In a deal tentatively agreed upon and subject to Frontier Pilots Association ratifying it, Frontier pilots will get an equity stake in Frontier Airlines. 

Parent company, Republic, led by CEO Bryan Bedford, has so far struggled to make Frontier truly work under its business plan.  Why?  In Frontier’s case, it was based upon lower oil prices (aka lower fuel prices) than exist today.

While Republic’s regional airline business is continuing to do well financially, Frontier’s isn’t.  It doesn’t help that it is hubbed in Denver and surrounded by two 800lbs gorillas:  United Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

Both United Airlines and Southwest have made it clear that they are there to stay in Denver while Frontier has flailed about attempting to survive.  One has to wonder if the Southwest purchase of Frontier wouldn’t have been a better deal both for employees of Frontier as well as investors.

In hindsight, Southwest’s “loss” in the bid for Frontier now looks like a far better choice and its admirable they walked away.  Now they’ve filled spots in their route map that were “must haves” and get to integrate a fleet and flight crew that more closely matches their own.

It’s notable that Frontier is struggling in its two focus cities of Milwaukee and Denver.  Frontier is bracketed with Southwest and United in Denver and bracketed with Southwest and Airtran in Milwaukee.  

In addition, Frontier lost the man largely reseponsible for producing profits at Frontier:  Sean Menke.  Menke has just agreed to go to work for Pinnacle Airlines, a competitor of Republic.

Is Frontier over?  No.  Can it survive in the long term?  Only if it breaks out of being in entrenched battles for its cities.  So far, Frontier has mainly concentrated on building new routes to lesser cities that connect back to its Denver hub and Kansas City focus city.  It needs more coverage across the United States and there are few cities that are ripe targets for Frontier’s entrance at this point.

In addition, starting new routes is mostly only possible with Republic’s E170/190 jets as it has no more A319 jets on order and only one more A320 jet due this year.  Additional A320s are to be delivered starting in 2015.

Republic Airways does have Bombardier’s CS300 on order (40 orders and 40 options) but those aircraft aren’t due until 2014 officially and they are likely to be as much as 2 years late.

One has to question whether or not a stake in Frontier has that much value over the next several years.  In the past, airlines could survive for years and still bleed money.  Today, airlines have to manage their cash very closely and Frontier isn’t generating enough positive cash flow to have a very optimistic future.  It’s possible that Republic could keep the company afloat but only with further concessions from labor and I think that is unlikely.

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Delta Airlines and Virgin Australia have gotten their approvals for an anti-trust immunity agreement to cooperate across the Pacific between the United States and Australia.  They did so, in part, by promising to keep up frequencies between the two countries.

This doesn’t mean that routes won’t be rationalized.  The frequencies will stay the same, the routes won’t.   These two airlines will deploy their 777 aircraft on routes that are complimentary rather than competitive.  Expect V Australia 777s to start arriving in San Francisco to replace QANTAS’ recently withdrawn flights.

Delta’s 777-200LR aircraft can potentially make the flight between Atlanta and Sydney (although with a touch of payload restriction) and provide competition to QANTAS’ new 747-400ER flights to Dallas/Fort Worth.

And for the first time, there is real competition for the QANTAS/British Airway/American Airlines Oneworld consortium.  Virgin Australia can provide domestic connections to Delta in Australia and Delta can provide domestic connections to Virgin Australia in the United States.

John Borghetti, CEO of Virgin Australia (and formerly an executive with QANTAS) has made it clear that he intends that Virgin Australia be a strong competitor with QANTAS rather than an constant underdog and he has experience with building networks as a result of working for QANTAS for many years.

Look for quite a bit of new competition on routes between the United States and Australia and I think United is going to be the airline to take the hit.  United has pretty old aircraft with a pretty old service product and no partners in Australia to assist with feed.  They also have no new large widebody aircraft to carry passengers with either although they will have the 787-8 with which they can start direct flights to New Zealand and Australia from cities in the United States that have never traditionally seen direct flights.

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So, Delta got hit badly by a viral Youtube video made by two soldiers among a group of 30+ soldiers traveling under orders back from overseas.  Because they (the group) mostly had 4 bags instead of 3, Delta charged $2800 in extra bag fees (for the entire group) and then got pummeled with bad press for it.

Before we go further, let me say a couple of things as qualifiers.  First, I’m no fan of baggage fees although I think that when anyone is traveling with more than 2 checked bags, yes, a fee is probably in order.  Second, I am not anti-military or anti-GI whatsoever.  Their government service is appreciated by me as well as most.

Now, airlines have typically allowed 3 free bags to traveling servicemen under orders with fees for in excess of that.  That alone is exceptionally generous and it isn’t a kindess to the servicemen, it’s a kindness to the US Government and, by extension, taxpayers.  Why?  BECAUSE TRAVELING SERVICEMEN UNDER ORDERS HAVE THEIR BAG FEES PAID REIMBURSED BY THE US GOVERNMENT.

From USA Today’s story:  “Army spokesman Paul Boyce says the reservists won’t be out anything because their traveling orders stated that all excess bag charges will be reimbursed by the government.”

The airlines aren’t imposing a hardship on servicemen.  In fact, they giving the US government a considerable break on fees instead.  Why is an airline obligated to giveway services and take a hit on revenue just because its government travel by GIs?  It isn’t in my opinion.  To the contrary.  Why isn’t the US government paying for the services it receives from airlines?

In other situations, airlines would heartily argue that giving away such stuff to other parties would raise *your* ticket prices.  They wouldn’t be wrong in that argument. 

Absolutely we should support the troops.  And I (and you) contribute taxes that pay for their travel (as they should) and it should be paid for in full and responsibly.   How would we feel about airlines giving away (for free) services to other public servants?  We would probably be pretty angry and concerned about that.

This may be wholly unpopular but I would offer that Delta is not the villain here.  The US Army is culpable for not making prior arrangements to transport its troops without financial burden. 

It is inappropriate and, frankly, lacking class to make a video, put it on Youtube and turn a company into a villain for something your command structure didn’t identify and take care of.

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Southwest CEO Gary Kelly spoke about using Baltimore’s airport (Baltimore Washington International – BWI) as a “hub” for international flights some time in the future.  He described it as being a number one consideration during conversations about Southwest going international.

Before anything else, don’t go presuming that Southwest is about to buy trans-Atlantic aircraft and start low cost services to Europe.  They aren’t as there is way too much on their plates right now.  However, it is another logical area to grow into once they are done digesting Airtran in about 3 years and provided the market exists at that time.

Quite a few might question using Baltimore but it does make sense.  It is relatively uncongested and offers the ability to not just draw those in Baltimore to its flights but also from the Washington D.C. and Philadelphia areas as well.  In addition, it connects nicely to all of the cities that Southwest services in the eastern half of the United States.  Furthermore, it is likely that any LCC airline taking on such a venture need not be tied to a major international airport such as JFK or Philadelphia or Washington Dulles.  In fact, they would probably want to avoid such airports because the cost of congestion is far higher than the cost of attracting people to some place like Baltimore.

Potential customers for this kind of airline service won’t be business oriented.  These will be leisure passengers looking for a great deal.  You won’t see business class on these airplanes but I do think you’ll see assigned seating.  (Assigned seating is almost a must for a widebody aircraft, IMHO.)

What kind of aircraft?  It won’t be 757s and I don’t *think* it will be 767s.  Although, it is interesting to contemplate the economics of an all economy 767-300ER new build aircraft for trans-Atlantic flights.  Many have thought that the 767 will remain competitive on such routes vs the 787 and that might be true.  787s?  Maybe but I think Southwest might have missed the train when it comes to advantageous pricing on that aircraft and I don’t think SWA will find used 787s on the marketplace anytime soon.

Airbus A330s almost seem interesting until you consider just how many people you would have in a high density, all economy aircraft like that.  It feels like too many and the same is true for the 777-200 (but I think you could almost make a business case for early build 777-200 “A” models that are starting to be retired by airlines such as United.)   The fact is that the 767-300 or 787-8 fits the size category almost perfectly and size will drive this choice. 

So will dispatch reliability because someone like Southwest needs an aircraft they can push into high utilization for such routes.  Not only would trans-Atlantic service require good load factors but it also requires frequency that uses that aircraft on 2 to 3 segments a day.  It’s doable and it is doable with the 767.

But at the end of the day, it’s all speculative right now and I do not expect SWA to announce anything like this at all until at least 3 years have passed.  In the meantime, they’ll gain experience operating Airtran’s international flights and learn how to deal with foreign travel.  They can buy and/or engineer new IT infrastructure that will meet the needs of such flights.  In short, don’t go planning a family vacation to London quite yet.

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I had to fly to Chicago again this past weekend and took Southwest once more.  That caused me to consider Southwest as an airline with respect to where it is and what is happening with it today. 

In many respects, Southwest remains my favorite airline.  I like how they move their planes.  I like their seats and I like the prices quite a bit, too.  They still largely have a friendly and motivated staff and they take their jobs seriously.  Their service is far more consistent than many other airlines and, as an airline, they’re pretty creative in how they get the job done.

I’m also a bit irritated with them and I’m really irritated with the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. 

I’m irritated with Southwest because of the now 3 flight attendants who have tried to either A) move my briefcase from the bin above me to the back or B) tried to convince me to move it under the chair in front of me.  All because they are unwilling to say “no” to the new business travelers they have carrying their entire life with them.  I was traveling on business each time.  I had a lot of stuff with me in fact because of the work I was doing and I still managed to check my bag.  Ironically, I got into my ride’s car in Chicago and left before several of the business travelers managed to who were waiting for taxis. 

But don’t tell me that the overhead bin is reserved for large suitcases.  Poppycock and balderdash.  They aren’t, they never were and just because you find gate checking bags difficult doesn’t mean you get to move my briefcase to the back of the plane to make it more convenient for someone else to put their large suitcase up in a bin.

I’m also irritated at their gates.   Their gates in Chicago and Dallas are cramped, hot and uncomfortable.  Even with the new “business areas”, they are cramped, hot and uncomfortable.  So much so, that I realized I was getting tired from just jockeying for a seat in a gate area.  And you know what I noticed?  Many of the seats are being taken up by people putting their large bags in the seats.  There has to be a better way.

Southwest has announced that they won’t withdraw Airtran from DFW until November 21st and now Dallas and Fort Worth mayors are being crabby about that.  Well, I tend to agree that getting that done earlier is unlikely to be a very difficult thing to do and is unlikely to inconvenience many more additional passengers.  But it irritates me because this is, in part, who Southwest has become as an airline.  They’re becoming the company that doesn’t cope with its size very well.  It’s lethargic because it lacks the IT infrastructure to deal with its size.  They could be a lot more agile than they are.

I’m irritated with the City of Dallas because Love Field really is abysmal as an airport.  Yes, it’s being renovated and that means inconveniences but that does not mean that restrooms need to be dirty and stores and restaurants need not act entitled to every last dollar bill in my wallet.  The terminal is blazing hot already and nothing has really been done to accomodate passengers during this construction.

Frankly, this is a job that should have been done 10 years ago, not scheduled for completion sometime in 2014.

The way the use of Love Field airport is being dictated even post 2014 is silly.  I get that Fort Worth wants to be a Big City and they aren’t small, for sure.  But please quit acting like your whole world crashes if airlines use Love Field.  It was the preferred airport in the Metroplex back in 1959 and remains so today.  It’s a shame that Fort Worth couldn’t support a similar airport but they couldn’t do so in the last 50 years.  DFW serves them very well and it isn’t inconvenient to most of that city. 

If Fort Worth needs more airline access, how about we let them build an airport in south west Tarrant county?   The entire Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex has over 6 million people.  We can support more than just DFW airport these days.

But the petty squabbling that goes on between these two cities over airports is just stupid in 2011.  And both Southwest and American Airlines could stand to get a bit more real over that subject as well.  Let’s not be naive:  the reason both those airlines continue to poke and prod the city governments over the issue is driven by their desire to continue to monopolize their respective airports in the area. 

Southwest could stand to become a better airline and I think they’re actually headed towards some serious trouble.  They’re innovating on the customer side but I don’t see them investing in their infrastructure quite the way a big airline should.  Holding on to perfectly good things is fine but you must reinvest in your systems from time to time to continue to grow and compete.  Let me point out that Southwest is using a reservations system it bought from Braniff originally titled “Cowboy” and developed in the late 1960’s.  Yes, it’s basic reservations infrastructure is 50 years old and never was all that good to begin with.

Why does this irritate me?  Because I think Southwest is good and it could be really great but for how slow it is moving these days.

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It’s somewhat difficult to believe that the America West / US Airways merger was closed in 2005.  It’s 2011 and the US Airways pilots still don’t have a unified contract to work from.  There is no doubt that a good deal of primary fault lies with the pilots themselves who:

• Couldn’t agree on how to merge a seniority list between the two unions.
• Couldn’t agree that ALPA was their representative.
• Elected a new union in place of ALPA in order for the US East pilots to take over the union.
• Sued each other multiple times.

Now they’re suing US Airways under the supposition that US Airways has been materially altering the contract under which they’ve been working by unilaterally imposing changes.  US Airways says they think the suit has no merit.  I think the suit has merit but before it can progress, I think the pilots need to get their house in order first.  Without that done, who has standing to bring such a suit?

The pilots, both East and West, need to agree on union representation and seniority merging and then get to the business of negotiating a contract.  Sadly, the business of negotiating a contract can take from 2 to 4 years and that means this may not be done before 2015 or 10 years after the merger.  You can’t blame US Airways for taking advantage of that situation either.  Who wouldn’t?  It keeps costs low and they’ve clearly found a way to operate their airline on two different contracts.

The biggest enemy to US Airways pilots is the pilots themselves.

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Here is the basic summary:  The plane appears to have lost indications for speed in flight (although not in turbulence) while the Captain was taking a rest period.  The two inflight pilots systematically worked the problems but without much luck and resulting in a stall.  The captain did not take control.  The pilots appear to have “pulled up” instead of nosing over despite stall indications that were recorded.  The aircraft had gone into “alternate law” which does *not* prevent the aircraft from being flown into dangerous conditions.  The first read is that the pilots screwed up.

What gets ignored is that it also appears that the pitot tube(s) that were recording the speed of the aircraft did in fact freeze up which caused a loss of speed indication on the primary flight displays.  At their altitude, speed is a very fine envelope of conditions.  It’s possible to go too slow and too fast and the higher you go, the narrower the difference is between the two conditions.

The very puzzling thing is that 3 very, very experienced A330 pilots appear to have attempted to “pull up” (i.e. go nose up which would *slow* the plane) when things began to happen instead of pushing their nose down which would recover from a stall.  It’s always sporty recovering a stall in a large airliner but it *is* something one trains for. 

So, is it the pilots?  They may have perhaps contributed to their problem, yes.  But their actions make me wonder what information they were seeing on their backup instrumentation.  In other words, did they realize they were in a stall?  The A330 has no stick shaker and, instead, has a loud audible warning for a stall.  Presumably this could be heard on the cockpit voice record. 

The way this happened is just a bit too eery still.  With the altitude they had, there was nominally plenty of height to recover from problems.  Air France isn’t Colgan Air and they do train their pilots very, very well.  Their actions may suggest that they were reading their conditions very differently from what they actually were. 

The next step is to take this into a simulator and starting seeing and experiencing what happened and try to figure out the “why” of what happened.  This “ruling” is by no means definitive or informative necessarily.

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Omni Air International has received 180ETOPS approval to fly the 777-200ER in its operations.  Omni is purchasing these aircraft used from United Airlines and that means they’re a bit lower powered and range restricted with the Pratt & Whitney engines than you find on many airlines’ 777-200ERs today.

But it is an interesting development because now we’re seeing 777s moving into charter and freight operations.  Freight operators are purchasing new build 777-200Fs.  Omni performs a variety of charters for both leisure markets as well as the US government.  The US government charters are flights to and from the US to the Middle East/Middle Asia areas. 

I suspect that we’ll see a number of these move into Omni’s operations to displace their DC-10-30s operating those routes today.  

This is a development because it means we’re seeing airlines retire older 777s and charter operations are seeing a use for the aircraft.  That means the cost of ownership and operation for these aircraft has reached an acceptable entry level for these operations.  I would not be surprised to see someone other than Boeing develop a freighter conversion for older 777s that should begin entering the marketplace soon.

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QANTAS began flying to and from Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport just a few weeks ago and they’ve already experienced a somewhat unusual diversion.  QANTAS Flight QF8 flying from DFW to Brisbane, Australia diverted to Noumea, an island in the South Pacific, to take on additional fuel.  The diversion caused the flight to be late by 2 hours and, no doubt, a bit unprofitable.

There have also been stories of baggage being left behind to reduce weight on these flight.  The flight between DFW and Australia is arguably the longest possible on the Boeing 747-400ER.  QANTAS is the only airline to fly the -400ER and the nominal max range with maximum payload on this aircraft is 7670 nautical miles.  The shortest distance between DFW and Brisbane is 8300 nautical miles.

This means the QANTAS aircraft is already flying payload restricted to achieve the route distance so it is quite possible that some baggage is getting loaded.  Ironically, the 777-200LR could probably fly the same number of people on the same route with unrestricted payload.  This was an aircraft that QANTAS found unsuitable for purchase.

Future QANTAS 787 aircraft will be capable of flying that route and I would expect that that will be one of the first routes to see the 787 although the -8 versions will be barely capable of the flight to Brisbane as well.

QANTAS is smart and I would expect that if this becomes a trend, they’ll re-think the route or look for other equipment to put on it.   If the load factors remain consistently strong, they may well choose to put an A-380 on that route as well.  Much of this new route depends upon how much American Airlines can feed traffic to it and I suspect they can feed quite a bit. 

The thing is, the last thing they want is this flight developing a reputation for taking even longer due to diversions.

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Sean Menke, former CEO of Frontier and former EVP of Republic Airlines has now decided to join Pinnacle Airlines, regional airline to Delta Airlines, US Airways and Continental Airlines.  Pinnacle owns Pinnacle Airlines, Mesaba Airlines and Colgan Air (Colgan Air is to be phased out as a brand.)

This, to me, seems like a step down for Menke who I think would have been an excellent candidate for a number of front line airlines.  Since I don’t believe in steps down for an executive of his calibre, I would expect that Mr. Menke sees opportunity for Pinnacle where others don’t.

Still, that’s a tough sell.  Regional airlines are not bastions of high profitability and most (including Pinnacle) having looming problems both with servicing their airline customers as well as dealing with the airliner fleets that are a bit fat with non-profit producing regional jets.  

My own dream job for Mr. Menke was that American Airlines would hire him, preferably as CEO although the likelihood of that was extremely slim.  He has the innovative thinking that a legacy airline could use to compete in the emerging environment we see in the US airline industry. 

I don’t see this as Menke wanting to start a mainline airline with Pinnacle assets.  He’s smart enough to know that CRJ-200s aren’t a recipe for success in such a thing.   The next best guess is that Menke sees an opportunity to introduce some revolution into regional airlines and since he’s already had a good look at the business from his time at Republic, this is my bet.

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Spirit Airlines is privately held and venture capital has been a bit eager to start exiting the fairly successful airline.  Not because of bad weather ahead for Spirit but because venture capital does expect to cash out of investments and it’s time for this one to provide benefits to investors.  So Spirit is doing an Initial Public Offering and it doesn’t look so good.

Right now, pricing is about $12 per share and that’s $2 to $4 lower than expected.  Investors appear skittish over the IPO and likely due to oil prices.  I see this as a pretty good near term investment as the airline manages to earn good profits and has made itself stable.  It’s exceptionally low costs mean that it can weather oil prices more than many airlines who often start pulling capacity on the leisure routes that Spirit often serves.

Is this a bad sign for airlines?  No not really.  The markets are skittish in general and there really isn’t a lot of investment money out there right now anyway.  This IPO gets Spirit into the marketplace and as investors perform well on the stock, they’ll likely sell more stock in the near future and show a good result for themselves.

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Alaska Airlines is doing something pretty innovative in their cockpit.  They’re giving their pilots iPads for use as an Electronic Flight Bag.  Currently, pilots lug around as much as 25 pounds of paper that includes manuals of various sorts during their work day. 

Now they’ve got a 1.5 pound iPad and, by all reports, it only is lighter but quicker and easier to navigate to the required information.  It even saves them money over the long term because that is 20 pounds of weight times two they’re no longer carrying with them on every flight.

This was a great innovation and they expect to also include approach plates for various airports in the near future.  I would even expect to see this adopted for flight attendants (who also have to access large paper manuals) sometime in the future as the technology is proved through pilot use.

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Virgin America is doing what I have wished an LCC carrier would do to American Airlines for 10 years:  compete with them.  In December, they took up the challenge to compete against AA on the DFW-LAX/SFO markets and they’ve done pretty well.  Virgin America knew going in that it was an long term investment and that they would see a strong reaction from AA.  Of course, that’s no surprise since VA CEO David Cush is a former senior AA executive.

Now Virgin America is set to start competing with American Airlines and United Airlines on routes between Chicago and LAX/SFO.  The response from American Airlines tells a story.  According to the Dallas Morning News Aviation Blog, American Airlines is giving away a “special gift” that includes:

“. . . a $100 discount for future travel that is booked on AA.com, a $150 voucher for bookings on AAVacations.com, 5,000 AAdvantage miles and an Admirals Club pass and $50 discount on a one-year membership.”

If Virgin America was looking for any confirmation of the threat it presents to AA, there it is.  That’s a pretty special gift to try to keep business customers away from VA.  As incentives go, that’s a pretty surprisingly high price to pay.

And it doesn’t surprise me in the least.  The VA product should compete exceptionally well against the AA offerings.  The difference in the physical service product alone is the difference between night and day. 

I’ve now heard a number of first hand stories from people flying VA out of the Dallas area and, anecdotally, I’d say that AA is in real trouble.  The responses I’ve heard have uniformly been expressed as shockingly impressed with the aircraft, service product and staffing.   This is from corporate travelers, not the occasional vacation flyers. 

I think VA has identified that it can compete and it can erode American Airlines’ strengths on routes and I think we’ll see VA look to do it on more and more American Airlines “core” routes while they also nibble on United Airlines as well.  Right now, I would say that Delta is somewhat safe from VA but they also have Southwest to worry about so they aren’t exempt from pressures.

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Christopher Elliott, a pro consumer problem solver in the travel business, has this excellent opinion piece about a drive on the part of several consumer advocacy groups to get recent FAA rules regulating airline behaviour codified into federal law.   His stance is that this isn’t something that the public has asked for and I couldn’t agree more.

I tend to be a bit more “pro consumer” in this blog myself.  The tarmac delays and some other behaviours needed to get addressed but these issues are, in my opinion, being more than adequately addressed by the current FAA rules.  In fact, if anything, I think we need to review the “3-Hour Rule” some time soon.  In my opinion, this rule needs to be lengthened to 4 hours and that is what I advocated originally. 

I think we need rules on baggage fees as well as other unbundled service charges airlines are making.  I think they should be oriented towards enforcing performance on the part of the airline charging for the service. 

There is no question in my mind that the recent baggage fee rule does very little to the benefit of the consumer since it only addresses lost baggage.  Nothing is being done about requiring performance from airlines on delayed baggage and that, in my opinion, is a far greater problem.

But making this stuff into federal law is a very bad idea in my opinion.  It doesn’t gain better performance from airlines and makes it much more difficult to change rules to fit changing circumstances.  Laws have inertia and that inertia can be very bad for the airline / travel industries. 

Making those rules *will* have the effect of adding significant costs to the price of travel and will *not* have the effect of making the experience one iota better. 

This is an answer to a question that has already been asked and answered plenty well enough.

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It started with an announcement from American Airlines that they had received an inquiry from the US Justice Department whose anti-trust department has decided to look into the behaviours of Global Distribution Systems. AA barely contained its glee in the announcement and just a short while later the GDS companies themselves announced that they, too, had received inquiries.

Does this spell the beginning of the end? No, not at all. In fact, I’ll wager that ultimately there will be no case and the GDS systems will be left alone. But it’s a bit of a black eye in the interim and certainly a PR win for AA (and US Airways) in the meantime.

Ultimately, the GDS systems will have to find a way to lower costs for airlines and a way to make it possible for airlines to customize their product. The truth is, GDS systems have a very old architecture for distributing these airline tickets and it needs innovation.

The best solution for both sides of the argument is working out better arrangements altogether. They still need each other and, at the same time, neither can do without the other’s business permanently just to make a point.

Airlines want to be treated as valued customers rather than as captives to system that has no regard for the changing business models they’re experiencing. This deveolopment may in fact cause GDS companies to start self examination in this respect.

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China has told Airbus directly that there will be potentially severe consequences if Europe goes ahead in requiring China to participate in the Emissions Trading Scheme next January first.   The scheme requires airlines to buy carbon credits to offset pollution created by flights to and from European countries.

China’s response is somewhat loud and even hysterical but it isn’t poorly targeted.   By threatening Airbus directly, they send a very direct message to France and Germany and even the United Kingdom.  All countries who benefit considerably from sales of Airbus aircraft.  Airbus is to France and Germany’s economy as Boeing is to the United States.  And the United Kingdom’s aerospace industries do a healthy business with Airbus as well.

Already Germany and the UK are working to find an alternative to requiring China to participate in this and this is bad business.  Permitting a threat like this to inspire such a reaction puts you in the position to be not treating all trading partners the same and it puts you in a weak position when it comes to your future business in that country.

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As the new United airlines has worked towards integration between United and Continental, two flight numbers got reinstated:  Flights 93 and 175, the United flight numbers of planes involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks.  Typically after a disaster, an airline “retires” flight numbers to simply avoid the controversy that might erupt around them.  And United had avoided these but in “harmonizing” schedules, these two appeared available to sync with Continental flights that do use the numbers.

United’s flight crew unions immediately slammed the airline for this and have expressed their outrage over such a mistake.

“How could these flight numbers have been ‘inadvertently reinstated’ as the company indicates?” asks Capt. Wendy Morse of the United branch of ALPA. “The pilots of United Airlines expect accountability of how these flight numbers were considered in the first place.”

I’d like to suggest that everyone take a breath.  First, this was a mistake and an understandable although regrettable one.  Second, it was corrected immediately upon discovery.  Third, United’s corporate response to this was nothing but brief and deferential. 

You have to wonder at unions who want to make such a thing political when it comes to those flight numbers.  It’s militancy at its worst and more distasteful since United’s was a mistake the union’s moves are intentional.

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By now, most have heard of the successful data capture of the flight data and voice recorders on the Air France A330 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.  What has disappointed me most in this is the near instantaneous (for crash analysis) pronouncement that was leaked to the press stating that there was no obvious airframe fault. 

Disappointing because it is all too common that the press neglects to mention a few things.  First, both Airbus and Air France have manslaughter charges pending against them as a result of this crash.  France’s practice of doing this, in my opinion, severely clouds the issues that need to be settled and puts a highly charged political context to the investigation.  It’s notable that the French government has a huge stake in Airbus and still retains a take in Air France. 

If it is a fault with the aircraft, Airbus will potentially suffer marketplace setbacks and if Airbus experiences that on what is their most successful widebody, the nation of France will feel it too.  It’s a conflict of interest, plain and simple.   It’s easy to see who gets thrown under the bus in this:  the pilots.  If it is pilot error, Air Frances suffers but doesn’t suffer a lot and Airbus is vindicated.  If it is a maintenance problem, France’s flag airline suffers a lot and Airbus suffers a bit as well.  If it is Airbus’ fault with design, France’s shining monument to aerospace suffers a lot and Air France suffers a little bit, too.  Pilot error is the desired judgement in this.

While there have been attempts at politicizing air disasters in the United States, we also have so far maintained mechanisms to avoid that as much as possible.  As a result, there is a great deal of credibility on the part of the NTSB when a ruling is finally made. 

Not so in France who has already managed to spend 10+ years managing its image with respect to the Concorde by making Continental Airlines and a DC-10 the whipping boy in that disaster.  The not so distant crash of an A320 on a test flight in France also managed to taint the pilots as the source of most of the problem as well.   In fact, I would say that if you are a pilot in France and you’re flying for a French airline and/or a French built aircraft, your reputation is quite likely to suffer in the post crash analysis. 

The truth is that pilot error is very frequently a contributing factor in disasters.  People are human and pilots are people and human do make mistakes.  Particularly in a fast moving crisis.  Today’s pilots are almost always not where such things start, however.  Even when we discover pilot error, it almost always starts with poor airline procedures or training. 

I find the reporting that has already occured on this disaster (the Air France A330) in the French media highly suspect and a signal that we’re already finding a reason to not find blame in French industry.  No one should be making any pronouncements about any data within the first 48 hours of analysis.  I would wager that any NTSB investigator would blanche at such an idea. 

This is a huge dissservice to the airline industry and public safety.  Maybe it *is* pilot error and if it is, then we do a disservice by clouding it with acts that appear political.  If it is a fault in the airframe, we need to know about it and we need to most specifically avoid missing that conversation as a function of blaming a pilot.  If it is a fault with the airline and its procedures, the airline needs to fix those procedures and a public discussion on what happened will help other airlines fix their procedures as well. 

Allowing blame to creep into this so early and so loudly only negates the value of a crash analysis.

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American Airlines and QANTAS are filing for anti-trust immunity for a joint business agreement between the two airlines across the Pacific between the US and Australia. This doesn’t mean revenue sharing at the moment because American Airlines doesn’t have flights on those routes.

This request doesn’t come as a surprise whatsoever and fits neatly within what AA has been doing with all of its Oneworld partners. Not only does AA not have flights to Australia and New Zealand now, I honestly don’t believe they’ll have them in the future.

There is a reason why QANTAS is coming to DFW airport and it isn’t to provide interim lift for AA. I’m certain American sees QANTAS as the perfect airline to operate those routes and sees itself as the aggregator of traffic for QANTAS.

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United Airlines has about 1800 flight attendants returning from voluntary furloughs soon and Continental Airlines is due to be short about 800 flight attendants in the coming year. The holding company wants the flight attendant unions to help out by agreeing to shift employees between the two separately operating airlines.

The two airlines are merged but they are still operating from two operating certificates which are some time away from being combined into one. The unions are due to hold elections and then begin negotiating seniority lists thereafter. United says it can’t wait that long, however.

My prediction? You won’t see any cooperation from old United flight attendants on this issue. In fact, I’ll wager that they’ll use this as a bargaining chip against United management. If Jeff Smisek, CEO of United (and former CEO of Continental), thought that things would operate much as they did at Continental when it comes to employee cooperation, he’s in for a rude shock.

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