May 6, 2022

Breeze Blows into Provo

Breeze announced Provo, Utah (PVU) will be its 18th destination as it blows into its home state later this summer. The Salt Lake City-based airline had not flown from its home state in its first year of operation, but that will change as it adds three nice nonstop destinations from Provo – located about 50 miles south of downtown Salt Lake.

The carrier will fly daily to San Francisco using an E190 on August 4, with the outbound flight leaving PVU at 8:30 a.m., and the return from the Bay departs SFO at 4 p.m. Las Vegas and Los Angeles will both be served with an A220, with daily flights to LAS beginning October 5 and daily flights to LAX on November 2.

Breeze customers in Provo who are bad at geography will also be able to book nicer, convenient one-stop service to SBD via SFO – and the particularly frisky members of the traveling public can book PVU-LAS-HPN for their cross-country traveling needs.

Allegiant Adds Extra Legroom

Two years after running a trial for extra legroom seats, Allegiant now will expand its Allegiant Extra product across its fleet, starting with each new A320 it brings into its fleet starting late this year.

Allegiant Extra comes with six inches extra legroom reserved overhead bin space, priority boarding, one complimentary beverage, and a free three-night stay at a timeshare in Branson, Missouri courtesy of Allegiant Vacations. The carrier only needs to eliminate one row per plane to create the extra six inches, taking its A320 fleet down from 186 seats to 180.

The current 186-seat aircraft in the fleet will be retrofitted to add the extra legroom seating during their regular maintenance cycles, while its 177-seat A320s and 156-seat A319s will not be part of the conversion. Allegiant’s new B737 MAX-8-200 fleet will begin delivery next year and will come with 190 seats including the extra legroom, positively spacious compared to the 197 Ryanair fits on the same aircraft.

Spirit to be 7% Less Spirited this Summer

Spirit Airlines will reduce its summer flight schedule by 5-7% to ease pressure on its operation amid record demand and staffing shortages. The carrier still plans to strand thousands of passengers at airports all over North America, but now expects to do so a little bit less than previously thought.

Spirit’s summer schedule will still be about 10% more than it operated in 2019, but that is significantly less than the 19% increase it flew in Q1 this year vs Q1 in 2019. Spirit also scheduled more out-and-back flying for its aircraft instead of point-to-point schedules, so that delays in certain parts of the country (that means you, Florida) won’t necessarily derail the entire operation.

The announcement comes after Spirit was one of several airlines that met with the FAA this week to discuss ATC staffing and other issues in Florida. The government agreed to add staff to its Jacksonville ATC Center and evaluate other Florida locations. In the meantime, Spirit’s schedule reduction is making it even more attractive to both Frontier and JetBlue as the less flights it operates the fewer Spirit customers the new carrier would need to absorb.

  • Aeroflot‘s board approved an additional issue of 5.4 billion shares at a price of $0.52 each because once you start printing money to keep up with demand, there’s really no stopping. In other news, Aeroflot is flying to Delhi again, so there’s that.
  • airBaltic is extending its codeshare agreement with Aegean to cover flights from Tampere to Rhodes.
  • Airhub Airlines is looking to acquire six narrowbody aircraft with no heavy maintenance due on the plane within 3,000 hours or 1,000 cycles. If you or anyone you know is sitting on six airplanes and is trying to move them, give Airhub a call and tell ’em Cranky sent you.
  • Air New Zealand raised $770 million as part of an equity rights offer.
  • Air Tahiti Nui has resumed service to New Zealand.
  • British Airways confirmed its plans to open a cabin crew base in Madrid this summer because its staff complained there was nowhere to get good sangria in London.
  • Delta is resuming year-round service to Juneau for those who want their fix of southeast Alaska in February.
  • IAG lost money in Q1.
  • ITA — the Brazilian version — is doing its best impersonation of its Italian cousin as its AOC was revoked by Brazil’s Civil Aviation Authority.
  • Lufthansa Group also lost money in Q1. In other news, it’s debuting a new subsidiary — because that’s what Lufthansa really needs — CityLine 2, to begin flying next spring. It’s gotten so bad that its subsidiaries are being doubled up.
  • Virgin Australia‘s trustees are advising the carrier to pay the $72.2 million it owes lessor Aviation.

Why was the computer so sad?
Because he had an interface only a motherboard could love!

Happy Mother’s Day!