Vaccination Nation: Air New Zealand to Require Passengers to be Vaxed; AA, Alaska, JetBlue, Southwest to do the Same for Employees
Air New Zealand announced over the weekend it would implement a “no jab, no fly” policy for all international flights beginning February 1, 2022. The carrier plans to require all passengers 18 years or older to present proof of being fully vaccinated or be denied boarding. The airline already has put a policy in place for all its employees to be vaccinated and says campaign will be successfully completed before the February 1 deadline for customers.
Domestically, four major airlines – Alaska, American, JetBlue, and Southwest all informed their employees they must be vaccinated based on federal guidelines which apply due to each of their roles as a government contractor. The deadline for vaccination is December 8 – just over two months from today.
Alaska extended its $200 incentive for staff to get the vaccine from October 15 to December 1. American has received resistance from its pilots union and mechanics over even considering a mandate, while JetBlue is going to do whatever American tells it to do does. Southwest is offering employees the chance to submit their vaccination cards early for a $59 “early-bird” fee which will give staff the exclusive ability to choose which vaccine they get.
Delta Forms Alliance with Itself in Boston
Delta Air Lines answered back at American and JetBlue by expanding its presence in Boston, adding new domestic and international routes and by placing its newest, fanciest airplanes on routes from the city. Delta’s move is a direct shot at the AA/JetBlue NEA partnership as it looks to assert dominance in the city while the DOJ does Delta’s dirty work to break up the alliance.
Delta will add two new international routes from Boston: Athens and Tel Aviv. Athens will operate 3x-weekly on Delta’s A330-300 aircraft beginning May 27. Tel Aviv will also operate 3x-weekly, beginning on May 26 on A330-900neo aircraft. The route to Athens will the only nonstop flight from Boston, while the Tel Aviv flight will complement Deltaa’s service to TLV from JFK and will compete with El Al’s BOS-TLV route.
Domestically, Delta is adding flight to Baltimore, Denver, and San Diego. Baltimore will see 5x-daily service on E175 aircraft operated by Republic Airways beginning July 11. Also on July 11, the carrier will begin daily service to DEN and SAN on 737-900 aircraft. The carrier also plans to use its fancy new A321neos, which will enter service in the spring for service from Boston to four west coast destinations: LAX, SAN, SFO, and SEA.
Overall, Delta will have over 160 daily nonstops from Boston to 55 destinations, a 20% increase from its pre-pandemic height of October 2019.
Spirit Flight Aborts Takeoff After Birdstrike
Spirit Airlines flight 3044 from Atlantic City to Fort Lauderdale was accelerating for takeoff Saturday when the aircraft encountered birds which flew into its right engine. The pilots aborted the takeoff.
The incident caused the engine to catch fire as the A320neo stopped about 1,800 feet down the runway. In defense of the birds who struck the engine, they often fly around the runway at that time on Saturdays, and Spirit almost never operates its flight to FLL on-time, giving the birds free roam of the runway. The fact that the flight was operating on-time – or even operating at all – came as a shock to the birds.
Passengers were forced to evacuate via the emergency slide but were not allowed on the slide until they paid the flight attendant the carrier’s mandatory $15 slide evacuation fee. Some passengers were seen grabbing carry-ons, normally a no-no during emergency evacuations, but they did pay a significant amount to bring those carry-ons aboard, and Spirit’s $99 fee to reclaim carry-ons abandoned during an emergency was certainly a factor.
Luckily there were no injuries reported except for the birds. Passengers willing to pay Spirit’s change fees and a fare difference were accommodated on Spirit’s next flight to FLL, which is expected to be in December.
- Air New Zealand COO Carrie Hurihanganui resigned to take over as the CEO at Auckland Airport. Hurihanganui turned the job down at first when she thought it was to take over as CEO of Oakland Airport, but reconsidered when seeing she wouldn’t have to move as far.
- airBaltic took delivery of its 32nd A220-300 on Saturday, it’s 7th and final A220 for the year.
- Avianca and SKY are expected to merge by 2022 as Avianca plans to buy 40% of the Chilean airline for about $70 million.
- EgyptAir launched 4x-weekly service from Cairo to Tel Aviv on Sunday.
- Emirates and Qantas extended their partnership through 2028.
- EVA will return to Brisbane on December 7, operating weekly flights between BNE and its Taipei hub.
- Iberia is selling three A330s to the Spanish government for a quart of sangria and a heaping helping of paella.
- Lufthansa Group leased an additional four A350-900 aircraft and will be holding a mini-Olympics between the CEOs of each airline in the group to see who gets the planes.
- Nok Air‘s restructuring was approved by the Thai Central Bankruptcy Court.
- Qantas is in discussions with several aircraft manufacturers about updating its narrowbody and regional fleets — provided REX doesn’t find the negotiations to be anti-competitive.
- PIA is attempting to sell six A330-200 aircraft. The sale has been challenging because the aircraft are missing engines and PIA mistakenly hoped potential buyers wouldn’t notice that small detail.
- SKY is denying reports that it has agreed to a merger with Avianca. The carrier said the report earlier in Airline Potpourri is premature, and that its CEO buying a new house in Bogota was only a coincidence and shouldn’t be read into.
All my clothes had a competition to see which one is the coolest.
It ended up being a tie.