Oh Canada: Mid-August Targeted for Border Reopening
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a group of premiers that he expects that Canada’s border with the United States will open for vaccinated travelers on non-essential business by mid-August. With the NHL season wrapped up last week, the federal government has a lot more time on its hands now and can fully focus on reopening the border safely.
The border has been shut to non-essential travel since last March with the closure being extended one month at a time. The current closure is in place through next week, but indications from the Canadian government are that the extension into August will be the final one.
Canada took a first step towards easing border restrictions earlier this month when it announced that fully vaccinated Canadians could skip the mandatory 14-day quarantine upon returning home. Canada has maintained that it would not loosen border restrictions until 75% of its population is fully vaccinated. At this point, about 70% of Canadians have received at least one dose with just shy of half being fully inoculated.
Leave a Message at the Beep: Flair Airlines Turns off Phones
Flair Airlines is dealing with an overwhelming number of customer service calls, as most airlines around the world are right now. But the ULCC is taking low-cost to a new level this weekend as it shuts down its phones to all inbound calls.
Luckily for travelers, the airline isn’t shutting down its flights for the weekend, just its phone lines. The airline is struggling to respond to customer enquiries and is experiencing very long hold times to reach an agent. In order to solve this problem, it’s gone nuclear – or as nuclear as you can go when it comes to phone lines.
With the phones offline through Monday, the airline plans to get caught up on the backlog of customer enquiries and also train new staff. It says it’s tripling the size of its customer care team – but without hard numbers, its hard to know if this will make a difference as going from two to six may not make a big dent.
Flair’s phone lines should be turned back on Tuesday, assuming there are still any customers left willing to fly an airline that just arbitrarily walks away like that.
Tampa is Calling: TPA Wants to Add Heathrow Flights
Tampa International Airport is currently focused on adding a route to London/Heathrow as the airport attempts to rebuild its international network that took a hit due to the pandemic. The airport has been without direct service to London since last March when both British Airways and Norwegian ended their flights to London/Gatwick.
Heathrow is the airport’s largest international destination without a direct flight. In 2019, about 50,000 passengers flew roundtrip between Tampa and Heathrow, with most connecting through Atlanta or New York/JFK. The total market between the two cities in 2019 carried 215,607 passengers, a figure that includes service to all of London’s airports and probably Manchester too because we’re pretty sure it’s close enough.
Tampa is also seeking two other additions to its route network, San Juan, Costa Rica (SJO) and Orange County (SNA). Tampa currently has nonstop service to 78 cities by 13 airlines with Atlanta the destination with the most capacity.
Volaris Looks South for Growth
Mexican LCC Volaris is adding 25 A320neos to its fleet by the end of next year which will give the airline 113 aircraft. It’s making these additions despite not being able to launch any new service to the United States since the FAA downgraded Mexico’s safety rating in May.
With Aeromexico currently restructuring during Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, Volaris is adding flights at slot-constrained Mexico City with an eye towards the south to fill its airplanes. The airline is also launching a new El Salvadorian subsidiary that will fly to Mexico and the United States.
The carrier also expects to launch new service between Mexico City and Bogota in October, marking its first flight into South America. It expects to follow that up with flights from the Colombian capital to Central American cities shortly after.
Volaris turned a profit in Q2 of this year seeing a 38% jump in revenues compared to 2019 with only a 15% increase in expenses.
Pilot Sues Delta for $1 Billion Because He Invented Text Messaging
A Delta Air Lines pilot is taking the airline to court over a complaint that Delta stole his idea that allows flight crew to send secure text messages to one another. Captain Craig Alexander says he spent $100,000 of his own money developing his QrewLive app and was in discussions with Delta about the app before the airline stole the idea and made his own.
Alexander claims he developed the app several years ago and had positive meetings with Delta in 2015 and 2016. His complaint is centered on the idea that Delta stole the idea of secure text messaging between its employees. We reached out to Captain Alexander to see if he had also filed suit with Apple over iMessage, WhatsApp, Viber, Slack and other secure messaging apps since he discovered the concept, but the captain did not get back to us.
The lawsuit claims that Delta’s “Flight Family Communications” is a carbon copy of his QrewLive, but at least Delta managed to spell each word of its app’s name correctly, something QrewLive cannot claim. Alexander is also considering a second suit against Delta over the idea of omelets as an on-board meal for morning flights as he claims he’s the first person to combine cheese, meat, and egg in the morning, in addition to stating he has the patent on oxygen masks on the plane as the only person who’s ever figured out that oxygen is crucial for sustaining life.
- flyadeal received a brand-new A320neo, the first out of 30 of which it will take delivery over the next three years.
- Gullivair has been granted permission to operate twice-weekly service between Sofia and Cairo, which indicates that the airline is considering reentering the scheduled passenger market.
- Malaysia Airlines placed all six of its A380 aircraft up for sale.
- Pakistan International Airlines suspended flights between its Islamabad hub and Saidu Sharif (SDT) due to a lack of demand. (Presumably from paying customers, not qualified pilots, but with PIA, who knows).
- Rhoades Aviation, the operator of Transair 810 that crashed near Oahu earlier this month has been ordered to ground all of its aircraft by the FAA.
- Silk Way West is beginning weekly cargo service between its Baku hub and Mumbai.
- SWISS named Martin Aspel-von zur Gathen its new Head of Operations and Planning. His first job in the role will be to figure out how to fit his whole name on a business card.
- TAP had a €1.2 billion rescue loan re-approved by the European Commission.
- Wizz Air is delaying the opening of its new base in Cardiff until 2022.
Interviewer: Why should we hire you to be our waiter?
Me: I bring a lot to the table.