There will be no Cranky Daily on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. We wish you a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend. Your regularly-scheduled airline-related snark will return on Tuesday.
Aloha Means Goodbye: Hawaiian Ends ‘Ohana
There’s one fewer member of the Hawaiian Airlines ‘ohana — that’s “family” in the Hawaiian language — now that it’s been announced that ‘Ohana by Hawaiian will be shut down, 7 years after it was first launched.
‘Ohana — which was operated by Idaho-based Empire Airlines — had operated both passenger and cargo services on behalf of Hawaiian on smaller interisland routes, but it was forced to suspend service last year. The airline’s pilot contract required the discontinuation of outsourced flying if mainline hours dropped, and drop they did thanks to the pandemic.
The airline offered Hawaiian’s only service to Molokai, Lānaʻi, and Kapalua on West Maui using ATR 42 aircraft. Service between Honolulu and Kapalua was suspended last March at the beginning of the pandemic, but the rest of the flying did not go away until several months later. Freighter service with ATR 72 aircraft was suspended last November and will also not return.
Now, Mokulele will be the only passenger operator at those airports. Hawaiian has already begun transporting its ATR fleet to the mainland for storage and sale, but it remains unclear if the ‘ukulele that was kept onboard each aircraft stayed behind.
Southwest Postpones Return of Alcohol Sales
Southwest Airlines is holding off the return of booze to its beverage service after several incidents with unruly passengers has caused the airline to rethink its plan to resume alcohol sales next week.
There has been an uptick in in-flight incidents, most notably an assault by a passenger on a Southwest flight last week that sent a Southwest flight attendant to the hospital. The airline’s decision will remain indefinitely as it reevaluates its onboard service. In the meantime, residents of the Dallas metro area can take advantage of a BOGO beer, wine, and liquor sale at Southwest’s headquarters near Love Field. Shoppers with non-expired Southwest drink coupons can also enjoy a complimentary cocktail while perusing the sale items.
Most U.S. airlines have brought alcohol service back in one manner or another, with American being the lone mainland hold out in its economy cabin. AA is offering cocktails to its first and business class customers, but has no timetable to return alcoholic beverages behind the curtain where it’s needed most.
Norse Atlantic Makes Friends with Flight Attendant Union
Norse Atlantic Airways, a new airline being started by three guys named Bjørn, announced a deal with the largest flight attendant union in the United States.
The airline is doing a 180 compared to its long-haul predecessor, Norwegian, when it comes to labor relations. Norse Atlantic has agreed to hire over 700 U.S.-based flight attendants, providing them with “industry-leading” starting pay and job protections, healthcare, 401k, company branded keychains, stress balls, travel mug after working their 10th transatlantic flight, and other benefits.
The move by the airline will also quiet several of its skeptics amongst U.S. lawmakers that were pushing to deny their airline the regulatory approval to operate to the United States. With the Association of Flight Attendants supporting the airline, its main obstacle will now be convincing lawmakers the airline won’t be a drag on everyone it touches with the exception of bankruptcy lawyers like its predecessor.
British Airways Doubles Award Seat Guarantee
British Airways is increasing the number of customers who will have the privilege of paying sky-high carrier-imposed surcharges as it doubles the number of Avios award seats it guarantees to be made available per flight.
With the new policy, the number of Avios award seats goes from two to four on Club Europe short-haul business, four to eight on Euro Traveller short-haul economy, two to four on Club World long-haul business class, and four to eight on World Traveller long-haul economy.
Notably absent from the list is the world’s most luxurious business class – BA First – which comes with a guarantee of…zero.
PIA Execs Charged With Corruption
Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency filed charges against four former executives of the world’s shadiest airline — Pakistan International Airlines — on charges that they laundered over $8 million dollars through highly-questionable awarding of no-work contracts.
Maqsood Ahmed, PIAs former director of engineering, former chairmen Nasser Jaffer and Irfan Elahi, and former CEO Bernd Hildenbrand arranged for payments to be made to upgrade business class seats (the actual seats, not tickets in business class), entertainment systems, and general cabin refurbs between 2014 and 2016 — but none of the work was ever actually performed.
In defense of the executives, the airline had been allowing basically anyone to work as a pilot regardless of whether they had training, so one could see why they thought this might be okay.
They attempted to bribe their way out of the charges, offering the arresting officers vouchers on PIA anywhere the airline files. The arresting officers actually considered the bribe briefly because…Pakistan, but after seeing the airline’s limited route map, they declined and filed the arrest paperwork.
- Air France is returning to Helsinki for the first time since October of 2001. It will fly 4x-weekly service from CDG beginning July 6 before upgrading to daily flights on July 19.
- Air Serbia is launching once-weekly flights between Kraljevo (KVO) and Thessaloniki (SKG) on July 13. A month earlier, on June 15, it will begin twice-weekly flights between Niš (INI) and Tivat (TIV).
- Eurowings plans to wet-lease Embraers from Helvetic Airlines, once again because it was missing all that complexity it tried to cut out previously.
- Flair Airlines took delivery of its first B737-8 aircraft.
- Volotea is increasing its service from Milan/Linate (LIN) adding 4x-weekly flights to both Brindisi (BDS) and Lamezia Terme (SUF) on July 3 and 4, respectively.
I went into the bookshop and asked the salesperson for a book about turtles. She asked: “Hardback?” and I replied “Yeah, and little heads.”