U.K. to Allow Quarantine-Free Travel for Vaccinated Travelers…With a Catch
The U.K. government finally announced plans to allow fully vaccinated travelers to forego quarantine requirements upon arrival in the UK when flying in from countries on the amber list. The catch, however, is that the policy applies only to travelers who received their vaccines in the United Kingdom.
Travelers who have been vaccinated anywhere else in the world – including the United States – will not be permitted to opt out of quarantine regardless of their vaccination status.
The new policy, which will go into effect on July 19, treats those vaccinated in the U.K. the same whether returning from a country on the green list or the amber list. This will provide a boost to the travel industry in the U.K., specifically British Airways and Virgin Atlantic as it will encourage local residents to travel abroad without the specter of quarantine handing over their heads.
More than 34 million British residents are fully vaccinated and nearly all of them have not left the U.K. in 15 months, creating record demand to get on a plane and find a decent meal to eat.
LATAM Battles Creditors Over Aircraft Cancellations
LATAM Airlines is mired in a struggle with its creditors over deals it cut with Delta and Qatar – two of its largest shareholders – to raise liquidity just before the airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States.
The airline claims that it worked with its two shareholders by terminating two deals for A350 aircraft in exchange for cash, while its creditors claim that Delta and Qatar conspired to take advantage of the cash strapped LATAM to cut their own costs at the expense of their partner.
Delta recently was tied to a deeply discounted purchase of A350 aircraft from lessor AerCap, likely the same aircraft it was supposed to purchase from LATAM last spring at much higher prices. Delta was originally supposed to purchase four aircraft from LATAM last spring and take over 10 delivery options pending from Airbus, but instead broke the deal in exchange for a one-time $62 million payment to LATAM one day before it filed for bankruptcy.
Qatar also ended the lease agreements on five A350-900s it was leasing from LATAM last spring in exchange for an undisclosed lump sum payment.
Ravn Alaska Moves Closer to Transpac Flying
Commuter carrier Ravn Alaska is one step closer to transforming itself to a long-haul LCC flying across the Pacific as it registered three new names with the DOT for us immediately. The three are: Northern Pacific, Northern Pacific Airlines, and Northern Pacific Airways. For unknown reasons, Ravn Pacific or Ravn Alaska & Beyond were not selected.
The DOT approved the request for all three names while deregistering the name RavnAir Alaska.
The airline, whatever it ends up calling itself, plans to expand its current AOC, add the B757 to its fleet, and acquire international route authorities. It then plans to develop the North Terminal at Anchorage’s Ted Stephens International Airport as its transpacific hub while keeping up its intra-Alaska flying as well.
Destinations would likely include Orlando, Newark, Las Vegas, Oakland, and Ontario on the U.S. side, to go with its Anchorage hub. International flying would begin going to Tokyo and Seoul with Osaka to follow but likely never receive service after the airline shuts its international operation down due to losing millions of dollars before it can add its third international gateway.
Flair Heads South of the Border
Flair Airlines, a Canadian-based ULCC and the official airline of the 16-time World Champion Ric Flair announced six U.S. destinations as the airline operates to the United States for the first time.
Flair will serve the U.S. destinations from eight Canadian gateways: Halifax, Montreal, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Abbotsford. The six U.S. cities are all warm-weather destinations popular with Canadians: Burbank, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Orlando/Sanford, Palm Springs, and Phoenix/Mesa,
Flair’s flights to the United States will begin in October.
Fiji’s Olympic Team Shares Flight to Tokyo with Frozen Fish
Fiji Airways Flight 1351, an A333-operated cargo flight stocked to the brim with frozen fish departed Nadi (NAN) just after midnight Friday morning to make the nine-hour journey to Tokyo/Narita as it does on a regular basis. But this time, the flight also contained a different kind of cargo – the 50-person Olympic delegation from Fiji.
With commercial and passenger traffic at a standstill to and from the nation due to a recent virus outbreak, the delegation had to get clever in finding a way to Tokyo for the Olympic games that will open in two weeks. The plane held Fiji’s 29 athletes and 21 coaches, administrators and staff making their way to the games on an aircraft that had just enough seating added to accommodate the delegation along with the truly precious cargo – the frozen fish making its way to Tokyo to be served up as sushi across the country in the coming days and weeks.
The plane included 24 members of the men’s and women’s Rugby Sevens teams – the men’s team brought home gold in Rio, Fiji’s first medal of any color in its history.
The plane touched down at Narita a short while ago at about 6:30 a.m. local time. The Olympic delegation will undergo three-days of self-isolation upon arrival as part of the IOC’s deal with Japanese authorities. The fish – who have not won any Olympic medals — will not be required to self-isolate and will instead find themselves dispersed across Japan to grocery stores, restaurants, and fish markets right away.
- Aegean and Volotea have signed a codeshare agreement that will see the two partner on 100 routes within Italy, France, Spain, and Greece.
- Aer Lingus UK added the first A330-300 to its fleet, acquiring the plane from Aer Lingus. The paperwork on that transaction must have been extensive. Aer Lingus UK now has one more A330-300 aircraft to its name that it does Air Operator Certificates or Operating Licenses.
- Alaska managers and office personnel pitched in to help load and process baggage at the airline’s Seattle hub over the holiday weekend and are expected to assist through the end of the summer as needed.
- Air Seychelles named Sandy Benoiton as the new acting CEO and Tyrian Gendron as the acting CFO. The pair are expected to continue in their dual roles as airline executives and stage performers indefinitely.
- American, JetBlue, and Spirit are waiving fees and fare differences for those scheduled to fly to Haiti. So now we know – all it takes for Spirit to waive a fee is for the president of a country to be assassinated in the middle of the night.
- Cabo Verde Airlines was nationalized by the Cabo Verde government.
- Cathay Pacific is bracing for a shuffle amongst its senior leadership as Customer director Simon Large and Chief Risk Officer Philippe Lacamp made the large and risky decision to resign.
- China Airlines (this one, not this one) plans to debut the A321neo in its fleet this winter.
- Emirates will return to Mauritius beginning July 15 with twice-weekly flights.
- Hong Kong Airlines defaulted on interest payments for the third time, taking a page out of Norwegian’s strategy of not paying its bills and hoping no one notices. It has not been successful for Norwegian and doesn’t appear to be going well for HK Airlines either.
- Qantas is resuming service to Proserpine (PPP) with daily flights from Brisbane beginning September 17.
- SriLankan will begin flying once-weekly service to Moscow/Domodedovo (DME) beginning July 30, marking the airline’s first foray into Moscow in more than six years.
- United reaffirmed its commitment to keep stowaways off its plane when it delayed UA43 from Maui to Newark for 28 minutes while passengers and staff forced a bird off the aircraft. The bird was immediately taken to a mental hospital for birds to undergo an examination as to why it wanted to leave Maui to fly to Newark.
What’s a crafty dancer’s favorite hobby? Cutting a rug.