United States Ends Most Travel Bans
For the first time since March 2020, most foreign visitors to the United States are able to visit for non-essential travel, provided they are vaccinated and have a negative COVID-19 test.
The federal government is currently accepting all vaccines recognized by the CDC and WHO, which includes nearly every major vaccine except for Russia’s Sputnik vaccine. Sputnik is excluded because the government has not yet formally concluded if it’s a vaccine or a spaceship.
The first two flights bound for the United States from London/Heathrow took off this morning, one from British Airways and one from Virgin Atlantic with simultaneous departures from Heathrow. Virgin Atlantic beat its rival across the Atlantic by 10 minutes, earning everyone on the plane a free I Heart NY t-shirt in the wrong size.
The land border between the United States and both Canada and Mexico also reopened today. To simulate the airport experience as much as possible, reports of long lines and surly immigration agents are being reported at most entry points on both borders.
United Drops Nine More Destinations
One week after removing three cities from its route map, United Airlines is dropping nine more – though it’s unfortunate that none of the nine are named Newark.
All nine destinations will lose United service on January 3 — except for Winnipeg which had been temporarily suspended since the beginning of the pandemic — but it won’t be the end of air service for any of those cities as they each will still see regular flights from either American or Delta, plus in one instance – Allegiant.
The nine cities to lose United service are:
- Central Wisconsin (CWA)
- College Station, TX (CLL)
- Columbia, MO (COU)
- Evansville, IN (EVV)
- Kalamazoo, MI (AZO)
- Killeen-Fort Hood, TX (GRK)
- Lansing, MI (LAN)
- Monroe, LA (MLU)
- Winnipeg (YWG)
The five midwestern destinations had United Express service to Chicago/O’Hare, while the three southern destinations had United Express service to Houston/IAH. Winnipeg had both Chicago and Denver, but the good people of Manitoba will now have to look elsewhere for their trips to the US.
American Offers Carrot Instead of Stick to Flight AAttendants
American Airlines is looking to avoid another system meltdown as the holiday season approaches and is offering significant bonuses to its flight attendants to show up to work over the next two months.
The incentives being offered include time-and-a-half pay for trips occurring between November 23 and 29 and December 22 and January 2. Additionally, cabin crew who have a perfect attendance record between November 15 and January 2 will receive another time-and-a-half bonus – adding up to a 300% bonus over the holiday period.
The carrier says that other work groups will also receive pay incentives but declined to go into details. The expectation is that pilots will finally have the seats in the cockpits replaced with La-Z-Boy recliners after the holidays while mechanics will be given positive space flight privileges on any airline except American for 2022 travel.
AA’s flight attendant union says it negotiated the incentives with the carrier, settling on the 300% bonus after its first demand – new leisurewear uniforms and a new crew base in Tahiti were both denied.
- American is delaying the launch of its flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Tel Aviv. The carrier is also delaying the start of service between Seattle and Bangalore.
- easyJet will resume domestic operations within Germany on December 1 with 12x-weekly service between Cologne and Berlin.
- Flyr earnd just $4.6 million for the July-September quarter on a loss of nearly $17 million. The carrier has securd committmnts of nearly $30 million to keep it solvent for the foreseeable futur.
- Holiday Europe is hopeful for a relaunch in the first half of 2022.
- iAero Airways will wet-lease a B737 early next year.
- Icelandair hired Jens Bjarnason as its new COO.
- MENA Cargo plans to add at least three B737-800 freighters over the next couple months.
- Pacific Air Express retired its only active aircraft, a B757-200, making it difficult to continue to call itself an airline.
- Ultra Air still hopes to make its ultra debut later this year.
- Vietjet signed a partnership with Airbus for the delivery of 119 aircraft currently on backorder.
A bunch of thieves stole my case of red bull. How do these people sleep at night.