Delta Variant Forces Southwest’s Outlook Lower
Southwest Airlines lowered its fiscal outlook in an 8-K filing with the SEC on Wednesday over concerns that the delta (this one, not this one) variant is finally causing a downturn in bookings.
Southwest is the second airline to issue a warning about the variant, following Frontier late last week. Southwest says it is experiencing weaker bookings, especially for close-in flights, and a greater number of close-in cancellations. The revised demand will lead to a 15-20% drop in revenue for August vs 2019, worse than the 12-17% drop it had previously forecasted.
Frontier said on Thursday it expects to do no better than break even for Q3 after predicting a profit at the end of Q2.
In its SEC filing, Southwest said it did turn a profit in July, but does not expect to do so in August or September. Its first estimate for September came with a 15-25% revenue drop from 2019. The airline said it’s studying Spirit’s unique strategy of just not operating any flights for a week at a time to see if that would help it save its way to profitability, but at this point no decisions have been made.
LGA AirTrain Proposal in Potential Jeopardy
Port Authority officials who have opposed the AirTrain project at New York/LaGuardia are using the resignation announcement of Governor Andrew Cuomo to attempt to scuttle the project before it gets any further.
A letter from Port Authority officials requests the Port Authority Inspector General investigate whether the governor exerted undue influence to have the AirTrain project approved. The FAA signed off on the AirTrain plan last month, and the rats at LaGuardia have also bedgrudgingly agreed.
Those in favor of the project feel that there’s no efficient way for travelers from Manhattan to get to the airport using public transit. The current plans forces travel to the Willets Point/Mets station and connects to another train to LaGuardia. Others say there are far better ways to do this, even if they are more costly or have stronger neighborhood opposition.
Governor Cuomo was in favor of the project as it would provide a cheap way for him to send political opponents to the airport to fly out of the state, but with his change in employment status coming in 12 days, that will no longer be necessary. If the project is cancelled or altered, it will uphold a great LGA tradition of making travel to the airport as complicated or expensive as possible, to go with the $27 beers it sells at in-terminal eateries.
Mango Placed in Bankruptcy Protection
The saga of Mango rolls on as the airline was placed in immediate bankruptcy protection by the South African High Court. It was a case of whiplash as the high court placed the low-cost carrier into business rescue, backdating its status to July 28.
The order followed a request by the airline’s unions – specifically the Mango Pilots Association, South African Cabin Crew Association, National Union of Metalworkers South Africa, and the Tropical Fruit Pickers of Africa. The airline itself opposed the designation, instead preferring to appoint its own administrator in the process. But the court wisely recognized that this airline likely couldn’t keep an actual mango out of bankruptcy and took the decision away from the airline.
The court’s decision was welcomed by the airline’s shareholder representative – the South African Department of Public Enterprises – which recognized the only way of getting any of its investment back is to trust the rescue progress to a professional and not the same group that continually runs the airline with the world’s best name into the ground time and time again.
Amaszonas is as Bolivian as Chevy, Apple Pie, and Baseball
Bolivia’s Amaszonas was sold to the American parent company of Brazilian start-up NELLA Linhas Aéreas, and NELLA is committed to financing the airline’s post-COVID recovery — at least until it sees how bad its books are.
The first job for the new ownership group is to fund the restructuring of the airline and settle its many debts from the pandemic. Once that’s complete, it hopes to expand the carrier’s network within Bolivia and Latin America. Amaszonas was openly critical of the Bolivian government’s lack of support during the pandemic and has taken its ball and gone to the United States for funding.
The airline currently has 15 aircraft in its fleet, but it’s only flying four regional jets right now as it waits out the pandemic and the return of the Bolivian air travel market. Most of the airline’s network is domestic, but it does operate twice-weekly to Iquique, Chile (IQQ) and to Asuncion (ASU) in Paraguay.
NELLA’s parent company and Amaszonas sugar daddy is JKL Holdings, an Orlando-based holding company. While NELLA has yet to be certified in Brazil or begin flying, its purchase of Amaszonas gives hope that the airline will continue to buy up distressed carriers instead of ever flying a plane itself, a tact that many wish Spirit had taken instead of choosing to try and operate its own flights in the United States.
Green Light for Green Africa Airways
Nigerian startup Green Africa Airways, received its AOC from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA – this one, not this one), on Monday and isn’t wasting any time – the airline expects to begin commercial operations on Thursday.
The certification was delivered midday on Monday and the airline put tickets on sale as soon as it was in possession of the AOC. Green Africa leased three ATR72-600s to start operations and plans to eventually operate as many as 15 of the aircraft by 2022. This would make the new carrier the largest ATR operator in the region.
The airline originally had an order for up to 50 A220s last February, but saw that nixed by the pandemic. It also had an order for up to 100 B737 MAX aircraft but that order was rescinded when Boeing grounded the aircraft following the two fatal MAX incidents. Now it’ll set its sights on a much smaller prize.
Green Africa will have seven destinations at launch including its base in Lagos. They are: Akure (AKR), Ilorin (ILR), Abuja (ABV), Enugu (ENU), Owerr (IMU), and Port Harcourt (PHC) with two of the destinations expected to become bases.
- Aeromexico will launch 3x-weekly nonstop service from Guadalajara to Madrid on December 15. The Boeing Dreamliner service will be the first nonstop option to Europe from Guadalajara.
- Cathay Pacific has reached 88% of its staff being vaccinated or scheduled to be vaccinated, including 99% of its pilots and 91% of its cabin crew.
- Fly2Sky will FlyInTheSky on behalf of an unnamed European airline this summer with two of its A320 aircraft. Presumably Fly2Sky knows the airline it’ll fly for, otherwise this contract will be difficult to fulfill.
- HK Express expects to begin flying the A321neo by October 2022.
- Plus Ultra will receive the remaining €34 million aid from the Spanish government after a court cleared it receive the cash. It had been held up due to a criminal investigation into alleged embezzlement of public funds by the airline.
- Ravn Alaska took delivery of its first Dash-8 aircraft. This is presumably not the plane it plans to use when it begins transpacific service to connecting the United States mainland with Japan and Korea through its hub in Anchorage.
- Silk Way West signed an interline agreement with Astral Aviation, so you can consider your travel needs between Azerbaijan and Kenya taken care of.
- Singapore is launching new service from Los Angeles to Taipei. The three-cabin A350-900 service will operate 3x-weekly beginning August 25.
- Uni-top Airlines‘s race to the bottom is complete as the airline has been declared bankrupt and will be liquidated.
- United’s flight 124 from Newark to Athens was delayed about 60 minutes which is nothing new for a United flight out of Newark – but the reason this time was a pigeon that had flown into the cabin. The pigeon did not have a ticket for the flight, and was reportedly seen settling into the Polaris Business cabin. The crew wanted to just take off with the bird aboard, but UA’s revenue management team would not allow the plane to depart with an unticketed passenger in business.
- Virgin Atlantic is adding four new long-haul routes. London/Heathrow to St. Lucia (UVF) begins 3x-weekly service on December 18. Manchester to Montego Bay (MBJ) will operate 3x-weekly beginning November 6. And two new routes from Edinburgh: Bridgetown, Barbados (BGI) operates 2x-weekly beginning December 5, and 2x-weekly flights to Orlando begin March 30.
- Volotea took delivery of the first two of three A320-200s it has on order today.
- Zambia Airways announced it plans to launch commercial operations on September 30. The airline is a JV between the Industrial Development Corp which owns 55% of the airline and Ethiopian Airlines which holds 45%. It will be based out of Lusaka (LUN).
If a Viking is reincarnated, is he Bjorn again?