SkyWest Server Issues Cause Operational Meltdown
Regional carrier SkyWest Airlines canceled hundreds of flights both Thursday and Friday, causing cascading problems across four airlines. SkyWest operates as a regional carrier for four mainline brands – American, Delta, United, and Alaska. The carrier canceled approximately 700 flights on Thursday night before resolving the issue, but the cancellations continued into Friday.
Though it was expected SkyWest might take a page from the Southwest playbook and blame the whole thing on weather, it opted to go with a truthful explanation instead, saying it was actually a server problem. The issue lingered for several hours before someone at SkyWest headquarters in St. George, Utah finally unplugged the darn thing and plugged it back in.
More than 500 SkyWest flights were cancelled today with another 500 being delayed. Of the hundreds of cancellations the last two days, about 220 were American flights – 170 on Thursday and 50 today – which is actually a pretty good day for American. The regional carrier’s operation is expected to be close to normal tomorrow.
Qantas Prepares for Accelerated Border Opening
Qantas and its LCC subsidiary Jetstar are gearing up for the return of international flying to and from Australia as soon as November 1, nearly six weeks earlier than previously expected. Both the Australian and New South Wales governments announced that borders would reopen sooner than planned as levels of Vegemite on-hand reached the point where they could spare some for tourists and maintain a sufficient stockpile.
Amongst restarted routes and new destinations, Qantas will begin flying to Delhi on December 6 with 3x-weekly service, expanding to daily by the end of 2021. The flights will operate through March with a chance to continue if the demand warrants.
Other international schedule updates include Sydney to Singapore beginning four weeks early on November 23 on Qantas, with Jetstar following from Melbourne and Darwin on December 16. QF will operate to Fiji beginning December 7, Johannesburg on January 5, and Bangkok on January 14 – all three starting months earlier than planned. Jetstar will begin Sydney to Phuket (PKT) on January 12 – two months early – with three weekly flights on a B787.
AA to Add First ClAAss Seats on a319 Fleet
During a meeting with flight attendants this week, AA President Robert Isom and VP of Network and Schedule Planning Brian Znotins said the carrier wants a larger first class on its A319 fleet along with larger overhead bins.
Of course, if AA is considering adding seats up front, it will have to remove seats from the back or tighten the pitch. The carrier is considering removing all seats in economy and replacing them with wooden benches approximately six inches wide and handles coming from the top of the plane in lieu of seatbelts. By placing the benches approximately 18 inches apart, the carrier could increase its first class seating from eight to 16 per aircraft while actually increasing the number of customers in can fit in economy.
The back four rows of benches would be removed entirely for basic economy passengers, who would be required to stand and hold on to the handles from the top during takeoff and landing.
- British Airways and Kenya Airways have begun a cross-alliance codeshare relationship. It is unknown whether its parents approve.
- Cathay Pacific has eliminated waitlists for standard award bookings.
- DHL Air Austria certified by the Austrian government and added its first B757 freighter.
- Fly2Sky expanded its fleet that goes 2Sky with two new A321 aircraft.
- Japan Airlines is joining the eVTOL party with up to 100 aircraft from Vertical Aviation.
- KLM Cityhopper has entered into Embraer’s Pool Program for maintenance support on its E195-E2 fleet. It is unknown whether this will be Olympic-sized or just a lap pool.
- Pegasus Airlines ordered six additional A321neo aircraft.
- Qatar will resume daily flights to both Melbourne and Sydney on December 1.
- Singapore placed seats for sale as it resumes 2x-daily service on November 1 between Singapore and Melbourne.
- SpiceJet floatplane subsidiary SpiceShuttle only briefly started flying last year, and now it might be done for. Sporty Spice had no comment while Baby Spice just looked happy anyone was talking to her.
- TAP will receive a total of 1.9 billion euro as part of its final bailout from the Portuguese government.
- Thai AirAsia‘s parent company Asia Aviation PCL is looking to raise about $420 million to fund a restart for the carrier because if at first you don’t succeed, throw more money at it.
- United has at long last opened its Polaris lounge at Washington/Dulles. We assume this is a temporary lounge since it is, naturally, on the ancient “temporary” midfield concourse.
My roommate is kicking me out because she’s fed up with my animal puns… ‘OK,’ I said, ‘Alpaca my bags.’