Roundup

There’s a lot to catch up on…

• Qantas is expanding its flight schedule to the United States, effective March 2008, bringing total flights to 46 flights per week. The increased schedule includes daily service between Los Angeles and Brisbane effective March 27th; Increasing to 17 weekly flights between Los Angeles and Sydney, effective March 30th; increasing to daily service from New York to Sydney via Los Angeles effective August 14th; 38 flights per week from Los Angeles to Australia and New Zealand; Five weekly flights from San Francisco; Three weekly flights from Honolulu; and three flights per week from Vancouver via San Francisco, offered seasonally between June 16th and August 12th and between December 16th and January 27th.
• British Airways is increasing its fuel surcharge effective June 13th, increasing 5 pounds to 38 british pounds($75) and to 43 for flights longer than nine hours.
• US Airways began service from Philadelphia to Zurich on Friday.
• Continental Airlines will be able to sell tickets for travel on GOL, Brazil’s low-cost carrier. Delta has also entered into an agreement with GOL for baggage and ticketing effective July 1st.
• Airtran has extended its takeover offer for Midwest until August 10th despite the fact that the Midwest Airlines board continues to oppose it. The offer is at $15 a share up from an original $11.25.
• The FAA has upgraded Santa Fe Municipal airport to a Class 1 certification, allowing it to host regional jets carrying up to 60 passengers. Previously, with a Class 3 certification, they could only have 30 or less passenger planes and were limited to Great Lakes Airlines, offering flights to Denver under its own banner and that of United and Frontier. Most people flying out of the area opt to drive to Albuquerque, which is under no such restriction. Santa Fe could very well see regional service increase.
• US Helicopter and Continental Airlines announced a codeshare agreement to expedite transfers between the two. Continental flight numbers will now appear on US Helicopter flights to Newark.
• Yesterday, a Continental flight attendant, Norma Heape, celebrated 50 years of service with the company. Heape, number 1 on the Continental seniority list, was recruited from the Patricia Stevens Modeling Agency in June 1957, in those days when “stewardesses” were usually required to be pretty young women. She worked the inaugural flight of the Viscount aircraft in 58, the first Continental military charter in 1964, and the first 747 flight to Honolulu in 1970. Not once in her career has she missed a scheduled trip by calling in sick. Congratulations to Norma on her dedication.
• Continental, meanwhile, plans to defer the delivery of six of its thirty Boeing 737s scheduled to be delivered in 2009
• United Airlines is inaugurating new summer service, with seven new routes.
  • From Denver to:
    • Kalispell, Montana – twice daily on a Canadair Regional Jet effective June 7th
    • Maui – daily on a 767, beginning June 7th
    • Bakersfield – daily on a CRJ-700 with economy plus service, effective September 5th
    • Little Rock – twice daily on an Embraer Regional Jet effective September 5th
  • From Washington Dulles to:
    • Oklahoma City – daily on a CRJ-700 with economy plus service, effective June 7th
    • Little Rock – daily on an ERJ, effective September 5th
    • Ottawa – twice daily on an ERJ, effective September 5th
  • Chicago O’Hare to:
    • Halifax – daily served by an Embraer 170 with economy plus service, effective June 7th
    • Kalispell – twice weekly on Saturday and Sunday on a CRJ-700 with economy plus service, effective June 9th
  • San Francisco to:
    • LA/Palmdale, CA – twice daily on a CRJ, beginning June 7th
    • Taipei – daily on a 777, beginning June 7th
  • Los Angeles to:
    • Wichita – daily on a CRJ-700 with economy plus service, effective September 5th
• The Cranky Flier points out that US airlines are making it clear that “if you’re gay, they want your money.” It is nice to know airlines are not discriminating against people, but these sites aren’t particularly useful or helpful in their offerings.
• American Airlines is increasing its personal entertainment options on aircraft, including a test of personal entertainment players for rent on MD-80 aircraft between LA and O’Hare. Check out these pictures.
• American is also teaming up with radio host and entertainer Steve Harvey. Harvey will be running 30-second commercials on the show, some voiced by him and a banner will appear on his website and online newsletter. There will also be promotions, and airline employees will participate in a new live travel segment each month. American’s goal is to reach African American flyers.
• Go!, a Hawaiian division of the Mesa Air Group which has been engaged in a low-fare war for regional Hawaiian service, suffered a website crash due to volume when it attempted to sell 1000 $1 tickets on Monday. Go! extended the offer and doubled the number of seats as an apology. Go! has not had an easy time of it, and is competing with more established carriers Hawaiian and Aloha. Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of Mesa, responded to Hawaiian and Aloha declaring the $1 tickets as a desperate measure with some venom, “If this is desperate, I’d love to be as desperate as Ryanair, which sells 20% of its seats for free and is the most successful airline in the world…The people in Hawaii have not forgotten the days of the $100 fares before we got here and asking for loyalty now rings hollow.”
• Airbus said in an interview that the company’s annual plane deliveries should rise to 500 a year by 2009 and that things were on track with the A380 and the A350 aircraft. The Airbus 350 should enter service in mid-2013.
• The Consumerist has a continuing saga involving US Airways…which has a broken Lost and Found webpage…calling just tells you to check the website. No one at US Airways, known for its lapses in customer services, seems to want to take responsibility.
• Westjet, Canada’s Number 2 airline, is increasing its ancilliary revenue, fees for things such as baggage, inflight services, and other items now considered frills. As Reuters puts it, “Charging “little old ladies” to carry excess baggage on its planes and adding new routes are some of the ways WestJet Airlines plans to boost its profit, the company’s president said Monday…’Now we’re actually going to charge a little bit of money for taking that table and chair and those extra bags on board. And that incremental revenue that we extract from that little old lady is very, very profitable to us. Some 85% goes to the bottom line’.”
• The Helzberg Diamonds jewelry chain is looking for a “nice way” to thank a Midwest Airlines ramp worker who found and returned a Brinks Cargo box near Kansas City Airport with $266,000 worth of jewelry in it. There is still no explanation of how the box came to be in the middle of a street.
• Bombardier and Embraer are both denying reports that either is considering a partnership with Airbus to make 100 to 120-seat jets. We would think if either company wanted to make a larger jet, they just would. Bombardier has been considering it for some time with its C-series project.
• Jetblue is reviewing its strategies again, and plans to have a clearer picture in about two months of the airline’s future direction. The carrier has no plans to introduce first-class seating, a revenue generator, and is facing weaker demand and stiff competition from its rivals. New CEO Dave Barger has said that Jetblue may look at new routes in the West and Midwest for its 100-seat Embraer 190s, which have so far been flying out of its New York and Boston hubs. We would love to see them basing a few of these aircraft on the West Coast as well as Washington and Floridean focus cities.
• Jetblue also celebrated the fifth birthday of Jetblue’s TrueBlue frequent flier program. The program, with five million members, is most effective when you also have the Jetblue American Express card, which extends points beyond the twelve month validity period they’d have otherwise.
• Southwest expects fare prices to be under pressure this summer, which is bad for them and good for summer travelers. They also intend to increase the number of passengers on board and are looking into more code share partnerships with other carriers. Southwest, which has one code share partnership with ATA Airlines, expects to be in position to serve European and Asian destinations through a similar arrangement by 2009.
• United is looking for a merger partner with a Southern hub and a strong presence in the Northeastern US. We’ll have more on this…but we welcome comments on who you think they might do well with.
• US Airways may reach a decision this month on whether to proceed with its existing order for 20 Airbus planes or switch to Boeing aircraft. Airbus has made major redesigns to the Airbus 350, which US Airways has orders for, and will not start delivery of the aircraft till 2013.
• ATA announced new service starting today between Kona and Oakland three times weekly, Lihue and Oakland four times a week, and daily service between Las Vegas and Maui. These services, using 737-800 and 757-200 aircraft, will connect using its partnership with Southwest to Albuquerque, Burbank, Chicago-Midway, Phoenix, Seattle, Nashville, Spokane, LA/Ontario, San Diego, Denver, Boise, Los Angeles, Portland OR, San Antonio, and Orange County.
• Midwest will increase service to five roundtrips between Milwaukee and Minneapolis/St. Paul and reschedule an evening flight to early morning service from Appleton to Milwaukee to provide better connections.