United Begins Placing Unvaccinated Staff on Leave Today
United Airlines will begin placing unvaccinated staff who have a religious or medical exemption on unpaid leave beginning today. The airline will begin the process one week after a Texas court threw out the lawsuit from a group of United employees who claimed the airline failed to provide them with reasonable accommodation and forced them to visit Newark monthly.
United delayed the process as a temporary restraining order was put in place while the court considered the case. Despite the TRO, United kept its unvaccinated staff at home – albeit while still receiving their salary, at a cost to United of about $1.4 million every two weeks.
Of those who requested an exemption from UA, approximately 80% of religious exemptions were granted while closer to just 63% were granted for medical reasons. Employees on a medical exemption will continue to receive medical benefits while on unpaid leave while those on the religious exemption will lose benefits at the end of this month. For everyone on unpaid leave, accumulated annual leave will be paid out, but accrual of seniority will end.
Mango’s Return to Flying Put Off Indefinitely
In today’s edition of As The Mango Turns, it’s a dark day for the official tropical fruit-slash-airline of Cranky Daily as the carrier will be grounded for the indefinite future. The news comes after parent company South African Airways postponed a meeting of creditors that was to decide the sweet, juicy, and refreshing airline’s future.
SAA postponed the meeting for 15 business days – the maximum allowed by South African law – to allow for an amendment to Mango’s bankruptcy plan that the carrier cannot resume operating until it has identified a new strategic equity partner. Mango’s bankruptcy administrator Sipho Sono was hoping to begin flying next month using the $47 million it’s owed from SAA and the South African government to fund the operation, but only $6.5 million has been given to Mango. Those funds were set aside to pay employees and hire a hitman to take out Big Papaya.
SAA said there was “no reasonable chance of Mango succeeding” without further outside funding. The limbo leaves customers in the dark, as those tickets for past or future travel on Mango are stuck without the ability to travel nor the ability to get a refund – or as Air Canada calls it, “Tuesday.”
Indy is Calling? BA Looks at Indianapolis
In its summer 2022 slot filing, British Airways requested two slots to fly a nonstop route between its London/Heathrow hub and Indianapolis.
Indianapolis currently does not have any service to Europe, and no European airlines have ever operated regularly at the airport. Delta flew from IND to Paris/CDG from 2018 until the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Delta said at the time it suspended the route that it would eventually bring it back, but the person who said that probably doesn’t work there anymore, so who really knows?
Delta had been offered $5 million annually from the state of Indiana to operate the flight to Paris. The assumption is that a subsidy is on the able for BA. Instead of cash, it’s rumored that the state offered British Airways 100 face masks with a checkered flag design on them, 2 general admission tickets to the Indy 500 as long as the route continues to operate, and a “Hoosier Daddy” t-shirt for each member of BA’s senior leadership team.
- Air Tanzania ordered one B787 Dreamliner, one B767 freighter, and 2 B737 MAX aircraft this week in Dubai.
- American plans to open a new Texas-sized AAdmirals Club in AAustin. Construction on the 15,000 sq.-foot club will begin next year.
- Akasa Air, an Indian startup carrier, ordered 72 B737 MAX aircraft today in Dubai. It was able to borrow the funds easily since the bank thought it was actually Alaska Air.
- Delta is expecting as many as 5.6 million customers during the Thanksgiving travel season. 5.2 million of them are expected to connect through Atlanta and miss their flight waiting in line at the Chick-Fil-A in Concourse C. Only those traveling on Sunday will be spared.
- Egyptair awarded a maintenance contract to OEM Services.
- El Al and GlobalX — two airlines that couldn’t have less in common are the two newest carriers to join the TSA PreCheck family.
- Hi Air has hit a new Lo as the carrier was forced to suspend flying and delay paying its staff.
- Ibom Air ordered ten A220 aircraft, because if everyone is in Dubai is doing it, you’ve gotta do it too.
- ITA — the Brazilian one, not the worst airline ever — was accused of missing aircraft payments in homage to its Italian namesake.
- Jazeera Airways also has staff in Dubai, so they went ahead and placed an order for 33 A320neo aircraft.
- Singapore plans to resume B737 MAX flights before the end of 2021.
- United is finally bringing some civility back to the world, ending the nearly 20-month nightmare that was a lack of glassware in first class. Beginning December 1, United passengers will again be served cold beverages in glassware and coffee in a ceramic mug to distract them from the fact they’re on a flight from Newark to Detroit.
- Vietnam Airlines will start flying from Ho Chi Minh City to San Francisco because it thinks it can make money doing that. Best of luck.
I call it an elevator. My English friend calls it a lift.
You could saw we were just raised differently.