American Cuts 27 Routes Total, Including a New York Shift
American Airlines announced a route adjustment over the weekend in which the carrier is dropping 27 routes, 18 of which operate to either New York/JFK or New York/LGA. The remaining nine cuts reduce much of AA’s flying to Canada, while also dropping flights from Boston, Charlotte, Chicago/ORD, and Philadelphia.
Some of the NYC routes getting cut, including LaGuardia-Boston, will now be operated by AA’s BFF and Northeast Alliance partner JetBlue. Five routes getting the axe operate from JFK, and they are: Montreal, Toronto, and San Antonio (going away on January 4) with Liberia and San Jose (both in Costa Rica) ending on April 5. LGA sees 13 cities being cut including Boston, Philadelphia, and Orlando.
In addition to ending JFK to Montreal and Toronto, the carrier is pulling out of Ottawa completely, ending its twice-daily flights to PHL on April 5. AA is also ending its flights from Phoenix to Calgary and Vancouver. This will allow American to shift more of its New York flying into its other hubs/strongholds.
Lastly, American is ending regional service on several routes including Philadelphia to Baltimore (ride the train, people), Charlotte to Champaign/Urbana (CMI) and Toledo, Chicago/O’Hare to Charlottesville, and Philadelphia to Charleston, WV (CRW).
Southwest Rolls Out Holiday Incentive Plan for Staff
Southwest Airlines introduced its staff incentive program designed to assist the carrier in avoiding operational issues during the busy holiday travel season. Southwest has suffered multi-day operational hiccups in 2021 and is being proactive to avoid a repeat this Christmas.
Flight attendants, pilots, and operations staff will be eligible for up to 120,000 Rapid Rewards points – which have a cash equivalent value of about $1,400 – for working 36 days between November 15 and January 14. The points can be redeemed for future travel on Southwest or other options such as Southwest merchandise assuming the employees want as little value as possible out of their points. Flight attendants who work 28 days over the same two month period could be eligible for 60,000 RR points, which have the equivalent value of about 3,465,000 Delta SkyMiles.
The carrier is also offering up to triple pay for ground staff working Thanksgiving and Christmas, along with double pay for OT shifts between Nov. 17-30 and Dec. 17-Jan. 3. The double pay offer is an increase from the usual time-and-a-half pay that ground staff receives for working overtime.
To sign up for the program, staff will need to sign up exactly 24 hours before their first shift during the appropriate time. They’ll then be given a number which indicates what order to line up in to claim the RR points after the holidays. Staff who want to begin accumulating points early can always pay a $39 Early Bird fee to get a jump on their colleagues.
IAG, Heathrow at Odds over Fee Hike
British Airways’s parent company IAG is threatening to cut its operation at London/Heathrow if the duty free mall airport moves forward with plans to raise passenger fees.
IAG’s CEO Luis Gallego say he’s willing to move much of the group’s flying away from Heathrow — yeah, right — where IAG says it already costs 44% more to operate than its European competitors. That may be true, but IAG doesn’t seem to be taking into account the value of the exercise its staff and customers receive when walking long distances to gates between duty free shop after duty free shop.
The airport requested the UK’s CAA to increase the cap on charges to as much as $57 per passenger. Airlines UK opposed the rate hike while IAG argued that fees should be going down, not up, in the aftermath of the pandemic. The airport has about $5.4 billion in cash to survive the downturn in demand which seems like a lot before you realize a bottle of water and cup of fruit costs $27 at the airport.
- Air Corsica announced a firm order for five new ATR 72-600s.
- Delta plans to bring its Premium Select product on all flights to Europe by May. It’s expected that the price for SkyMiles award redemptions in the cabin will be reasonably priced and easily obtainable.
- DHL Express ordered nine B767-300 freighters.
- Emirates plans to add six B777 freighters to help it run a Basic Economy trial program.
- Garuda Indonesia plans to eliminate as many as 97 routes, reducing its tally from 237 to 140. It plans to have a world map on a dartboard at its holiday party in early December. Each attendee will throw one dart and the closest Garuda destination to the dart will be cut from the route map.
- LATAM will receive an additional $200 million from new lenders under its Debtor-in-Possession Agreement.
- Overland Airways ordered three E175s expected to be delivered in 2023. Once they are delivered, the carrier plans to fly them, well, over land.
- Porter completed a sale and leaseback for five E195-E2 aircraft.
- Rex will begin double-daily service between Brisbane and Melbourne on December 17. The flight will operate just once daily on Saturdays and Sundays.
- Volaris signed a purchase order for 39 new A321 neo aircraft. The purchase was part of a larger agreement by Volaris’ parent Indigo Partners to acquire 255 new aircraft between Frontier, JetSMART, Volaris and Wizz Air.
- ZIPAIR confirmed its plans to zip over to the United States this Christmas with 3x-weekly flights between Tokyo/Narita and Los Angeles beginning December 25.
My wife yelled from the bedroom asking, “Do you ever get a shooting pain across your body like someone’s got a voodoo doll of you and they’re stabbing it?”
I replied, “No.”
She yelled back, “How about now?”