President Biden Delays Vaccine Mandate to January 4
President Biden delayed the vaccine mandate for companies who do business with the federal government to January 4 – a reprieve for airlines that will prevent them from having to cut staff during the busy holiday travel season.
The previous deadline was December 8, but the new policy matches OSHA guidelines that were released this week. The delay will give airlines more wiggle room as they seek to enforce the federal mandates — and their own corporate mandates — while operating through the holidays. Southwest saw a lawsuit from its pilots’ union dismissed last week in a Texas courtroom that argued the vaccine mandate needed to be collectively bargained with the union.
American and Southwest currently have a November 24 deadline to receive the second dose of the vaccine, but they have provided an extension for all the 5 year old children they employed to save money cleaning airplanes since that shot has only recently become available. It’s unclear if the new federal regulations will affect how each airline handles its deadline.
Delta “Enhances” Global Upgrade Certificates
Delta Air Lines announced a new enhancement to its Global Upgrade Certificates (GUCs) making them harder to use and less valuable to Diamond Medallions – its most valuable customers.
As of February, GUCs will now only be available for a one-class upgrade, meaning that those booking economy on a long-haul flight with Premium Select – Delta’s premium economy option – will only be able to confirm an upgrade to Premium Select, not all the way to Delta One. Bookings made in premium economy will confirm a one class upgrade into Delta One, but of course will come with a higher price tag than regular economy.
Most amazing about this change is that it took Delta this long to implement it. In addition, GUCs will now expire at the end of the Medallion year – which is the final day of January of the next year of your qualification. This means that travelers who qualify in 2022 for 2023 Diamond status would see their GUC’s expire on January 31, 2024. Previously they were valid for one year from selection, which allowed members to game the system based on their own travel patterns. Now they’ll expire on January 31 unless customers want to pay a 3.2 million SkyMiles ransom to have the certificates returned unharmed.
United Pinky Swears It’ll Run Strong Operation Through the Holidays
United Airlines sent a letter to many of its frequent flyers in which CEO Scott Kirby assured travelers United can be trusted over the holidays despite the meltdowns suffered by other airlines over the past several weeks.
Kirby proclaimed that United would be immune from operational meltdowns because the airline has “taken a unique approach to the complexity of rebuilding an airline in the midst of a pandemic.” Kirby also alluded to United having fewer on-board incidents than rival airlines which just seems like tempting fate unnecessarily, especially since a boatload of flights under its name are operated by regional partners, not United itself. “We now have less than one mask incident per 100,000 passengers, down 50% since the start of the year,” Kirby said.
He also said the carrier was doing its best to route passengers away from Newark during the holidays, noting that nothing ruined the merriment of the holiday season like several hours in northern Jersey.
- aha! is one step closer to world domination as it will begin 3x-weekly service between Reno and Palm Springs on January 3.
- Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau’s ability to speak French is…ne va pas bien.
- Air Namibia received a $207 million offer for its rusting carcass.
- Air New Zealand welcomed its first A320neo to join its fleet since 2019 this week.
- Alaska will resume serving Miami on June 16 with daily service from Seattle. Miami will serve as AS’s 100th destination from Seattle, and in celebration, all fares will be 100% off for any customer… using miles to purchase their ticket.
- Aleutian Airways is now prepared to launch operations later this year.
- ASKY is in the market for B737 MAX and B787 aircraft to fly in THESKY.
- Cayman Airways retired its final non-MAX B737.
- Eastern Airlines — the U.S. version — will debut B777 passenger ops and cargo ops in the first quarter of 2022.
- Emerald is prepared to launch regional ops for Aer Lingus early next year.
- Emirates will begin serving Tel Aviv on December 6, completely missing that Hanukkah rush this year.
- Etihad will be switching its Moscow operation from Moscow/Domodedovo (DME) to Moscow/Sheremetyevo (SVO) to better work with its new codeshare partner Aeroflot.
- Finnair is debuting bus options on flights between Helsinki and both Turku and Tampere.
- ITA is offering status matches elite members of 24 other airlines because it realizes it’ll never have anyone fly enough on its own airline to earn elite status.
- Ryanair announced its Summer ’22 schedule from East Midlands Airport (EMA) will consist of 130 weekly flights to 31 destinations.
- Virgin Australia is running a trial of toasted sandwich offerings in economy.
- Vistara secured enough slots to operate Delhi to Newark via London/Gatwick 3x-weekly through March 2022.
- Xiamen Air will bring 15 A321 into its fleet in January — the first Airbus planes for the previously all-Boeing carrier.
My co-workers used to always laugh at my jokes pre-pandemic. But since we’ve started working from home, they never laugh.
I finally asked why and my co-worker said “Your jokes aren’t remotely funny.”