Sun Country’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Sun Country Airlines grounded all flights this morning, leaving passengers stranded across the country while they scolded themselves for booking the ULCC in the first place.
The airline blamed the grounding on its third-party contractor AIMS International which aims (poorly) to handle crew scheduling for Sun Country. A Sun Country spokesperson would not confirm if the actual cause of the grounding was that the airline mistakenly contracted with Ames International, a Fife, Washington-based company that manufactures gourmet nuts, teas, and confections instead of the Dubai-based crew scheduler.
Sun Country has been manually clearing its pilots and flight attendants to get their planes in the air, but it’s a drawn-out process that cannot keep up with the demand of its daily schedule. It’s days like this the airline is very thankful it hardly operates any routes on a daily basis.
The outage is not just affecting its passenger flights – four Sun Country cargo flights scheduled to operate on behalf of Amazon are delayed as well. As angry as the scores of delayed passengers in Minneapolis are, just wait until people don’t receive their Prime packages in the 48-hour window tomorrow because Sun Country hired a nut and confection company to manage its crew scheduling.
The airline has fully thrown AIMS under the bus, directing all questions from media and interested parties to call AIMS – at a Miami phone number that’s now been disconnected.
Air Canada Tells DOT to Keep Moving, Nothing to See Here
In early June, the DOT announced it would pursue a $25.5 million fine and penalty against Air Canada for the airline refusing to provide refunds during the pandemic for flights that were canceled or hit with a dramatic schedule changes. The DOT issued the ruling because it is federal policy that cash refunds be provided when a flight cancels, and Air Canada was notoriously one of the worst airlines when it came to paying people back in cash and not airline credit or maple syrup futures.
Well, Air Canada is not impressed with the DOT’s ruling, telling the U. S. government that the penalty should be dismissed for a bunch of reasons that don’t make a lot of sense. For one, the airline says that if its customers wanted refunds, they should have purchased refundable fares – that people got exactly what they paid for. It concedes that yes, it offered refunds to all customers for canceled flights prior to the pandemic, but did so only as a courtesy, not because it was required.
Air Canada also argues it was “forced” to cancel flights to the United States, — which actually isn’t true since the border was never closed to air traffic. The airline did so because demand was at rock bottom levels. The airline ends by taking a swipe at the DOT saying that the government didn’t engage in “the required thorough, well-reasoned analysis or, frankly, any analysis,” in its investigation which will surely result in an equally snarky response from the DOT when it denies Air Canada’s appeal – likely about 15 minutes after the agency reads the document in full.
Etihad and El Al Begin Codeshare
Etihad Airways and El Al Israel Airlines launched their codeshare and loyalty reciprocity programs today, following the MOU signed by the airlines late last year.
Beginning today, El Al will place its LY code on Etihad’s twice weekly flights between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. Beginning next month, El Al will place its code on Etihad flights to destinations in Australia, Bahrain, India, Korea, Philippines, and Seychelles.
Coming soon, Etihad will place its EY code on El Al flights, with that half of the agreement awaiting final government approval. Beginning today, members of either airlines loyalty program will be able to earn and burn miles on both airlines. Etihad Guest members will be able to use their miles to visit Israel’s beaches on historic religious sites in the country, while El Al’s Matmid members can use miles to fly on Etihad to take a vacation from their Jewish mother.
European Commission Investigates Air Europa/IAG Deal
The proposed acquisition of Air Europa by IAG is facing extra scrutiny by the European Commission over concerns that the deal would squash competition, especially on routes to the United States and Latin America.
IAG and Air Europa agreed in January for the conglomerate to purchase the airline for 500 million GBP and then merge it with Iberia. The agreement offered better terms to IAG than previously agreed upon in November 2019 due to the onset of the pandemic.
The EU is concerned that Iberia and Air Europa are the first and third largest operators in Spain, with Ryanair in the middle looking to sue someone for something. The tie-up could reduce competition on as many as 70 city pairs in Spain, with many of the routes only operated by the two carriers.
The commission has until November 5 to decide. In the meantime, both airlines will continue to move forward with the merger, working feverishly for a couple hours a day, strategically placed around a lengthy afternoon siesta.
Airline that Doesn’t Fly Hopes to Fly Again
Porter Airlines hasn’t operated a flight since it shutdown at the onset of the pandemic last spring. The airline has repeatedly extended its grounding about a month a time since then, keeping its fleet of 27 Q400s grounded.
Things are finally looking up after the airline announced it reached an agreement with the Canadian government for a loan of $218 million, a pair of old ice skates, and two tickets to tonight’s virtual Canada Day fireworks show in Ottawa.
Of the $218 million, Porter is going to allocate $16.5 million to issue COVID-related refunds and to shame Air Canada for not wanting to do so. The airline currently hopes to resume operating on July 20 which is the date the current U.S.-Canada border closure expires. Despite the closure being extended a month at a time for almost a year and a half now, many on both sides of the border – including Porter – are hopeful that it will reopen this month.
- Air Antilles is resuming service to eight international markets beginning this Sunday.
- Air Do won shareholder approval to do a share issue.
- Alliance Airlines has purchased two E190 aircraft. The airline took the risk and did so without permission from Rex, so we can all expect Rex to file a complaint with the Australian government soon.
- American is offering a 12:45 a.m. redeye flight from Palm Springs (PSP) to Dallas/Ft Worth three nights this week around the July 4 holiday and the city of Palm Springs wants to make sure everyone is aware. Consider yourself briefed.
- Delta is investing an additional $185 million into Aeromexico in support of its restructuring and because Delta seemingly had $185 million laying around with nothing better to do.
- Emirates reopened its Concourse B First Class lounge in Dubai for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.
- French Bee will be buzzing around New Jersey as the airline is adding Newark to its route map, beginning service on July 15.
- Go2Sky now targets sometime this fall to go2sky with its airplanes for the first time. The airline had planned to be named Went2Sky by now, but has been slowed by regulatory and other issues that come with launching a new airline in Slovakia during a pandemic.
- JetBlue is offering $800 bonuses or four one-way confirmed seat passes for crew that have no call outs from work between now and September 6. Those that do call out during that time will be assigned to the “check-in at JFK, but fly from Newark” crew.
- Jordan Aviation launched new service from Amman to Muscat earlier this week.
- Lift will not be lifting off any aircraft from July 5 through July 31 as the South African carrier is canceling all flights.
- Neos Air received approval to operate scheduled and charter passenger services and cargo ops between the US and EU.
- Pakistan International Airlines is planning to replace a few B777s with A320 aircraft, likely because it’s an easier plane to fly for its untrained pilots.
- Surinam Airways wet-leased an MD-83 to operate to the United States.
- TUI added its first B737 MAX 8 aircraft.
- Wizz Air is shopping for Alitalia’s slots at slot-controlled airports in Europe as it becomes less and less likely each day at ITA will ever be an airline that actually flies airplanes to airports with airplane passengers on them.
I made a pencil with two erasers. It was pointless.