United Adds Warm Weather Flights this Winter
United Airlines is adding 150 flights to warm weather destinations this winter, with all the flying from hubs and focus cities, eschewing the airline’s strategy from last year where it added point-to-point flying that bypassed hubs.
The flights will operate to domestic destinations in five states: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Nevada. Outside the United States, the airline will bulk up its presence for the winter to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America.
Newark leads the way with 25 new flights because there’s nowhere people want to leave more than Newark. The additional flights from EWR will operate to Ft. Myers, Jacksonville and Savannah. Denver is next with 14 to Charleston, Ft. Lauderdale, and Savannah. Chicago/O’Hare adds 11 to Key West, Las Vegas, and San Diego, while Washington/Dulles adds 11 to Charleston, New Orleans and Phoenix.
Houston/Bush, Los Angeles, Cleveland and San Francisco are each adding a few flights also. 12 new international routes will launch from a combo of Denver, Los Angeles, Newark, San Francisco and Dulles to Belize City, Cozumel, Liberia, and Nassau.
EPA Pumps the Brakes on AA’s DisinfectAAant
The EPA is halting the sales of Allied BioScience Inc’s SurfaceWise2 product after concerned were raised about its effectiveness to fight the virus on airplanes and airport facilities.
The agency also revoked its emergency exemption which permitted the product to be used in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The agency declined to revoke the exemption for Louisiana because the spray made a nice compliment to a tasty crawfish boil.
Lab testing from the EPA showed that the spray was less reliable when exposed to moisture or abrasion, and if you’ve seen the passengers AA is attracting these days, there’s a lot of moisture and abrasion.
AA said it stopped using SurfaceWise2, even though it had only be using on flights that operate through Texas – which for AA is almost all of them. The airline says it will continue to follow all EPA and federal guidance on the matter. In the meantime, anyone interested in bulk purchases of SurfaceWise2 should contact AA on Telegram or the dark web where the airline is running a 2-for-1 sale for interested parties.
Nigeria Takes Drastic Step to Curb Delays
Nigeria has instituted very passenger-generous policies for delayed and cancelled flights, as its aviation minister announced airlines would be required to offer full refunds to passengers on any domestic flight delayed two hours or more.
Upon hearing the news, most U.S. airlines senior leadership were seen going into anaphylactic shock.
More than half of the 14,662 domestic flights operated in Nigeria from January to March were delayed, which was a key catalyst to the edict. Spirit and Allegiant upon seeing the numbers shook their head and said “yeah but almost half of them operated on-time, everyone always focuses on the negative.”
The government is also ordering airlines to provide passengers with a phone call or text message on delays up to one hour. Any delay between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. will require the airline to offer free hotel accommodation, food & drink, two free phone calls, complimentary transport to and from the hotel, and six month trial subscription to Disney Plus. In other news, most Nigerian airlines are now shutting down.
American’s LAX-Sydney Service Becomes One-Way
With Australia reducing the number of international arriving passengers by half, American Airlines is changing its LAX-Sydney service to be one-way in regards to passenger service, beginning July 12. The flight from Los Angeles to Sydney will operate with cargo and a flight crew, but no passengers. The aircraft will pick up passengers in Sydney and fly them to Los Angeles.
The crew operating the return flight will need to get to Sydney, so they will fly with the empty plane to Australia along with the cargo and then work the return flight back to Los Angeles.
The July 12 departure from Los Angeles arrives in Sydney on July 14. On that day, the country is cutting the number of arriving passengers down to 456 people per day, 215 which can fly into Sydney.
Mongolia’s Newest Airport Open for Business
Chinggis Kahn International Airport, the sparkling, new airport in Ulaanbaatar (UBN) opened this week when its first flight, Mongolian Airlines flight 501, B737-800 service to Tokyo/Narita successfully departed off its lone runway.
The airport, which has the capacity to handle up to three million passengers a year, was built by four Japanese conglomerates including the Narita International Airport Corporation. The new airport will be operated by New Ulaanbaatar International Airport LLC for at least 15 years. The company is 51% owned by the four Japanese conglomerates while the Mongolian government owns the remaining 49%.
The airport is located 30 miles southwest o downtown, boasts a 12,000 ft. runway and six boarding gates – five of which are international capable.
- Blue Air is planning to list on the London Stock Exchange in early 2022 through a reverse takeover that is sure to leave someone green with envy.
- Cathay Pacific has launched its lifestyle brand, which it has given the clever name “Cathay.” The new brand will target hospitality, shopping, dining, and hotels in an effort for the airline to identify and capture new revenue streams. Okay.
- Eurowings is adding four new destinations in Northern Europe this summer from Düsseldorf and Stuttgart for travelers who are fans of snow, ice, and cold temps. The airline is also considering a rebrand to Frigidwings.
- Finnair is adding three fifth freedom flights from Stockholm this fall. It will operate 5x-weekly to Bangkok, once weekly to Phuket, and 2x-weekly to Miami.
- Jeju Air in Korea has proposed a 5:1 capital cut of the value of its stock, pending shareholder approval on August 13.
- Lufthansa raised €1 billion in liquidity in a corporate bond sale on Wednesday.
- SpiceJet owes De Havilland $43 million from a ruling earlier this year by the High Court of Justice in London. Because of the ruling, De Havilland wants the money that should be cumin to them. The decision to take the London ruling to a Delhi court was a sage one by De Haviland, no matter how much thyme it takes.
- TUI will close its Edinburgh base after the summer 2021 travel season with no plans to reopen in 2022.
- Virgin Australia’s lounge in Melbourne is scheduled to re-open within weeks.
The salesman told me that the couch would seat five people without any problems. And all I could think was “if I buy this couch, where the hell am I going to find five people without any problems?”