United System Hiccups Lead to Minor Operational Disruption
United experienced a “technical system issue” this morning which caused problems for the airline for about an hour before everything came back online.
Though the details of the problem weren’t clear, it was reported by various news outlets to have impacted the website, app, and the operation. Just before 7am ET, United asked the FAA to implement a ground stop — meaning flights were held in place — until it could find which machine was unplugged and plug it back in. The ground stop was lifted about an hour later, and most of us on the West Coast slept right through it.
The glitch had a minimal impact on United’s operation. At last check, FlightAware showed United having canceled only 11 flights and delayed 186, or as Spirit calls it, the best day ever.
Senator Asks DOT To Bust Up American/JetBlue Alliance
The US Department of Transportation (DOT) approved the Northeast Alliance between American and JetBlue last year after coming to an agreement on concessions from the airlines, but now at least one senator wants DOT to change its mind.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) has written a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg with “grave concerns” about the alliance, saying it “will lead to anticompetitive coordination at key air traffic hubs and result in the long-term inflation of airfares and related costs for airline passengers.” The senator gives no actual argument as to why this will happen except for the one stat he throws out saying that the top four airlines control two-thirds of the domestic market.
American and JetBlue have raced ahead with new flights to try and head off this type of criticism. With bigger airplanes and more flights to a ton of places, including bustling hotspots like Tel Aviv, Athens, and Kansas City, the airlines are hoping that the competitive benefits outweigh any anti-competitive ones in the eyes of regulators.
What Sen. Blumenthal really wants is for DOT “to conduct a full public interest review and investigation.” Whether Sec. Buttigieg actually listens to him or treats him like most senators and ignores him remains to be seen.
American Officially Wages War on Jerks
In an update noticed by Zach Griff at TPG today, American has taken aim at the rising number of inflight incidents by adding “abusive” and “harassing” behavior as a reason to block travelers from flying “temporarily or permanently” in its domestic conditions of carriage. It is believed that this move is also meant to apply to senators who dare to challenge the airline’s plans.
This has already been enshrined in the international rules under Rule 25 – Refusal to Transport, where American says it can remove people from a flight if their “conduct is disorderly, abusive or violent.” The international rules have long been more explicit, even allowing the airline to remove travelers if they are barefoot or have an offensive odor, “such as from a draining wound.”
Rumor has it that American will now make Rule 25 available in its lounges and will hand a copy to all business class passengers to read. The idea is that the graphic language will reduce appetites dramatically, allowing the airline to lower costs on lounge food and board fewer meals on every flight.
- Aero — the super fancy, semi-private jet service — is going to start flying from Van Nuys (near LA) to Las Vegas. If you have to ask the price, it’s not for you… but it starts at $950 one way per person.
- Air New Zealand canceled all but a handful of quarantine flights to Australia through November now that New Zealand has announced it will keep the travel bubble with Australia closed until December at the earliest.
- Alaska‘s new top MVP Gold 100K elite status tier will come with extra bonus miles, priority upgrades, free snacks in coach, two long-haul upgrade certificates on American, and the right to tell the world that you fly way too much.
- Alaska will let people wearing jerseys from the new Seattle Kraken hockey team board early on Seattle and Paine Field flights through the hockey season. Those jerseys start at $119, so it’s probably not the best way to guarantee early boarding unless you have a few flights planned.
- Alitalia‘s brand will be sold at auction with a starting price of €290m, which is what the brand is worth only in the minds of blinded Italian politicians.
- Connect Airlines — the new airline looking to serve Canada from the US — has hit some major snags in its effort to get certified.
- DOT has given US airlines until the end of March to start their previously-authorized international routes before authority expires.
- Gol has refinanced more debt, pushing nearly all payments out into the future when it hopes to actually have more cash on hand.
- Guna Airlines in Nepal is gunna resume operations.
- LAX has the first centralized air cargo examination station. This single CBP facility will replace having agents go to 87 warehouses up to 11 miles from the port office to do inspections. So maybe those holiday packages won’t be as late as we’re being warned.
- London/Heathrow has released its summer 2022 operational limits. One arrival slot will shift from the 4pm hour to the 1pm hour and one departure slot will shift from the 9pm hour to the 8pm hour. Huge changes.
- Virgin Australia is finally going to let loyalty program members redeem points on partner airlines again.
Where did the United software developer go?!
I don’t know, he ransomware.