United’s Vaccination Rate Exceeds 99% for U.S.-Based Staff
In the last 48 hours since United began the process to terminate its 593 employees who remain unvaccinated, that number has dropped down to 320, meaning 99.5% of United’s U.S. employees are vaccinated.
Much of the increase in vaccination rate comes from late vaccination card uploads, indicating that the actual number of vaccinated employees might be higher than the 99.5% rate. In addition to termination, unvaccinated employees were threatened relocation to Newark as part of the carrier’s strategy to encourage vaccinations.
UA’s HR team will be beginning individual meetings with the 320 unvaccinated staff members to initiate the termination process, and the airline expects to find that a portion of those 320 are actually vaccinated, somehow failed to tell the airline despite the entire world knowing this was a thing, and will not need to be terminated.
American Confirms Seattle as AAsian Gateway
American Airlines still plans to turn Seattle into its gateway for flights to Asia, with the airport becoming a secondary international hub behind Dallas/Ft. Worth at the expense of Los Angeles which will still have a few flights.
AA’s VP for Network Planning Brian Znotins made remarks during a recent staff call about the carrier’s plans for Seattle. The move makes sense, and gives AA the opportunity to take advantage of Alaska’s extensive feed at the airport. Alaska joined oneworld earlier this year and is always looking for new ways to poke at friend turned foe Delta at its home airport.
In Los Angeles, AA competes with 14 Asian carriers including Korean and Cathay Pacific which each hold more than 2% of LAX’s weekly market share. LAX will keep Tokyo, Sydney, London and other domestic flying, but most Asian routes including Shanghai will shift to Seattle where it will compete with just seven Asian airlines (ANA and JAL to Tokyo, Asiana and Korean to ICN, Hainan to PEK and PVG, EVA to TPE, Singapore to SIN), plus Delta which operates from SEA to Beijing/Daxing, Seoul/ICN, Shanghai, and Tokyo/Haneda.
ITA Announces Fleet Plans
Alitalia’s successor, Alitalia 134.0 ITA announced its fleet plans today for the “new” carrier that will begin flying in a couple weeks when the current version of Alitalia ceases to exist on October 15.
The “new” carrier will begin flying with 56 Airbus aircraft that the current Alitalia put in a hangar in Rome with the keys “accidentally” left in the flight deck. ITA is buying 10 A330s, seven A220s and 11 A320s, and it is then going to lease 31 to give it a total of 56. Of the leased aircraft, it will take delivery of A350-900s for long-haul flying to overseas destinations that will regularly lose money for the airline.
The simplified fleet structure is expected to lower training and operational costs and make it easier to flip the planes at a loss when Alitalia 135.0 is born.
- Aer Lingus is growing in Belfast, adding two weekly flights to Heathrow, going from once-daily to twice-daily to Manchester, and increasing to 11 weekly flights to Edinburgh. All three cities will see increased frequencies beginning October 31.
- Air Mauritius exited voluntary administration with a $280 million government loan.
- American was forced to divert a Miami – Boston to Norfolk Tuesday morning when “mystery fumes” entered the flight deck. The pilots donned their oxygen masks and requested emergency services to meet the plane in Norfolk. It turned out to be an idiot passenger smoking in the forward restroom.
- Delta did a thing that has to do with Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
- Emirates and South African reactivated their codeshare partnership now that SAA is flying again. Emirates officials found the partnership far less valuable for the 18 months SAA was grounded.
- Etihad announced three new destinations this winter — Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Zanzibar.
- Eurowings will begin Sunday-only service from Hamburg to Beirut beginning November 7. The carrier will add flights on Fridays beginning December 17.
- Frontier will begin weekly, seasonal service from Atlanta to Punta Cana beginning December 18.
- JetBlue is moving most of it operations at New York/LGA to Terminal B, beginning October 31, but its flights to Boston will remain at the Marine Air Terminal.
- Jetstar Asia will resume flying between Singapore and Darwin with 3x-weekly service beginning December 20.
- La Compagnie is delaying its plans to launch service between Milan and Newark which was supposed to begin in April 2022.
- Lufthansa is seeing a 300% increase in booking to the United States since the government of the United States ended restrictions for most Europeans to travel to the United States.
- Pakistan International Airlines‘s former managing director and former spokesman were both arrested on corruption charges.
- Smartwings will begin 4x-weekly flights between Prague and London/Heathrow today.
- Starlux delayed delivery of A330neo and A350 aircraft it had on order to 2022.
- TUI Fly Nordic took delivery of its first B787-9 aircraft.
My neighbor came rudely banging on my door last night at 3 a.m. He’s lucky I was still up playing the drums or I might have been even madder.