Frontier Unveils Its Newest Frontiers
Frontier Airlines is growing in Florida as the carrier announced a new destination in Florida, a heaping of new routes to the state, and one more sun-splashed destination to add to its route map.
The carrier will return to Fort Lauderdale after having left the airport in April of 2020 at the start of the pandemic. The carrier will operate to 12 cities from FLL, of which two – Islip, NY and Trenton, NJ – it operated prior to the pandemic. All of the cities it will fly to from Fort Lauderdale are east of the Mississippi with the majority in the northeast. From the airport, Frontier will now serve:
- Atlanta (daily, beginning Feb. 17)
- Buffalo (daily, beginning Feb. 17)
- Islip (daily, beginning Feb. 17)
- Orlando (daily, beginning Feb. 17)
- Philadelphia (daily, beginning Feb. 17)
- Providence (daily, beginning Feb. 17)
- Stewart, NY (3x-weekly beginning Feb. 17)
- Trenton (daily, beginning Feb. 17)
- Albany, NY (3x-weekly beginning Feb. 18)
- Rochester, NY (2x-weekly beginning Feb. 18)
- Green Bay (weekly, beginning Feb. 19)
- Portland, ME (weekly, beginning Feb. 19)
Other additions for Frontier include new service to Aguadilla, PR (BQN) with 3x-weekly flights from Orlando beginning March 24. The carrier is adding two new cities from San Juan: Boston (4x-weekly, beginning Feb. 17) and Hartford (3x-weekly, beginning Feb. 18). Lastly, it’ll add three more cities from Cancun: Hartford (3x-weekly beginning Feb. 17), Buffalo (3x-weely beginning Feb. 18), and Providence (weekly, beginning Feb. 19).
Aeromexico’s Creditors Push Back on Restructuring Plan
Aeromexico released a restructuring plan to exit bankruptcy that is rubbing some of its creditors the wrong way as they would only receive approximately 15 cents on the dollar for their outstanding debt.
The plan retains a 20% ownership stake for Delta and is dependent on raising $1.4 billion in financing. Some creditors, including Invictus Global Management LLC, Hein Park Capital Group LLC, and Livello Capital Management LP, say the plan doesn’t pay back nearly enough of the airline’s debt while allowing some creditors and third parties ownership stakes in the restructured carrier in lieu of debt payments.
In exchange for 20% of the new carrier, Delta would amend the current partnership deal between the two, inject $100 million into the airline, and possibly convert part of the bankruptcy loan it offered into new shares of the airline. Invictus and other creditors believe a conflict of interest exists, as two Delta executives and one Delta board member sit on Aeromexico’s board.
Invictus has objected to the three Delta members of Aeromexico’s board insisting that all other debt payments would be made in SkyMiles and Biscoff futures. Delta is offering 500,000 SkyMiles to unsecured creditors to sign off on the deal – enough to get an award ticket on Delta from Detroit to Tulsa in Main Cabin.
South African Moves Towards Privatization
South African Airways’s move towards partial privatization took a step forward after it was revealed that Takatso Consortium concluded its due diligence of the carrier and did not run away screaming while covering its eyes.
The consortium confirmed that its negotiations with the South African government to purchase 51% of the beleaguered carrier will move forward as it did not find any major issues. SAA officials were pleased with the news, noting they spent several weeks covering up and hiding anything that had anything to do with Mango while praying that no one noticed the smell of rotting fruit all over HQ.
Takatso plans to inject just over $200 million into SAA over the next three years to cover operating costs. South African was also allotted $649 million in state funds to restructure out of bankruptcy, some which has been put into the airline already, with more to come, in theory.
- Corsair wants €200 million to allow a potential merger with Air Austral to occur.
- FlyOne now hopes to fly one flight as soon as late this year, hoping to serve seven destinations from Yerevan, Armenia (EVN) beginning December 15.
- interCaribbean will begin serving Georgetown, Guyana with 12 weekly flights beginning December 17.
- Jonica Airways in Italy is looking to begin E190 cargo ops.
- Philippines Airlines had its franchise to operate on behalf of the Philippine government renewed for another 25 years.
- Porter will require all passengers over the age of 12 to be vaccinated to board a flight regardless of whether it’s domestic, transborder, or international. This, of course, makes the assumption that Porter is actually operating flights.
- Qatar will begin twice-weekly service to Tashkent, Uzbekistan (TAS) on January 17.
- Thai AirAsia‘s $415 million recapitalization plan was approved by shareholders.
- Uganda Airlines is unhappy a passenger was caught selling fried grasshoppers to other passengers on a recent flight. However, the airline is mostly unhappy it didn’t think of the idea first, and is now considering adding the insectile treat aboard future flights.
- WestJet‘s Harry Taylor its now officially the airline’s interim President and CEO.
- Zambia Airways took delivery of its first aircraft — a Dash 8-400 on lease from equity partner Ethiopian Airlines.
Every morning I tell my family that I’m going to go jogging, but then I never do.
It’s a running joke.