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.
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.
Airline hubs are often surprising and, if you are an airline enthusiast, you already know that Atlanta is the world’s largest airline hub. Others are obvious but do can you name the top 10 airline hubs in the world by traffic? Answer after the fold:
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.
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.
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.
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.
The US Export-Import bank has announced it will begin backing narrow body aircraft purchases with low cost loans for US domestic airlines. This means domestic airlines purchasing Boeing 737 can now access the same low cost loans that foreign airlines have been getting. Why?
Because the equivalent Canadian institution has decided to do the same for the Bombardier C-Series.
This is good news for airlines, particularly in the United States, because I think we’re going to see a storm of low cost loans made by various governments to support the purchase of new aircraft. No doubt the European governments will do the same to support Airbus. The gloves are off.
I don’t know if this is good for the airline industry, however. Newer, more efficient aircraft in the fleets is good but this kind of loan storm, if it happens, could also have the effect of encouraging airlines to stretch their finances to take advantage of this and airlines do not need to be stretching right now.
In addition, these kinds of loans can distort the aircraft marketplace long term. A buying binge can result in a drought later. I’ll take stability over a flurry of purchases any time. Droughts can stymie aircraft development and I would far rather see a new Boeing narrowbody rather than another 1000 Boeing 737s sold. It’s better for everyone all the way around.
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.
Everyone is aware of the KC-135 tankers and they’re often thought of as 707 tankers but they are not. The KC-135 has the slightly narrower original fuselage and was developed in parallel with the 707 but it is not a 707.
Some may even know of the KC-130 tankers used which refuel aircraft through a chute/drogue system.
And there are the mighty KC-10 tankers which are prized both for their ability to offload fuel as well as carry cargo.
But can you name the other three tankers developed from US made commercial airliners? The answer is after the fold. . . (more…)
jetBlue has this most excellent commercial for making its point on baggage fees. Far better than even what SWA has done so far. It’s notable, however, that while jetBlue doesn’t charge for the first checked bag, it does charge after that. It charges $35 for the second bag and $75 for the third bag.
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.
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.
There has been a new agreement found between British Airways and cabin crew union Unite to settle the long running fight between the two. This stops strikes set to begin again at least until after the union itself votes to accept the deal. Union leaders are recommending agreement.
The breakthrough essentially comes as a result of British Airways agreeing to restoring full seniority perks it withdrew during the conflict. New BA CEO, Keith Williams and former Unite negotiator and now leader, Len McCluskey are receiving credit for the new agreement.
I’ve got three thoughts on this: First, Willie Walsh (now CEO of International Airlines Group, holding company of BA) should have made this deal last year. It cost nothing and it was fairly punitive. Second, if you think that Keith Williams did this without OK from Willie Walsh, you’re just kidding yourself and that makes the fact that this has gone on as long as it has somewhat silly. Finally, this isn’t over until it’s over. The union has a history of militant behaviour in this conflict and despite the leadership recommending acceptance, I wouldn’t count this as done until it does win an approval vote. Furthermore, even if it does win approval, I’ll wager that it will be by slim margins at best.
Once done, the airline and the union need to restore not just peace but harmony and take a long look at how this is avoided in the future. That’s a tall task but necessary in this economic climate that airlines operate in.
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.
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.
The Dallas Fort Worth area has a number of operating airports including DFW, Dallas Love Field and Alliance Airport. All busy commercial airports.
Long before DFW International was built, Dallas was served by Love Field and Fort Worth was served by Meacham Field. The FAA grew weary of funding two airports for the city and Fort Worth was tired of being second fiddle to Dallas.
Question: Can you name the first airport built between Dallas and Fort Worth and and where it was built?
