Spirit Announces Flight School Partnership
Spirit Airlines announced a partnership with Jacksonville-based ATP Flight School to get more pilots in the door as it looks to add dozens of new aircraft over the next few years. ATP is the largest flight school in the United States with 62 training centers across the country featuring a fleet of 431 aircraft.
As part of the new partnership, ATP will immerse students in a two-year training period that develops line-ready A320 pilots for the carrier. In exchange, ATP will be painting all 431 planes in its fleet bright yellow and has introduced a new set of fees for students that will make even the most expensive colleges and universities across the country blush.
Following graduation from ATP, those in the program can advance straight to Spirit as first officers after 1,500 hours of flight time and payment of their pilot development fee, successful takeoff and landing fee, uniform dry-cleaning surcharge, and the cockpit seat assignment fee.
The carrier has chosen to expand its policy of only offering assigned seats ahead of time for a fee to the cockpit, where potential pilots will be forced to pony up $12.99 per flight or risk being stuck in a cockpit jumpseat with no access to vital controls of the aircraft.
Finnair Unveils New Business Class Concept
Finnair released its new business class cabin that will be outfitted throughout its fleet of long-haul A330 and A350 aircraft over the next two years. The carrier is going to remove the seats from business class on each long-haul plane and replace it with its new lounger concept that does not recline, but instead is more like a sofa in the sky.
The seat is designed to “maximize comfort, space, and freedom to move” according to Finnair, but these are people that choose to live in Finland in winter, so trust what they say at your own peril. The seat is wrapped in a fixed contour shell with space to sit, lay down, or pull up the leg and footrest to create a fully flat bed.
The carrier says that by eliminating the traditional seat structure, it was able to provide a larger “living space” for customers. Its ultimate goal is to create enough room to put a mini-sauna at each premium class seat, but that technology is still a year or two away.
Oneworld Prepares for Alliance-Wide Upgrades
Oneworld announced alliance-wide upgrades would be coming prior to the pandemic, but the program has been on hold since early 2020 – until now. The program will allow loyalty program members from any oneworld airline to upgrade themselves on any of the alliance’s 14 carriers by the end of the year.
The amount of miles it will take to upgrade will depend on what points currency the traveler is trying to use and what program they’re using it to upgrade on. The alliance hasn’t yet worked out any of the details except that it wants to take people’s miles and offer a different seat than was originally booked. It doesn’t yet know how airlines will compensate each other, but the current plan is for everyone to bring a bottle of booze to the annual alliance picnic and just call it even.
Upon hearing the news, SkyTeam was interested in offering a similar offer to its customers but had to pull back after seeing what Delta wanted to charge for upgrades. It planned to require 100,000 Flying Blue miles and 10 KLM delft houses for a one-way domestic upgrade from Main Cabin to Comfort+. SkyTeam instead will go back to its original program of just overcharging in cash for alliance-wide upgrades.
- American and Aer Lingus‘s application to codeshare on flights over the Atlantic was approved.
- ANA will have a new president and CEO on April 1 — Shinichi Inoue. And by all accounts, it’s not a joke.
- Copa earned a $2.7 million profit in 2021.
- Emirates is reopening the bar in business class onboard its A380.
- FedEx wants to buy some new, large airplanes. Anyone with suggestions on what it should buy is advised to stop by their nearest FedEx Office store and let the staff know.
- iAero Airways iAdded its first widebody aircraft, a VIP-configured B767-300 that’s owned by the Houston Rockets. The plane, like its owners, peaked in the ’90s and has mostly been hanging around in mediocrity since.
- Maldivian signed an MOU with Emirates to explore codeshare and other joint business opportunities.
- Mesa decided the final three months of the year is the first quarter of their fiscal year just to be difficult, and announced they lost $14.3 million during those three months ending December 31.
- Neos is the latest airline to lose a bet and be forced to enter into a business agreement with ITA.
- Singapore is delaying the opening of its new first class lounges.
- Southwest passengers can now purchase on-board wifi via Venmo. Sometimes the jokes write themselves.
- Wamos Air said “Vamos!” to the idea of expanding its A330 fleet.
What smells better than it tastes?
A nose.