US Government Nears Plan to Reopen Borders… Someday
Despite no official announcement – yet – the federal government is moving towards a plan to reopen the border to visitors from most countries, provided the traveler has been fully vaccinated. The requirement to be vaccinated would only apply to foreign visitors, not American citizens or permanent residents who are, at last check, still allowed in as long as they don’t test positive for COVID.
Few details have been released about the potential plan, leaving several questions that will need to be answered in the coming weeks. There’s no guidance yet about what the government will require for unvaccinated children traveling with vaccinated parents; what vaccines would be approved for entry into the United States; if pre-travel testing will still be required prior to entry; and if visitors from countries that do not put ice in their drinks will be admitted.
The current discussions at the White House center around visitors arriving by air; its unclear if different protocols will be in place once land borders with Mexico and Canada reopen for non-essential travel. In the meantime, visitors hoping to travel to the United States can be optimistic that they’re closer to visiting than before, provided they book travel on any airline but Spirit.
Spirit Operates a Handful of Flights as Scheduled
We’re going to take a more positive approach towards Spirit’s operational, shall we say, challenges today. The airline completed at least one flight as it was originally scheduled for the fifth consecutive day today, getting dozens of passengers where it is they were hoping to travel.
The airline continues its proactive approach in supporting its customers as it went ahead and began canceling flights for Friday before 8 a.m. on Thursday. It expects to cancel over half its flights again on Thursday, proudly giving its customers more time at their vacation location or at home with loved ones. This comes one day after it gave passengers on 60% of its flights an extra day at home or on vacation.
Despite obstacles that Spirit and Spirit only must deal with, such as poor weather and staffing issues, the airline managed to rebook a few of its customers on new flights that are likely to operate sometime in the next couple weeks. In the meantime, the airline is proud to offer accommodations for its passengers on the floor of its gate areas and terminals across the country. The accommodations, which are free of charge to the passenger, come with access to a hard linoleum floor, bright florescent lights that never turn off, overpriced retail outlets, and quasi-clean restroom facilities.
Frontier Reports Second Quarter Earnings
Frontier’s Q2 earnings are in and the carrier brought in $550 million in gross revenue, a 184% improvement from a year ago. Total expenses for the quarter were $532 million, as Frontier nosed out an $18 million profit when accounting for the $87 million in CARES Act cash it received to offset payroll expense.
The airline operated with a load factor of 80% during the quarter and its 6.93 million ASMs exceeded the 6.87 million ASMs it operated in Q2 2019. It expects to operate approximately 2-4% greater capacity during Q3 compared to Q2 and it plans to break even or sustain a small loss overall. It also expects to operate most of the flights it scheduled for the quarter and not cancel a week’s worth of flights in one swoop like one of its ULCC competitors.
Frontier closed the quarter with $936 million cash and cash equivalents, of which $266 million came from proceeds from its IPO, with the rest coming from animal enthusiasts who donated cash in support of the furry creatures on the tails of Frontier’s fleet.
Canada’s Border Staff Plans Strike as Border Reopens
Canada is slated to reopen to fully vaccinated Americans on Monday, and to visitors from other countries on September 7, but the reopening is not looking as if it will be smooth with Canada’s border guards planning to strike beginning tomorrow, August 6.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) plan the strike to take place at airports and land border crossings in the country. The CBSA says the strike is a result of pay issues, a toxic work culture, generic coffee at border stations instead of Tim Horton’s, and yet another American team winning the Stanley Cup this year.
The union says its groups would perform their jobs during the strike, obeying all of the policies, procedures, and laws applying to their work, and perform their duties to ‘the letter of the law’. The group says this will likely lead to long and unavoidable delays as its members carry out their jobs exactly as they were trained to do and nothing else.
A negotiation session is scheduled for tomorrow, likely at a frozen pond in the Yukon, but the job action is set to begin at 6 a.m. ET on Friday morning if a deal is not struck prior.
Qatar Grounds 13 A350s
Qatar Airways’s spat with Airbus over the degradation of the paint job on its fleet of A350 aircraft is growing as the airline is grounding 13 of its A350 aircraft indefinitely. As an interim stopgap, the airline is returning its previously mothballed fleet of A330s back into service to pick up the slack.
Qatar has been noticing a condition on its A350 fleet where “the fuselage surface below the paint is degrading at an accelerated rate.” It stopped taking delivery of new A350s earlier this summer until the issue could be fixed, which has clearly not happened. Airbus’s original fix was to deny a problem existed and then suggest each passenger be given a paintbrush prior to boarding so they could touch-up wherever the paint had started to cause issues.
Qatar says the Qatari government regulators forced the grounding of these aircraft and is requiring they stay grounded until a permanent fix is discovered. The airline is the largest customer for the A350 and has so far taken delivery of 53 of the 76 it has on order.
- AirAsia snagged $56 million dollars from the merger between Fly Leasing Limited (Fly Leasing) and Carlyle Aviation Partners.
- American is expanding access to its flagship lounge for passengers booked in business class on flights between Honolulu and CLT, DFW, and ORD; also DFW to both Maui and Kona.
- DHL Express ordered 12 electric freighters from Evilation. UPS is expected to deliver the aircraft to DHL.
- El Al will test passengers midflight for COVID-19 on its flight from Tel Aviv to New York/JFK, because it seems like a fun party trick that hadn’t been tried yet.
- Lufthansa’s first class terminal in Frankfurt will reopen on September 1.
- Porter signed a major service and support agreement – basically they signed up for the 60,000-mile warranty program – with Embraer.
- PNG Air and Link PNG’s merger was squashed by Papua New Guinea’s Independent Consumer Competition Commission.
- Qantas‘s auction for two old A380 business class seats sold for 2 million Qantas Points – those 2 million points have a dollar value of A$40,000 or nearly US$30,000. The same 2 million miles on Delta would yield someone one Main Cabin seat – and not to take home, but to sit in while flying from Seattle to Spokane.
- RoyalJet Bermuda received an AOC to begin operating as a subsidiary of the UAE’s charter carrier RoyalJet.
- Ryanair is opening a new base in Newcastle next summer. It will base two aircraft at the airport and will operate 63 weekly departures on 19 unique routes.
- SAS will begin service to the Canary Islands on October 30, offering 17 weekly departures on six routes from four Scandinavian cities.
- South African received its new AOC from the SA government for eight aircraft to fly as part of its restart.
- United secured a slot to operate BOS-LHR this winter from BA in exchange for two reservation agents, a drink cart, and a baggage carousel at an airport to be named later.
How does a cucumber become a pickle?
It goes through a jarring experience.