American & Spirit’s Operational Meltdowns Continue
A bad Monday for American and Spirit turned into a bad Tuesday as both airlines canceled hundreds of flights across the country due to crew being in the wrong places at the wrong times due to staff shortages and cascading effects from bad weather in previous days.
American had already canceled just over 300 flights Tuesday morning, representing about 10% of its scheduled flights for the day. This comes after 850 flights were canceled between Sunday and Monday with nearly 2,000 delayed. About half of AA’s cancellations on Tuesday were due to a lack of a flight crew to operate the flights.
Spirit canceled over 250 flights as of Tuesday morning, a staggering 38% of its scheduled ops. The ULCC which cancels and delays flights regularly if passengers won’t pay an on-time operating fee in the gate area is accustomed to some irregular operations, but this is a lot even for Spirit.
The TSA screened 2.24 million passengers on Sunday, a post-pandemic high, and the most it has seen in a single day since February 28, 2020. So these operational failures are well-timed to ensure the maximum number of people are impacted.
Delta and LATAM File Updates to JV Request
Delta Air Lines and its current BFF LATAM, filed updates to their DOT JV application requesting greater coordination, antitrust immunity, and more flights to and from Miami as they look to take the battle right at American and its Latin American hub.
The JV request included nine new nonstop routes between the United States and South America, a 68% increase in capacity between the United States and South America, and more frequencies and longer seasonal flying on at least nine nonstop routes. The two airlines also requested antitrust immunity to create a fully metal-neutral operation and work together on revenue management, network planning, joint Secret Santa programs, and a combined canned food drive during the holidays.
Delta plans to add at least 20 domestic flights to Miami to feed its burgeoning Latin America network out of the airport. The airline says once the JV is put in place, it will result in a 33% increase in capacity and a 57% increase in flights out of Miami from prior to the pandemic.
The JV has been approved in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay but remains pending in the two counties that matter the most – Chile and the United States.
Frontier Continues to Grow – Adds 15 New Nonstops
Frontier Airlines is adding 15 new nonstop routes with Miami being the largest beneficiary of this particular route addition, as the airline will operate to nine new cities from the airport:
- Memphis (3x-weekly, beginning November 1)
- Portland, ME (3x-weekly, beginning November 1)
- St. Louis (3x-weekly, beginning November 1)
- Syracuse (2x-weekly, beginning November 1)
- Norfolk (3x-weekly, beginning November 2)
- Albany, NY (2x-weekly, beginning November 4)
- Rochester (2x-weekly, beginning November 4)
- Aruba (once weekly, beginning November 20)
- Providenciales (once weekly, beginning December 18)
In addition, Newark will see flights to three beach destinations: 3x-weekly to Montego Bay beginning December 17, once weekly to Providenciales in Turks & Caicos beginning December 18, and 3x-weekly to Nassau beginning December 19.
The one-off additions from the other three cities are Denver to Los Cabos 3x-weekly beginning October 9, Jacksonville to San Juan 3x-weekly from November 1, and Philadelphia adding 3x-weekly flights to Nassau starting November 2.
Allegiant Adds Ten Airplanes
Allegiant Air signed an agreement with Air Lease Corporation to add ten certified pre-owned A320-200s to its fleet.
Allegiant’s fleet planning team was killing time over the weekend and stopped by Air Lease Corp’s lot “just to look” with no intention of buying but were sucked in by the can’t miss deals on the gently-used aircraft. The airline still wasn’t going to commit to the planes, but when the salesman told them that someone else had been by to look at the planes that very morning and seemed “very interested,” the fleet planning team was convinced they better go inside and sign the paperwork before someone else did.
Despite already operating 35 A319-100s and 78 A320-200s, this was a deal too good to pass up. Air Lease Corp only runs its summer lease-a-palooza once a year, and Allegiant did the right thing to take advantage of the sale. The airline owns most of its planes, leasing just 21 of the 114 planes in its fleet before this deal, but was convinced of the economic benefits of leasing by the salesman, and are even considering going down the lease-to-own path, especially if they end up going over the 30,000 annual miles each plane was allotted for the life of the lease.
Qantas to Offer Unlimited Travel for Some Vaccinated Australians
Qantas is launching a vaccination contest later this year with fully-vaccinated Australians eligible to enter the drawing to win great prizes including unlimited free travel on the airline for a year.
Ten grand prize winners will receive unlimited travel on Qantas and Jetstar for themselves and their family of up to four people – albeit in economy class – for Qantas’s entire network. While flights to New York and London are available for the grand prize winners, after enduring those long flights in economy multiple times, winners may not feel so lucky anymore.
Runner-up prizes will include discounts on regular flight bookings, Qantas points and status credits, and a million loyalty points from hotel chain Accor. To be eligible for the drawing, one must be an Australian resident and be fully vaccinated. Those who are not fully vaccinated will be eligible for the alternate drawing of which all names drawn will be chosen to work as a check-in and gate agent for Spirit in San Juan for the next week.
- Air Canada’s Aeroplan is now an Ultimate Rewards transfer partner. There’s probably one or two sites that will offer a detailed breakdown on this news and offer you a few credit cards for your time.
- American will be able to place Alaska’s AS code on its flights between Seattle and Beijing when they launch.
- Delta resumed serving Johannesburg from its Atlanta hub on Monday. The airline is operating the route with its four-class A350-900neo aircraft.
- Emirates announced a new interline agreement with Aeromar.
- IAG is putting four slots up for bid at London/Heathrow for summer 2022, because they have to. But airlines bidding for the slots should know that IAG doesn’t want to give them up and may not have to if they can convince a court that they really, really don’t want to do it.
- LOT’s €650 million state aid from the Polish government is being challenged in court by – guess who – Ryanair. The challenge to LOT’s payment makes it an even 20 airlines that Ryanair has taken to court over aid packages. If it gets to 25, it gets the next two thrown in for free.
- Oman Air is offering voluntary early retirement to its Omani employees in an effort to cut personnel costs.
- Qantas is furloughing 2,500 employees, including pilots and cabin crew, for at least two months.
- Qatar has begun returning some of its A330 aircraft to service for the first time since the pandemic, but is only using them on cargo flights for the time being.
- Royal Jordanian is adding its SkyConnect IFE system to its E-175 and E-195 aircraft.
- Ryanair plans to end service to Stockholm/Skavsta (NYO), Sweden this winter, but isn’t ruling out returning in the future when it’s not so cold.
- TAROM is implementing a staff restructuring to reduce personnel costs.
- Thai Air Asia and Thai Lion Air extended their indefinite flight suspensions as the domestic travel ban in Thailand continues.
I was at the zoo today and there was a chameleon who wasn’t able to change his colors. I asked the zookeeper what the issue was and she told me that the chameleon had a reptile dysfunction.