Avelo Heads East
Just a week after its inaugural flight from its first Burbank (BUR) base, Avelo Airlines announced its plan to establish an East Coast base at Tweed New Haven, CT Airport (HVN) this fall. Everyone in Connecticut who used to use New York airports for their vacations could be heard screaming with joy in unison as the news was announced.
Avelo will fly smaller B737-700 aircraft from its new base — it uses B737-800s in Burbank — operating to destinations it has yet to announce. At press time, Avelo’s senior leadership team was seen crowding around a map of the eastern half of the United States measuring the distances in inches of various airports from New Haven and then converting those to miles using the scale in the corner of the map.
New Haven is currently served by American – the only commercial airline to operate at the airport – with 5x-weekly service to Philadelphia on American Eagle. The airport has been in major demand to add service for years, according to Sean Scanlon who happens to be the Director of the New Haven Airport Authority, a fully-independent source on the matter who is definitely not exaggerating.
Avelo will invest $60 million by basing three aircraft at the airport, hiring over 100 employees, and inviting everyone who lives within five miles of the airport out to brunch later this summer. Service will begin in Q3 this year, and in the meantime, the airline will provide an additional $1.2 million to fund improvements to HVN’s existing terminal.
LAX Reopens Runway
Los Angeles International Airport reopened Runway 7R/25L today, after a $17 million rehab project to replace concrete, install energy-efficient LED lighting, and shine the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame that reside on the runway.
The project was completed on-budget and on-schedule, finishing one day early. LAX officials celebrated by hosting a cookout on the runway instead of turning it back into service early. Airport and airline staff enjoyed burgers and hot dogs cooked on the grill while each airline brought a side from its lounge.
Unlike its neighbor to the north at SFO, LAX performed the maintenance during the winter and early spring to prepare for the busy summer travel season. San Francisco thought now would be the best time to take its main runway out of service, figuring if the planes are grounded because of heavy fog, it doesn’t really matter how many functioning runways there are.
Runway 7R/25L is the main arrival runway for the south airfield. It’s used most often for arriving flights and as a place for arriving American flights to wait because no gates are available. Its counterpart, Runway 7L/25R (the two were always confused for each other growing up in school), is back resuming its normal operating of handling departures for the south airfield at the airport.
Mango Receives Cash Reprieve
Cash-strapped Mango Airlines finally received a payment from the South African government that’s been held up due to a technicality for several weeks. The $57 million payment was transferred to the airline today, the first of $187 million allocated to the airline as a part of a business rescue plan for its parent company, South African Airways.
Mango had been expecting the money since early March, and was forced to shut down its operation on May 1 when it ran out of cash. With some money in the bank (for now), the airline will pay its employees and overdue airport charges as it looks to return to the air. The airline’s board proposed that it be placed in business rescue until the rest of the government money comes in.
In the meantime, the airline will resume limited domestic operations while looking for new ways to raise funds. In addition to starting a GoFundMe, the airline plans to sell actual mangos aboard its flight for $6 each or two for $15 to jumpstart its return to profitability.
SWISS Plans Restructuring
SWISS, a subsidiary of Lufthansa Group, is planning to further restructure as it continues to struggle with the fallout from the pandemic.
The airline will cut its fleet by 15% from where it was prior to the pandemic and expects to reduce its workforce by about 20%. The airline hopes to use early buyout and retirement offers to cut as many staff voluntarily as possible, but expects to layoff as many as 780 employees.
SWISS officials met with local banking executives about a bailout, but due to confusion over Switzerland’s strict banking secrecy laws, the airline was hesitant to disclose how much it needed and to what it accounts it needed the money to be sent to. Further, the banks assumed the airline was in good financial shape when they heard it was “fully capitalized,” not realizing that this was only referring to the way the airline writes its name.
The airline remains fully committed to its two hubs in both Zurich and Geneva and will continue to offer a first class on long-haul flights. It wants to continue to represent Switzerland at home and abroad as a premium airline brand regardless of what a money-losing proposition it is. It also wants further collaborations within Lufthansa Group, which is bankrupt airline speak for “outsource more flying and labor to save money.”
New Zealand and New South Wales Suspend Travel Bubble
The travel bubble from New Zealand to Australia has been popped, at least temporarily, in the Australian state of New South Wales. Travelers scheduled to fly between New Zealand and NSW on either Air New Zealand or Qantas will be permitted to change to another flight next week once the ban is lifted or save the credit for future use.
Two community cases of a new Indian variant of the virus have been confirmed in NSW, causing both governments to pause the bubble for a couple days. Travel is scheduled to resume on Sunday if no further cases of the virus are confirmed in New South Wales.
The two cases are the first in the state since the travel bubble began on April 19 and have been connected to overseas travelers, though not from New Zealand, in a government-mandated quarantine hotel. The two infected travelers are being kept in quarantine in their hotel and being force-fed a diet of Vegemite only in an attempt to clean out their systems.
- Afriqiyah Airways — a Libyan carrier based at the Tripoli Airport (TIP) which has been closed on and off for ten years — has been fined $2.5 million by Sudan over its handling of COVID cases amongst its passengers. This is a real story and not an airline-related mad lib.
- Air Senegal plans to launch a twice-weekly flight from Dakar (DSS) to the United States, flying to Washington/Dulles with a stop both ways at New York/JFK. The flight will be operated by a wet-leased A330-900 neo that belongs to Hi Fly Malta. The airline has no intention of serving Hi C on the flight.
- easyJet Switzerland will add five A320neo aircraft to its fleet this winter.
- Georgian Airways (this one, not this one) launched cargo operations this week.
- Gulf Air is adding seasonal service to both Santorini (JTR) and Mykonos (JMK) from its Bahrain hub this summer.
- Jin Air is expanding its operations at Wonju Airport (WJU) in northern South Korea.
- Lufthansa is adding a stop in Dubai on its 10x-weekly flights from Frankfurt to three cities in India to change crew. This allows all crew to lay over in Dubai, and not India, in order to further protect its staff from the COVID outbreak in India.
- Qantas and JAL are likely to be denied regulatory authority to coordinate on flights between Australia and Japan for three years.
I picked up a can of bug spray today at the store. I asked the cashier “is this good for ants?” “No,” he replied, “it kills them.”