The Incredible Shrinking Modes.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MODES. ✈️

(12/7/23)—With winter months scrolling onto its touch screens, Alaska Airlines has announced that it is warming up to Hawaiian Airlines in an ardently acquisitive way.

The Seattle-based carrier seeks to purchase the Sandwich Islands’ principal airline for $1.9bn from Hawaiian Holdings, Inc., stressing that the merged airlines would continue flying their separate brands and colors as they combine to increase their slice of Hawaii’s some $8bn annual passenger revenue pie –also expanding routes to Asian markets beyond.

Alaska’s CEO, Ben Minicucci contends that the consolidating airlines, long rivals, would become the lead dogs and dolphins to Hawaii, what with relatively little overlap (3%) in their respective route maps from major West Coast cities, and compatible aircraft fleets numbering 365 planes. The ‘great fit’ merger would allegedly better serve consumers with more flights to more Pacific destinations. And travelers would not be losing a budget airline in the process—which would take many months to implement at best.

Further, the “step change” purchase would enable Alaska Air to solidify its position as the nation’s fifth-largest carrier, and more effectively challenge the dominance of American, Delta, United and Southwest Airlines—which currently control nearly 80% of the domestic market.

As for Hawaiian Airlines itself, the carrier apparently welcomes Alaska’s lifebuoy, however lukewarmly. Because the Islands have faced a stream of challenges post-COVID: Namely slow visitor/revenue recovery, growing competition from SWA, aircraft delivery delays, and Maui’s wildfire devastation—to where Hawaiian Air has suffered net losses over 14 of the past 15 fiscal quarters.

Also factoring in is the reality that domestic (‘revenge’) travelers have been ranging increasingly international these days—another reason why Alaska’s Minicucci sees the deal offering a “tremendous amount of upside” all around.

Upside Downsides.

Still, there is something of a chill in the air over this entire palmy arrangement—and how it actually threatens to reduce price/service competition in the mainland-to-Hawaii sector by boosting combined market share to nearly 40%, double that of the next entrant, UAL.

This, while the federal Department of Justice continues to look askance at such airline industry consolidation (e.g., majors gobbling up smaller players’ planes and gates/slots), already filing suit to block JetBlue’s own ‘existential’ takeover of low-cost carrier, Spirit Air for $3.8bn—just after scuttling JB’s East Cost partnership with American Airlines. A federal judge in Boston is expected to rule on that Spirit acquisition in coming days, with vigorous industry competition and price-conscious traveler concerns holding in the balance. ☟

At any rate, it can be argued that the larger an airline becomes, the higher its fares/fees rise, the more flight selection/service decreases and seats/storage shrink in kind—revenue/profit margins never deemed profitable enough. Then there is the less-is-more specter of anti-competitive and consumer ‘harming’ hub/route monopolies, not to mention potential price-fixing collusion with impunity.

It appears only the federal courts, Justice Department (+ FTC) stand in the way of further airline consolidation—Anti-Merger Act of 1950, pandemic bailout leverage, union demands notwithstanding. So we may see a clearer touch screen on the JetBlue-Spirit case by mid December at the latest.

For their part, Hawaiian Holdings investors will likely be voting on the merger deal early in 2024. Meantime, Alaska Airlines basks in the glowing prospect of greater Island access and bountiful aloha spirit, even though Hawaiian air-raid sirens may instead be blaring in early-warning mode. (MTC…)

☟PLAYING SOME SPIRITED JETBLUEs.

(10/31/23)—The US Justice Department has now pressed a federal judge in Boston to block the pending JetBlue-Spirit Airlines marriage, after filing an antitrust suit to throw wet rice on the entire $3.8bn affair—determining it to be ‘against the public interest’. Attorney General Merrick Garland had concluded that a merger of two ‘budget’/ULC rivals would result in reduced competition and increased prices, putting “… travel out of reach for many cost-conscious travelers”: Namely via a 30% fare increase on the combined routes, according to JetBlue’s own projections, costing passengers upwards of $1bn in harm per annum.

Scarcely helping the carriers’ case is that JetBlue’s aggressive, if not hostile attempt at creating the fifth largest US airline by 2024 (wishful thinking?), had already rankled federal regulators by forging a cozy Northeast Alliance with American Airlines to more easily reserve/sell one another’s seats. Add in rumors that any newly merged JetBlue flights would offer fewer economy class seats (wow, that’s the Spirit!).

(Update 5/20/23)—A federal judge has since struck down that Northeast Alliance as a non-competitive ‘back-door’ merger in the making—a consolidating, cross-feeding partnership of heretofore fierce rivals that would stifle East Coast competition and raise fares, potentially costing travelers hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The proposed major airline merger itself, which would have been the first in the US since Alaska’s takeover of Virgin America in 2016, aimed at landing 10% of the domestic commercial market. JetBlue holds that it is truly a ‘bargain’ brand, lowering fares in whatever market it has entered, to more or less ‘disrupt’ the legacy carriers.

But DOJ countered that Spirit is really an ‘ultra low-cost’ (ULC) airline, (albeit via higher fees), that frequently takes on the majors in their own markets nationwide. That JetBlue hews more toward Big Four domination, and the merger would seriously dull Spirit’s feisty competitive edge—not least along the East Coast, connecting down to the Caribbean.

New York, Massachusetts and District of Columbia have joined the Justice Department suit, as since have Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina and California. So absent any negotiated resolution, brace to see them in court, and over the long haul, to be sure. (MTC…)

(10/20/22)–The final draw: All along, Spirit Airlines essentially played fellow discounter Frontier Group Holdings Inc. as a hole card to keep an already ‘blue-chipped’ JetBlue anteing up—no matter how the principals now spin it.

✈️ After months of bitter public haggling, four voting delays, Spirit investors trumped the carrier’s own board and handed its craven yellow jets over to JetBlue for a pot-busting $3.8bn cash. Once Frontier folded—standing pat and refusing to overbid beyond its $2.9bn cash-and-stock offer—JetBlue swooped back in, heaping planeloads of greenbacks on disSpirited stockholders to seal the deal.

The new, ostensibly conjoined carriers say their marriage, now fully shareholder approved, will be consummated by the second half of 2024, launching operations as the fifth-largest US airline (w/10% of the market) early in 2025. But that flight plan hangs on Justice Department regulatory approval of the merger, which is no pat hand given DOJ’s vigorous opposition to a current JetBlue-American Air Northeast Alliance (NEA) partnership, amid Biden administration antitrust concerns.

If, as Frontier has predicted, regulators nix the JetBlue-Spirit sale as being anti-competitive in an already over-concentrated airline industry, JetBlue will still owe Florida-based Spirit $70m and its shareholders a $400m ‘reverse breakup fee’. Either way, JetBlue will also be paying Spirit a monthly 10¢ per share ‘ticking fee’ from January 2023 until the deal fully closes.

Winner’s Losing Hand?

JetBlue’s blue-sky projections aside, the New York-based airline faces a long uphill slog to regulatory rice and bouquets. Industry analysts view its Spirited splurge a desperate move by an antsy higher-end budget carrier in dire need of precious pilots and more Airbus A320 aircraft—one now entering into years of swampy cross-cultural integration with a spotty banana yellow discounter like Spirit.

For its part, jilted Frontier is perhaps better suited for a powerful lone-ranger role as lead cowpoke in rapidly growing ultra-low-cost carrier territory, with a “lot of runway ahead.” And fuller saddlebags at that, since it will receive $25m from Spirit for its merger-related troubles, and $69m more upon Spirit’s striking the deal with JetBlue or any other carrier over the next 12 months, for that matter.

In any case, those same analysts note that passengers are usually losers in such consolidation plays; moreover “…we have yet to see an airline merger in the US over the past 30 years that has been good for consumers, labor…or even for the cities and regions in which they operate.”  We will see about that…

Otherwise, both Spirit and JetBlue, lowly 6^th and 10^th respectively in recent D.O.T. on-time performance ratings, have announced they would continue to operate independently with customer loyalty ledgers unchanged until this high-flying merger is officially cleared to land.

Until then, we’ll hold tight, flush with questions, seeing a bluffer’s bet that may well crap out before it actually wheels down onto the tarmac. (MTC…)

(7/15/22)—At a time when Spirit Airlines suffers a fiery landing gear touchdown in Atlanta, this was not the only iffy/heated landing the Florida-based ultra lowfare carrier is executing these days.

✈️ The latest development: Four of a kind beats a wait?  Nominal bidding frontrunner Frontier Group Holdings Inc. has requested a pause (to July 15) in Spirit Airlines shareholders’ vote (yet again) to give Frontier more time to sell its “last, best and final” proposal to more skeptical investors. Spirit’s board has obliged, extending the vote deadline until July 27, publicly continuing to prefer the Frontier scenario. It is essentially the fourth delay in this months-long merger saga, which finds rival JetBlue relentlessly sweetening it ante (now up to $3.7bn cash plus a per-month prepayment dividend), gradually wearing down the pro-Frontier Spirit boardroom crowd by the day.

Frontier holds fast to its bid ($2.7bn cash/stock), with a wild card of reverse termination fees should the US Justice Department ultimately nix the merger on grounds of anti-competition. Cushier low-cost niche player JetBlue has upped its firm breakup fee to $400m, while Denver-based Frontier counters with a $350m fee. New York-based JetBlue maintains that its wing-and-prayer proposal offers a better chance of federal regulator approval, despite a DOJ suit to block JB’s partnering with American Airlines. Moreover, proxy-advisory firm International Shareholders Services (ISS) advises the Spirit board to accept the “clearly superior” JetBlue offer its has been rejecting for months now in favor of Frontier’s truer budget-to-budget carrier marriage and its likelier prospect of passing regulator scrutiny.

The Frontier CEO doesn’t exactly exude mountain man confidence by now, his carrier remaining “very far” from corralling enough Spirit shareholder voters to seal the deal. Yet committed Frontier stays (that’s the Spirit!), whereas JetBlue is “…ready to enter a binding agreement with Spirit as soon as practicable…immediately following Spirit shareholders voting against the Frontier (bid) on July 27.”

Pot’s Right?

The increasingly bitter bidding gamble has been poison to both JetBlue’s and Frontier’s stock prices, but the Spirit jackpot—and it unifying promise of instant 5^th largest Big Air carrier status—appears to be a payoff too ski high to pass up or eventually fail. So, very public negotiations and advertising campaigns aside, two questions obtain after all these months:

Is JetBlue’s aggressive obsession with ultra lowfare Spirit Airlines coming out of strategic vision/ strength or fiscal, existential desperation? Conversely, will Frontier’s quieter, stand-pat strategy prove to be its last merger rodeo?

We travel consumers will soon discover whether a New York takeover artist or Colorado cowboy justice will at long last win this Spirited aerial showdown, and what it will mean to us. Nevertheless it is looking to be a bumpy, if not fiery landing either way. (MTC…)

(6/2/22)—Now look at what the Jet Stream Blue in: a $3.6bn counter offer for Spirit Airlines in a bid to expand its fleet and fly with the Big Four (namely American, United, Delta, Southwest= 66%+ of market).

✈️  Make that an all-cash lure (continuing to be rejected by Spirit Airlines, which cited thoroughly ‘unacceptable’ regulatory risk—leaning back toward Frontier’s offer as a better low-fare fit. JetBlue differs, so let another shareholder vs. seatholder battle begin):

Next step, JetBlue launches a hostile takeover ’tender offer’ directly to Spirit shareholders at $30 per share, $3.2bn total…nevertheless, Spirit’s board continues to urge rejection of JetBlue’s “risky…cynical” bid. But JetBlue keeps sweetening the pot, offering a higher ($3.4bn) deal, with an (anti-trust) breakup fee of $350m, prepaid as a shareholder dividend. Frontier stands pat (incl. a $250 breakup fee), and Spirit’s board members suggest they will play their hand later this month. Again, JetBlue’s aggressive bidding is meant to occlude the Frontier-Spirit merger plan announced in February☟—which was seen as forging a rival ultra-low-fare (U.L.C.C.) giant with compatible fleets of Pratt & Whitney-powered Airbus A320s. Affording cheap fares, albeit with minimal service and fees for select seating, checked bags and most everything else, that combined airline would supposedly comprise 10% of the domestic market and save passengers $1bn per year.

However JetBlue cites its “superior proposal”: a larger, more powerful challenge to the Bigs, grabbing some 8% of the US market while also bringing fares down. Such  a “perfect match” with budget carrier Spirit would boost its fleet to 450 mainly Airbus planes—by retrofitting some Spirit aircraft—with 300+ more ordered over the next six years.

Primarily a domestic US carrier, New York-based JetBlue could gain system range, given Florida-Based Spirit’s routes along the East Coast, legacy hubs west (Memphis to Dallas) and across the Caribbean and Latin America. This marriage would presumably establish a formidable ‘Fifth Major’ in market share (adding in JetBlue’s current coordinating ‘de facto merger’ arrangement with American Airlines), ostensibly offering low fares and “a greater travel experience.”

Not Surprisingly, Frontier (and its $2.9bn offer) argues that it and Spirit share more complementary bargain-fare, point-to-point business models in distinctly different regions. The Denver-based carrier paints JetBlue’s bid as creating East Coast overlap that would actually decrease competition, resulting in “more expensive travel”, since JetBlue is a decidedly higher-fare carrier known for its lie-flat beds seating, free Wi-Fi and full-serve meals, at least in premium business class.

Spirit itself has simply said the “unsolicited” JetBlue offer would be evaluated “…in the best interests of Spirit and its stockholders” within 10 business days—with of course little or no regard for us travelers. It also must be said that JetBlue is playing all sorts of hardball cards, not least filing ‘Vote No’ proxy statements to Spirit shareholders to reject the Frontier offer, while slinging mud at Frontier’s controlling management and Spirit’s board member ties with private equity outfit, Indigo Partners.

As to all that, Wall Street and most airline industry analysts quickly red-flagged the confounding, ‘out-of-the-Blue’ bid—skeptical that either merger would actually deliver as promised—none of the three carriers playing a particularly strong hand. For a time, JetBlue and Frontier shares were down some 8%, Spirit itself down over 3% before bouncing back. Clearly, these consolidation plays come amid a post-pandemic scramble for pilots, flight attendants and staffers as travel demand rapidly rebounds.

But whether the Department of Justice antitrust regulators climb aboard is another matter, since the Biden administration has already nixed the proposal for a more formal “Northeast Alliance” between American Airlines and…JetBlue.

Seems like more than ATC snags and congestion are affecting the overcrowded Florida skies these days. So will it be ‘pass the Spirits’, ‘thar she Blues’, or a rather expansive new Frontier? We still shall see…(MTC…)

☟CROSSING A DiSPIRITING FRONTIER?

(2/8/22)—If it’s not a flight, it’s a fleet. If it’s not a scheduling purge, it’s a carrier merge: Yet do two negatives make a positive?

Frontier and Spirit say positively, roger that, as the super low-cost airlines announce their plans to join forces, doubling down in a $6.6bn deal, essentially creating the nation’s fifth largest US carrier overnight. They would thereby be offering 1,000 daily flights to some 150 destinations in the US, Caribbean and Latin America. Even though their merger fanfare did face a rather inauspicious takeoff, with 130+ of Frontier’s flights and 25% of its operations being same-day grounded by a system-wide technical breakdown (said to be ‘quickly fixed’).

Nevertheless, Colorado-based Frontier is set to become the purchasing partner (51.5%), buying Spirit for $2.9bn in cash and stock. It brings its Western states network to the marriage, while Florida-based Spirit provides broader Eastern US coverage and more international routes. Both carriers fly only Airbus A320 series jetliners, fleets expecting to grow from 280 (combined) to upwards of 500 by 2026.

Targeted for a second-half 2022 close, this proposed fusion would vault ‘Frontier/Spirit’ past JetBlue and Alaska Air in terms of total miles flown by paying passengers, forging a giant budget carrier bested domestically only by the four biggies: American, Delta, Southwest and United—which control some 80% of the total airline market. It comes at a time when the three low-fare carriers (+ Allegiant) are rebounding more robustly from the pandemic downdraft (Q1 travel capacity per seat miles up 21-29% from 2019) than those lagging majors (down 16-18%). Because the leisure sector is surpassing business travel in passenger traffic lately—crammed coach seats faring better demand-wise than cushier first-class digs. Reason enough why their growth plans are soaring sky high.

No denying both airlines have suffered losses in the past two years. Spirit posted a $440.6m deficit in 2021 (federal assistance or no), after a far redder 2020 of $719.6m. Frontier lost $299m in 2020 and 2021. Still, their respective CEOs claim their merger will yield an aggressive ultra low-fare competitor to the majors with more consumer-friendly fares, thereby “saving passengers some $1bn per year”) and affording better point-to-point service (e.g., to underserved smaller cities) in this booming leisure travel market. They say a combined Frontier/Spirit will also create 10,000 new jobs by 2026, with destinations and communities also benefitting—i.e., win, win all around.

Then again, the two no-frills airlines bring dismal customer satisfaction ratings to the bargaining jetway. While both offer dirt-cheap base fares and minimal service, they routinely tack on extra fees for most everything else, not least carry-on bags. Spirit, which basically invented ‘ancillary revenue streams’, amassed the highest number of complaints (13.25 per 100,000 passengers) in Q1-3 2021, while Frontier rated 5.56 per, after a bruising 60.24 in 2020.

Little wonder merger critics fear a truer reality of this low-fare giant devouring smaller no-frills competitors—of fewer flights to fewer cities, with negligible service at higher fares and costs, particularly as passenger traffic increases come spring and summer.

Frontier Justice?

Ultimately the plan must first cross paths with a Biden administration that is prioritizing more competition in the airline industry. It notes this is the first such merger since Alaska Air swallowed up Virgin America in 2016, and such industry consolidation has resulted in the four major carriers shrinking from ten in the past 25 years. Which is perhaps why the feds aggressively blocked a recent American Air/JetBlue domestic ‘alliance’, and antitrust regulators will likely scrutinize the Frontier/Spirit merger plan all the more. This, despite the carriers’ assertion that a service overlap in merely 18% of their total routes limits the potential reduction of competition for passengers. And the combined airlines, currently ranked eighth/seventh respectively, will still only amount to 10% of the market overall.

At any rate, the Departments of Justice and Transportation will be the judges of that, as will the carriers’ respective pilot and flight attendant unions. And Vamigré will be crossing this new Frontier as well—if and when we should actually come to it. (MTC…)

SHRINK TO FITS.

(7/15/22)—Like cheap uni khakis on high spin dry, the shrinkage continues unabated, just as travel demand surges to fitful 2019 levels and beyond.

Most recently, and internationally: British Airways cut some 10,300 flights from its summer ’22 schedule due to capacity limitations: namely pilot and staffing (particularly tarmac/ramp workers) shortages. KLM Royal Dutch trims 2,000 scheduled flights, restricting ticket sales to acutely bottlenecked European destinations—Deutsche Lufthansa (2k cuts across the Continent), Air France and easyJet PLC following suit, with little public notice. Moreover, a pilots strike (1,000+) has so crippled debt ridden SAS AB that the leading Scandinavian carrier filed for Chapter 11 protection, under more favorable US conditions, for nine months to a year, cutting 50% of  its scheduled flights per day.

Seems at a time when inflation is hammering the euro, now on a 1:1 par with the US Dollar, travelers are attracted to relatively less expensive Continental destinations, even as historic heat and wildfires now rage across Europe.  Yet more Euro flagships are unfurling by the day…to where London’s Heathrow airport is asking airlines to cap ticket sales (at 100k passengers per day) for the summer into September.

This despite stern rejections from carriers such as Emirates, which charges the airport management with incompetence (as in baggage backlogs—a colossal bag lag perhaps triggered by a June conveyor belt failure), underfunding and overall consumer disregard. While Amsterdam’s busy Schiphol Airport is little better off, having set its passenger limits on June 16. (MTC…)

BAKED ALASKA?

(6/8/22)—The first conspicuous stress cracks in air travel’s projected 2022 rebound are currently cleaving Alaska Airlines.

For the Seattle-based carrier continues to be hit, and hit hard, by a searing pilot ‘work stoppage’ that has resulted in well over 550 flight delays/cancellations since May 1 and counting, waylaying tens of thousands of passengers, with no contract resolution on the horizon.

Over 3,100 Alaska Air pilots have forsaken their cockpits, some walking picket lines at Sea-Tac and other airports amid a nationwide commercial pilot shortage. The Airline Pilots Association union members have been locked in bitter contract negotiations with Alaska for three years, over issues of pay, job security and schedule stability. ALPA contends the carrier has not been bargaining seriously, and is attempting to blame pilots for its own mismanagement—not least its ‘half-baked’ systemwide preparation for a post-pandemic demand surge in air travel, which Alaska pilots say the company “should have seen coming all along.”

The carrier counters that a new pilot agreement is priority one, but “we must maintain growth and profitability for a strong future.” Claiming to have posted a meager $14m profit in Q4 2021 after $2.3bn in pandemic period losses, and now reporting a $143m Q1 loss (Wall Street projected $202m), Alaska Air still foresees improvement by June, even plans to boost its fleet by 100 planes to 400 overall, and hire 300 more pilots by year’s end.

Where they expect to find them amid a pilot shortage lasting as long as seven years surely raises questions of competence and safety at the cockpit controls flying forward, as this isn’t simply a matter of crash courses or OJT.  Moreover, more than 375 of the pilots Alaska has hired in recent months are from regional lines with experience solely on small jets or turboprops, while Alaska’s A320 or 737 training capacity is now limited.

Meantime, those contract negotiations are before a federal mediator, which have stalled to impasse thus far.  So the carrier is offering a bonus 150% of pay for pilots willing to pickup extra flights—as it was short over 60 pilots in early April—admitting its ‘operational performance’ has been suffering, further impacted by harsh weather across the land. But ALPA warns its Alaska Air pilots are stressed and over stretched as it is, and that over 50 have been already been poached this year by other carriers promising better, easier working conditions.

This, while the airline’s customer service ranks are similarly thinned. Which means suddenly stalled or scrapped flights and up to ten-hour call center wait times, frustrated passengers being grounded, rerouted with last-minute flight-day notification or dished off to competing lines. So we travelers are taking the Alaska squabble and shortage in the shorts, if not contracting bouts of halting ‘terminalitis’, with more airline aggravation and inconvenience baked in by the day. And no amount of splashy “We Care” adverts seem to lighten that load.

Alas, Alaska Air may be the first major carrier stricken by pilot/crew and staffing shortages this spring, but quite likely won’t be the last: A distasteful vernal entrée, to be sure. (MTC…)

EVEN MORE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MODES.

(5/16/22)—The inevitable post-holiday hangover portends an increase in fretful, untoward layovers well through early 2022.

To be sure, travel demand is down into the new year thus far—what with COVID-Omicron, rough winter weather and the usual January lull. And even leading US airlines are smarting from millions upon millions of dollars in Q4 2021 losses, only Southwest and Alaska Air eking out modest profits.

So rather than soaring forward anew into ’22, most carriers are scaling back. Overall, domestic airline seat capacity is down some 12% over 2019, internationally off 52%. More specifically, Europe’s capacity is down over 42%—same for Asia, Africa and the Southwest Pacific—South America and the Caribbean upwards of 25%.

What these numbers add up to is significant fleet and schedule shrinkage, ‘proactive reductions’ in the parlance of one carrier, an industry wide trimming of seat sales. Take American Airlines (advisedly), which has cut thousands of flights through March, 1-6 runs per daily, out of six cities: New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and L.A. The Ft. Worth-based carrier cites, COVID/Omicron infections, winter storms, pilot shortages and fleet delivery delays, but insists it is not actually exiting the cities long term.

Chicago-based United is similarly paring its Q1 schedule, noting steeper labor and fuel costs (jet fuel up 122% of late) as well. Atlanta-based Delta is grounding hundreds of flights in February on, saying it continues to work together around the clock to reroute and substitute aircraft and crews.

JetBlue has cancelled nearly 1,300 flights through January, struggling to get crews back to work sooner, what with COVID cases and staff furloughs. The New York-based carrier is “proactively reducing” flights “with as much notice to customers as possible”—although some of its passengers report phone tree holds of up to five hours.

Even slightly Q4 profitable Southwest Air (Texas) and Seattle-based Alaska Airlines are cutting flight schedules between 10-15%. And these hairy capacity ‘hair cuts’ account for domestic air carriers alone. The only sliver of light on this horizon is the emergence of several scrappy low-fare start-ups, such as Breeze and PLAY Airlines, which seek a competitive edge via exclusively ‘differentiator’ apps and text communication. Alaska-based Northern Pacific, sister of Ravn regional line, plans to launch one-stop service between the US and northeast Asia (on 757s, with an Anchorage stopover) this summer. Meanwhile, Oslo-based Norse Atlantic Airways seeks a foreign air carrier permit from the Department of Transportation to offer low-cost trans-Atlantic flights between California/Florida and Europe in coming months—routes recently ceded by Norwegian Air.

These newbies join Avelo Airlines, a Houston-based ultra low-cost carrier flying to a variety of heretofore ill-served domestic destinations out of Burbank, CA and New Haven, CT with a fleet of 737-700/800 aircraft.

Meantime, the majors’ widespread shrinkage leaves us travelers changing flights, itineraries, departure times, even hubs—if we are able to book a flights (particularly on non-stop routes) and board it at all. Moreover, as airlines adopt this less-is-more operational approach (e.g., easyJet is even stripping away available seat rows), we face the supply/demand conundrum of fewer choices at higher fares owing to arbitrarily limited flights, aircraft and crews.

The air travel squeeze is on, near term anyway. Reason enough why Vamigré will come to the lemon-aid in some potentially sour, if not fitful days ahead. (MTC…)

A/A to SWA, GOODWILL BLUNTING.

(10/25/21)—Whatever good terms and tidings took flight as pandemic travel restrictions loosened earlier this year were grounded this past holiday weekend as the world’s largest low-cost airline continued stranding thousands of passengers nationwide.

Over those past four days, Southwest Airlines cancelled over 2,300+ flights, delayed hundreds more, with no immediate relief in sight for travelers who have been lining up and camping out at airports coast to coast, desperately trying and paying dearly to change modes and plans—just like in the bad old pre-COVID days. The spiral of disruptions has cost (aggressively overreaching) SWA $75m in cancellations and exhausted its flight crews and staffs.

SWA attributes its latest schedule stripping (nearly 27% of its operational capacity) to foul weather and air traffic control problems plus pandemic-period staffing reductions—not least in Florida (hub to nearly 1/2 of its daily flights)—specifically citing a ‘hiccup’ at the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center. But the FAA counters that a few hours of military and staff training at the northern Florida facility caused no significant service disruption or air traffic control problems (e.g., affecting less than 2% of carrier operations for American and Spirit).

Instead the federal agency focus is on aircraft and flight crews being situated markedly out of place when the COVID  travel slump ended with an unexpected explosion of pent-up summer demand. Southwest does concede that its fleet and staffing reductions throughout the pandemic via furloughs, buyouts and early retirement packages will make “…getting back to normal more difficult and prolonged,” said SWA Chairman/CEO Gary Kelly. But more schedule paring and capacity crunches may be in order to clear its operational skies, as most all airlines struggle to hire and/or rehire, retrain sufficient pilots and staff.

Jabs=Jobs?

Still, that doesn’t address the condor in the cockpit here, namely the Dallas-based airline’s recent mandate for companywide COVID vaccinations (or weekly testing) by December 8 (with certain exceptions)—no matter what anti-mandate executive orders come down from the Texas capital. Some headline-grabby politicos are already blaming the industrywide federal VAX directive for SWA’s current system breakdown, suggesting that a pilot walkout may be at work.

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) denies any such union stoppage as “false claims”, stating that its members are “…not participating in official or unofficial job actions”, rather ascribing the widespread cancellations/delays to poor company planning—as in overreaching route expansion during the summer travel rebound, scheduling more flights than they can operate. And to date, no other vaccine mandated carriers have so far reported commensurate crew and/or staffing shortfalls—although SWA is surely not the only airline to be facing such logistical meltdowns.

In any case, Southwest has already been weathering a quite difficult 2021, with the worst on-time performance and largest percentage of flight cancellations among the four major US airlines in June and July. At the same time its pilots, flight attendants (timing out of FAA allotted air hours)  and mechanics—(let alone passengers)—have been complaining about the lofty budget airline’s downdraft and staffing cuts (some 7,000 fewer employees than in pre-pandemic times). Some assert that Southwest routing/operations have become “brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure”, what with out-of-position aircraft and tightly margined crews scattered, stranded to the winds.

An unsparing assessment to be sure, but given how bluntly the carrier is throttling the goodwill of its travel-hungry passengers, not exactly out of place thus far—absent some quick SWA qualitative pleasing and quantitative easing.

(10/31/21)—Southwest is not flying solo on this count, however, as the Utah-Based SkyWest regional airline had to cancel (463) and delay (900) more flights October 21-22 due to cascading “operational disfunction: i.e., its crews and aircraft were “out of position.”  Now, et tu, American Airlines—cancelling nearly 2k flights over the Halloween weekend (12% of its operations), delaying nearly 30% of its entire capacity—citing, what else: foul weather (limited to 2 of 5 runways in windy DFW) and staffing shortages (of flight attendants and ground crews). Trick or mistreat?(MTC…) 

Faalures, Close Shaves, Shrinking ’Scapes.

Is Southwest Heading Southward?