today. JetBlue-operated flights can be purchased with an AA flight number on 49 routes while JetBlue will place its B6 code on at least 25 of American’s routes. Just for fun, they’ll also throw some random codes on each other’s flights and see if anyone buys tickets.

At the beginning, codesharing will only include point-to-point routes with more being added, including international service, in the coming months. We assume this is delayed due to the failure of JetBlue’s efforts to get pilots to loosen up restrictions on partnering.

American is introducing six new international routes from New York/JFK as part of the expansion. The airline will start daily service to three Colombian cities – Cali (CLO), Bogota (BOG), and Medellin (MDE) on May 6. Thrice weekly flights to Santiago de Chile (SCL) also begin May 6 and will become daily in November. AA will also begin Saturday-only service to both St. Lucia (UVF) and Turks and Caicos (PLS).

AA will also increase its presence in the northeast with 12 new domestic routes. From Boston, it will introduce flights to Asheville, NC, Columbus, OH, Jackson Hole, WY, Traverse City, MI, and Wilmington, NC. New York/LGA will see new flights to Kansas City, Key West, Myrtle Beach, Pensacola, Rapid City, DC, and Savannah. JFK will get one new route, all the way to Orange County.

Southwest’s Turn to Take Aim at Northeast Alliance

While American & JetBlue spent the morning highlighting new routes and features of its alliance, Southwest was filing a reply to the DOT, continuing its objection to the tie-up.

Southwest’s argument is two-fold, that American and JetBlue’s contention that no one objected to the deal until the very end is bollocks and that the alliance restricts competition in the northeast more than the DOT and the two airlines are willing to admit.

Southwest points to its letter to the DOT in late July, just two weeks after the initial announcement where it expressed its displeasure with the deal as a debunking of the idea that no one objected early in the process. It says the DOT conducted its review in secret, behind closed doors, and without any ~~transfarency~~ transparency.

Southwest wants JetBlue to divest itself of much more than the six slot pairs at Washington/National (DCA) it’s being forced to give up. As has been mentioned previously, Southwest tells the DOT that JetBlue received 28 of its 30 DCA slot pairs in its role as a low cost carrier to encourage competition against American. Half of B6’s DCA slots are used on the DCA-Boston route, which, when combined with AA gives the two a near-monopoly on the route.

Air Canada’s Purchase of Transat on the Shelf

With a deadline of February 15 to complete the sale having passed, Air Canada has put its attempts to acquire Transat in limbo. To be clear, nobody is doing the limbo since Canada has banned travel to the Caribbean and Mexico, the only two places where anyone would be willing to play the game.

Earlier this week, the European Commission declined to approve the deal, asking for more information from the airlines while postponing its decision until later in the year. As part of the sale process, the two airlines set February 15 as the date for completion, otherwise either side could walk away from the deal penalty-free.

With Air Canada looking to re-negotiate, Air Transat is now able to open up discussions with other suitors, including Pierre Karl Péladeau, president & CEO of Quebecor who made several attempts to wrest the airline away from Air Canada last year. Péladeau said he is open to resuming negotiations with Transat to resume his purchase of ~~an economy ticket from Saskatoon to (YXE) to Charlottertown (YYG)~~ the airline.

Talks are supposed to begin between the airline and Péladeau soon in a socially distanced setting at a suburban Montreal Tim Horton’s. Air Canada’s previously accepted final offer was US$150 million. Péladeau’s final offer was reportedly larger. Whether he goes high again will depend on whether Air Transat has any other interested parties, and how strong the coffee is at Tim Horton’s.

Ravn Alaska, Via Airways Scrap in Alaskan Wilderness

Via Airlines continues to plan a return to the commuter air market via Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, but it’s running into trouble with a competitor. Its potential resumption comes after the airline went out of business via cash flow issues in 2019. The scraps were purchased by Connecticut-based Wexford Capital, which intends to relaunch the airline in 2021.

Late last year, Via filed an application via the internet to the DOT to resume its commuter services with a single E145 aircraft. It hit a snag this week as potential rival Ravn Alaska asked the DOT to dismiss Via’s request due to being insufficient. Ravn argued to the DOT that Via’s application was insufficient, neglecting to furnish full fleet details, expense data, and operational plans.

Via’s response to Ravn probably was something like “it’s one plane flying one route – Dutch Harbor (DUT) to Anchorage – how complicated could it be?” And the answer is… super complicated.

Ravn went belly-up in early 2020 via cash flow problems and just restarted its operation late last year. Having gotten back into the air, it makes sense to want to ward off the competition, but doing it via the federal government seems unsportsmanlike.

Ukraine to Offer Flights over Chernobyl

Ukraine International Airlines will offer a sightseeing “flight to nowhere” that will fly directly over the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant outside of Kiev. Due to the pandemic, face masks are required for the flight – and all UIA flights – but gas masks will be optional on this one.

The unique flight, operated by an E195, will depart March 7 from the airline’s Kiev (KBP) hub. After takeoff it will give an air tour of Kiev and then head toward the power plant. The E195 will also fly along the Dnipro river at an altitude of 900 meters and take a pass over the Antonov factory airfield in Gostomel, home of the An-225 Mriya.

The plane will then return to Kiev where passengers will receive a tour of a B777 led by a UIA pilot followed by a visit involving one of those Men in Black memory-eraser things courtesy of the KGB.

Airline Potpourri

Air Côte d’Ivoire took delivery of its first Airbus A320neo.
American is adding six more routes in the west, unrelated to its alliance with JetBlue. AA will return to Idaho Falls (IDA), for the first time since the ’90s with once-daily service to both Dallas/Fort Worth and Phoenix. Phoenix will also see once-daily, year-round service beginning June 3 to Arcata-Eureka, CA (ACV). AA is also adding three seasonal routes which will begin June 3 – Phoenix to Bozeman, MT (BZN) along with Los Angeles to Grand Junction, CO (GJT) and Missoula, MT (MSO).
Antonov Airlines successfully transported a 54-ton power generation rotor from Ghana to India. Thank you for participating in today’s version of Cranky Daily Mad Libs.
GlobalX, an airline that does not really exist yet, announced an agreement to cooperate with Estelar Airlines from Venezuela, an airline that might or might not exist. Either way, direct air service between the U.S. and Venezuela is currently banned. This is sure to end well.
Iberia flew the first round of vaccine to be distributed in the Dominican Republic. British Airways took delivery of the vials and delivered them from Mumbai to London/Heathrow where Iberia took over and via a stop at its Madrid hub successfully delivered the 110kg of vaccines.
Mesa announced Torque Zubeck as its new Senior Vice President of Finance. He will be directly responsible for checking for change in and around seats on the airline’s planes while they sit overnight at airports across the country.
Norwegian filed for bankruptcy in France, giving the airline a victory in Bankruptcy Bingo. It won with a diagonal, marking off France, Ireland, Italy, and Norway in addition to involuntary furloughs to stave off bankruptcy (free space).
Uganda Airlines, the flag carrier of ~~Luxembourg~~ Uganda, has signed an agreement with Rolls-Royce to provide it with ~~fancy cars to drive around the airport~~ engines for its two new A330neo aircraft.
Virgin Australia is adding two new routes for the Easter holiday, running from March 29 through April 25. It will operate Adelaide (ADL) to Sunshine Coast (MCY), and Melbourne to Byron Bay (BNK).
WestJet hired Dr. Tammy McKnight as the airline’s first Chief Medical Officer.

Andrew’s Moment of Levity

A guy said he saw me pick my nose. “Nope,” I told him. “I was born with it.”