October 8, 2021

Cranky Daily will not be published on Monday due to the federal holiday. Have a great long weekend, enjoy the baseball playoffs, and we’ll be back on Tuesday.

LAX Prepares for Olympic-Sized Expansion

LAWA’s — the organization that manages LAX — board approved a multi-billion dollar expansion for the airport to grow its capacity in preparation the 2028 Summer Olympics coming to Los Angeles.

Highlights of the excitingly-named and never-ending Airfield and Terminal Modernization Project at LAX include a new terminal – the chronologically named Terminal 9 – to the east of the current existing terminal 8 structure and a new concourse 0 that will be attached to Terminal 1. The two will combine to replace 15 of LAX’s current 18 remote bus gates. The other three will be retained to prevent Allegiant customers from going into shock.

LAX is expected to return to pre-pandemic capacity levels by 2025 with 1.7% annual growth to follow. United CEO Scott Kirby expects Terminal 9 to be home to United and Star Alliance carriers, while Concourse 0 will add nine new gates to T1 and a new international arrivals facility, presumably for Southwest’s growth.

Both projects are supposed to open in time for the LA 2028 Games, which leads most to believe their completion will come sometime in the mid-2030s. Passengers expecting to fly out of the new terminal are asked to begin driving to LAX now, as LAX traffic is bad enough without the construction these additions will bring, making the approximate amount of time to circle LAX once in a car expected to take about 11 years.

Tata for Now: Air India Sold to Tata Sons

India’s flag carrier Air India has been purchased by Tata Sons for about $2.4 billion and 3 BOGO coupons for KFC India. Air India began in the 1930s, operating as Tata Air Mail, and now, nearly a century later is going back home, like the dopey and incompetent child with substance abuse trouble that returns to live with his parents.

With the purchase, the Tata family will own 100% of Air India, 100% of its subsidiary Air India Express, and 50% in the JV Air India SATS (which handles ground services, cargo, and other airport operations on behalf of the carrier). At the time of the purchase, Air India has 117 aircraft while the express brand has 24 planes on-hand, some of which actually flew.

Air India has been losing money for decades. The Indian government said the carrier has been losing about $2.5 million a day, propped up by taxpayer funds. The Indian government has been looking to sell the airline for decades and was finally able to close the deal when Tata Sons threw in the BOGO coupons for KFC.

Qantas Aims for 2024 Sunrise

Qantas’s “Project Sunrise” is back on track to take to the skies as soon as 2024. Qantas’s plan to operate the lengthy flights from its Sydney hub to London, Paris, and New York was placed on hold due to the pandemic. The flights, each around 16-18 hours one-way, would experience two sunrises when flying east.

The carrier is near an order for 12 ultra-long range A350-1000 aircraft which would operate the routes. Prior to the pandemic, Qantas wanted to begin these ambitious flights in 2023, but a one year delay has pushed things back to 2024. Before finalizing the deal for the ULR aircraft, the carrier must first select a manufacturer to replace over 100 domestic narrowbody and regional aircraft.

Qantas has also been working with the Australian government to stock all three cities with enough Vegemite to satisfy the crews that will work the flights and have lengthy layovers in the cities. The amount needed requires the carrier to begin stocking up now, but lucky for Qantas, Vegemite has a nearly unlimited shelf life – because it can’t possibly getting any worse – allowing it to set up storage facilities in preparation for the inaugural flights.

  • American employees opposed to the carrier’s vaccine mandate protested outside of AA’s HQ on Thursday with signs that say “Mandates won’t fly” in big capital letters and then, in smaller print also said “and neither do our airplanes a lot of the time due to mechanical and staffing issues.”
  • Bamboo delayed its U.S. launch from the third quarter of 2021 — which has come and gone — to “late in Q4.” We’ll see about that.
  • Emirates signed a $750 million loan with Emirates NBD, a government-owned bank that surprisingly does not stand for “no big deal.”
  • GlobalX has agreed to lease an A321 P2F freighter from STE Aerospace Resources, the first of five freighters its expected to lease from the lessor. Upon hearing the news, GlobalY Airlines had no comment.
  • Jet2 ordered 15 more A321-200neo aircraft, now giving it 51 on order. The planes will begin to be delivered in 2026.
  • Scoot will start operating the Singapore – Athens – Berlin route 4x-weekly next week, up from the 3x-weekly it currently operates.
  • Ultra Air made an ultra-exciting transaction as it acquired its first A320.
  • Vietnam Airlines will resume domestic operations on Sunday, along with Vietnam’s other three domestic carriers as the government will allow domestic flights to resume.

It’s a five minute walk from my apartment to my neighborhood pub. It’s a 35-minute walk from the pub to my house.

The difference is staggering.