United Extends Mask Requirement to Airports, Tightens Employee Rules
1 In addition to requiring masks onboard its aircraft, United Airlines will now require masks on its passengers throughout the journey, including in the airport. There will also now be stiffer penalties for employees who don’t properly wear their masks at work. The mandate includes United customer service counters and kiosks, United Club locations, United’s gates, and baggage claim areas.
United customers who do not comply will run the risk of being banned from the airline for as long as the airline keeps its mask requirement in place — or longer. The only exception to the policy is for children aged 2 or below. Boss Baby immediately applauded the exception, noting that no infant can survive without direct mouth-to-binky access.
United currently operates in more than 360 destinations worldwide and will enforce the mask restriction at each one. The airline was the first in the U.S. to mandate face coverings for its flight attendants on-board, and it begs the question if other U.S. airlines will follow suit on this decision in the coming days & weeks.
Four Major Airlines Push for Coronavirus Testing to Restore U.S.- E.U. Travel
2 Chief executives from four of the world’s largest airline groups — American, IAG, Lufthansa Group. and United — have petitioned both the U.S. and E.U. governments to allow travel across the Atlantic provided passengers have proof of a negative COVID test.
The request, signed by the CEOs of the four airlines, was sent to Vice President Mike Pence, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, all E.U. member states, the United Kingdom, and a trash can which will likely provide the most thorough review in that group.
Most of the E.U. has barred travelers from the U.S. from entering while only the U.K. and Ireland requiring a 14-day quarantine. The airlines are hopeful that stronger testing could restore some of the demand across the Atlantic to help them pull bounce back from record low demand in the industry.
Spirit Releases Q2 Financials
3 Q2 financial reporting week rolls on, with Spirit stepping up to the mic. The airline released its results after trading on Wednesday, but interested parties were able to access the report early by paying a $11.99 financial report delivery fee.
Spirit produced a paltry $138 million in revenue in Q2, compared to just over $1 billion in revenue during Q2 2019. Spirit lost an adjusted $285 million this quarter, after it turned a profit in Q2 2019 of $115 million.
In an effort to hold down costs, Spirit will dramatically reduce its footprint in Q3. The airline expects to fly 32% less than it flew during Q3 2019, with July, August and September seeing 18, 35 and 45% drops, respectively as it prepares for doom and gloom post-summer.
Heading into July, Spirit currently has $1.2 billion in cash on-hand along with $4.2 million worth of clothes and knick-knacks from luggage its lost in 2019 that it plans to sell at a yard sale outside corporate headquarters next month.
Brussels Said to Receive U.S. Pre-Clearance Facility
4 Brussels Airport and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol have reportedly come to an agreement, making Brussels the first destination to add U.S. pre-clearance facilities in the post-pandemic world. Brussels will join Dublin & Shannon — both in Ireland — as the only pre-clearance facilities in the E.U.
Two airlines currently fly from Brussels to the U.S., with United flying to Washington/Dulles and Brussels Airlines flying to New York/JFK. Passengers flying on those two routes will arrive in the United States as domestic passengers once the pre-clearance facility is up and running.
This is potentially a great win for passengers whose final destination is New York, as less time waiting for JFK’s U.S. customs & immigration means more time waiting for the AirTrain and sitting in NYC traffic.
Pittsburgh Builds its Own Power Grid
5 Pittsburgh International Airport has begun the process of building its own power grid so that the airport can be self-sufficient while improving public safety through power resiliency and redundancy. To further prepare for the zombie apocalypse, the airport is believed to be building a hidden bunker in Concourse B that contains ammo, three month’s worth of MREs, four cots, a wind-up transistor radio, three thousand gallons of hand sanitizer, and a Terry Bradshaw bobblehead.
The airport’s power grid will produce 20 megawatts of electricity from the natural gas generators and about three megawatts from solar, enough energy to power more than 13,000 residential homes — or, as it turns out, one airport. This is far below the aggressive, original plan to harness lightning and generate 1.21 jigawatts, but that wasn’t necessary anyway. The airport’s current peak demand is approximately 14 megawatts and it has no plans for time travel.
In its release, the airport attempted to throw shade saying “Once the microgrid is online, it will help to avoid the kinds of power outages that have wreaked havoc at airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Los Angeles International and Washington Reagan International.” A representative from Washington’s Reagan National Airport had no comment but did look flustered, turned to his colleague, and asked, “hey, Sara, when did we become an international airport?”
Airline Potpourri
- Air Austral ended its partnership with Air Madagascar on Tuesday.
- Air Mauritius is increasing its domestic daily service from its Port Louis — not to be confused with St Louis — (MRU) hub to Rodrigues (RRG) to twice-daily beginning August 1.
- Air New Zealand extended its suspension of inbound international bookings through July 29.
- British Airways will resume service in August to Shanghai/Pudong with twice-weekly service.
- Icelandair lost approximately $110 million during Q2, after revenues dropped 85% YoY.
- Jet Time filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, but plans to reemerge under the name Jettime A / S as a new Danish charter company.
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
How many birds does it take to change a light bulb? Ideally you’d have three, but toucan.
