August 9, 2022

Dream Come True: Deliveries to Begin Shortly

After a lengthy delay, American Airlines could take delivery of the first of more than 40 B787 Dreamliners it has on order as soon as tomorrow. The aircraft is supposed to be on-time for delivery to AA all morning, but once its staff arrive at the airport, it’s expected to post a two-hour delay.

Aircraft N880BJ is expected to be the plane AA receives tomorrow, being delivered from Boeing’s facility in Charleston, and it will be its 47th Dreamliner. American will return the plane into service within just a couple weeks provided there are no further…delays.

Boeing currently has a backlog of 476 aircraft in the B787 family. The 787-9 is in high-demand with 316 on order, followed by the -10 with 121 on order, and finally the -8 with 39 unfilled orders. United expects to receive eight deliveries this year, with Hawaiian to receive its first two early next year.

With Qatar having been painted into a corner with Airbus over its A350 dispute, the carrier is expected to look to grab more Dreamliners as they come available in the coming months.

Spirit Q2 Earnings Reveal Loss

Spirit Airlines Q2 earnings showed a loss of $52.4 million on gross revenue of $1.36 billion.

Gross revenue was up 59% from last year and 35.5% from 2019, but expenses shot up 84% from last year and 66% from 2019. The $1.36 billion in revenue comprised of $88 in fares, $1.2 billion in fees, and abut $100 million in blood money from JetBlue. Spirit took delivery of four new aircraft during the quarter, all four of which were A320neos which were delivered from Airbus when agreed to pay a reverse delivery fee to Spirit.

Looking ahead to Q3, Spirit expects its gross revenue to be between $1.32 and $1.33 billion, with a key boost in revenue coming from adding mints to its in-flight sales menu. The carrier expects to just about break even in Q3, with a chance to end up in the black if JetBlue allows it to add a fee to any passenger who boards wearing green or is going to Denver.

The carrier ended the quarter with $1.5 billion in unrestricted cash, a figure expected to rise after selling its “Spirit is the new Frontier” buttons on eBay.

Breeze Blows into Providence

Breeze Airways plans to establish a new base in Providence (PVD), keeping up to eight aircraft at the airport while also adding more destinations.

As part of establishing a new base, Breeze will grow its route network in Providence to at least 20 destinations, some of which will make sense. It plans to operate as many as 23 weekly departures from PVD by the end of next year, then nearly doubling that figure to 44 by the end of 2027. Most of the planes based in Providence will be A220s, provided it can figure out if there’s room to park them – Rhode Island is not a big state, after all.

The new base will establish up to 250 jobs that it’ll surely struggle to fill. Breeze currently operates to five cities from Providence with plans to add three more by next year. It will fill out its route network of up to 20 once it looks at a map and accurately figures out which way the wind is blowing.

  • Air New Zealand is bringing the first of its four B777-300s out of storage.
  • Alliance Air is out of the turboprop business.
  • MyWay Airlines is having it someone else’s way after its AOC was suspended.
  • Rise Air rose to the occasion with its first ATR42-500.
  • WestJet is going with the risky new strategy of adding flights in the winter from Canada to warm, sunny destinations.
  • Wizz Air is resuming service to Russia.

The mechanic told me I had to pick my car up by 5 p.m., but there’s no way I’ll be strong enough by then.