Thanks for all your support the last couple years. As you know, this is the last issue of Cranky Daily, but come to crankyflier.com every Friday to see the Cranky Weekly Review presented by Oakland International Airport to get your levity fix!
Delta Adds to Europe for Next Summer
Delta Air Lines announced a route expansion to Europe from three of its hubs: Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York/JFK.
From New York, the carrier is adding one new destination and new airport, beginning service to both Geneva and London/Gatwick. Delta last served Geneva in 1993 from Atlanta and last flew to Gatwick in 2012, also from Atlanta. Both will begin April 10. Additionally, JFK will see a third daily flight to Rome/FCO beginning on May 25. Delta will also resume service to Berlin, beginning nonstop flights from JFK also on May 25. Passengers on the first flight will hope that the crew remembers to fly to the new Brandenburg Airport since the last airport where Delta flew, Tegel, is turning into an office complex and that’s not a great place to land an airplane.
Los Angeles will be reconnected to Europe on Delta metal – flights to Europe had recently been operated by Delta’s JV partners Air France and KLM along with ITA. Service to Paris will resume on May 8 – it had been suspended since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, while LAX to London/Heathrow is back on DL metal for the first time since October 2015.
Atlanta will see three European destinations resume service – two of which were suspended due to the pandemic. Both German destinations paused from Atlanta in March 2020, Dusseldorf and Stuttgart, are back with 3x weekly flights each. STR will resume on March 26 and continue until Delta realizes nobody has bought a ticket, with DUS to follow on May 9. Delta will also resume Atlanta to Edinburgh, a route it hadn’t operated since 2007 with 5x weekly service beginning May 25.
Boeing to Pay $200 Million
Boeing will pay $200 million to end litigation and settle with the SEC after the government accused the manufacturer of deceiving investors about the safety of its 737 MAX aircraft. The SEC alleges Boeing knew the flight control system on the MAX posed a safety issue but declared publicly that the fleet was “as safe as anything that has ever flown the skies.”
In addition to the $200 million charged to the company, former Boeing CEO Denis Muilenburg also was ordered to pay $1 million personally to the SEC to settle the case. Despite ponying up the cash, neither Boeing nor its CEO admitted or denied it committed the purposeful fraud alleged by the SEC.
The money will be put into a fund to benefit investors who were misled and harmed by Boeing’s false statements with the rest of the cash funneled to Qatar to pay for its fight with Airbus over the paint on A350s.
Newark’s New Terminal Expected to Open in November
We couldn’t end Cranky Daily without one more story about Newark. The new Terminal A at the world’s 7th circle of hell Newark Airport is expecting to open on or around November 1, with United moving into 12 fancy new gates. It’ll add three more for a total of 15 in the ensuing weeks.
The terminal, which is expected to have a price tag of nearly $3 billion when it’s complete, will have 33 gates when finished. United will have nearly half those, with Air Canada, American, Delta, and JetBlue sharing the other 18 with the rats that have already moved over from the previous Terminal A. United says the new gates and space will allow it to expand its operation at the airport beyond 400 daily flights which seems like the last thing the NYC ATC situation needs.
United will split its operation between Terminal A and C at Newark, with 23 destinations expected to be focused on the new terminal including flights to other airline hubs and routes on which the carrier faces competition for in and out of EWR. Those destinations include: Atlanta, Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh-Durham, San Diego, Seattle, and Tampa.
- Canada Jetlines is a real airlines with flights now.
- Delta President Glen Hauenstein wants the Justice Department to know that he’s very busy and really doesn’t want to be deposed in its lawsuit against American and JetBlue.
- Etihad‘s search for a new CEO may or may not include several people named Bjorn.
- JetBlue‘s ground operation staff is looking to unionize.
- Qantas is bringing back vegetarian meals four days after scrapping them following a violent protest from the Chick-fil-A cows.
- SAS was fined by the Swedish government for its handling of its pilot strike on July 4.
- TAP lost a bunch of passenger data.
- Wizz Air wants its future Saudi-based subsidiary to have about 50 airplanes.
My wife left a note on the fridge that just said “No matter how hard I try, this just isn’t working. Goodbye.”
I opened it and it seemed to be working fine. Weird.