Joe Sharkey At Large

More details on that Qantas flight over the sea off western Australia yesterday in which more than three dozen passengers were injured, some seriously.

The plane, an A330 carrying 313 passengers and crew, climbed about 300 feet from its 37,000 feet cruising altitude before “abruptly pitching nose-down,” according to the accident report on the Aviation Safety Network. The report says a possible “systems irregularity” combined with sudden turbulence was the likely cause. It isn’t clear yet what the “systems irregularity” might have been.

By the way, I just love the quote from an Australian air-transport safety official in today’s Wall Street Journal. He says, “certainly, there was a period of time when the aircraft performed of its own accord.”

Here on planet Earth, we define that as  “fell.”

A plane that abruptly pitches nose-down has a remarkable ability to concentrate the attention.

Here’s a detailed report in the Australian, a newspaper, with comment from passengers who literally hit the ceiling.

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There’s been another safety-related incident on a Qantas airliner, this one on an A330-300 that suddenly lost altitude on a flight to Singapore from Perth, Australia. At least 36 passengers were hurt, a dozen of them seriously.

This is the latest in a series of recent incidents involving Qantas, which has long prided itself on having one of the best safety records in aviation. The most serious previous incident was in July, when an oxygen container exploded in a cargo hold and blew a hold the size of an SUV in the side of a 747 that then had to make an emergency landing.

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Interesting to see some business-trip expense accounts are still riding high while the rest of us are scrambling.

It seems that executives of AIG, the big fat insurance company we all bailed out recently to the tune of $85 billion, had themselves a swell executive retreat — right after the bailout — at a super-expensive Southern California oceanfront resort, the St. Regis Monarch Beach.

Here’s the $443,343.71 hotel bill, by way of a Huffington Post link today to the House Oversight Committee’s Web site report on hearings into the bailout.

Rooms at the St. Regis Monarch Beach run from $565 to over $1,300 a night, by the way.

Hey, it’s just dough, and it’s expense-accountable, right? And that $23,000 the high-fiving AIG swells spent on hotel spas during their week of resort R&R after the taxpayers bailed them out? Hell, they’d just been through a very stressful time, friends.

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The company that owns Minneapolis-based Sun Country Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. In a statement, the company said:

“Petters Aviation and its subsidiaries, including MN Airlines, LLC, d.b.a. Sun Country Airlines, filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Sun Country Airlines will continue to operate and fly its regular flight schedule.

Stan Gadek, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sun Country said, “We were forced to take this action as a result of recent events at Petters Group Worldwide. We do not anticipate any disruptions, and expect to operate business as usual… Customers can book their flights in confidence and know that they will continue to receive the great service that they are accustomed to on Sun Country.”

I’d take issue with that “book with confidence” assertion. Make it, book with caution. And remember: If you do book on Sun Country, use a credit card because by law credit card charges are refundable for services not rendered, such as a flight that disappears if an airline suddenly goes belly-up. If you book with a debit card, or pay with any other form of currency, you are not covered.

And incidentally, the “recent events at Petters Group Worldwide” is a reference to an FBI raid last month on Petters headquarters.

Petters Aviation is a wholly owned unit of Thomas Petters, Inc., and owns MN Airline Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Sun Country Airlines.

MESA AIR, meanwhile, is “reducing staff across the board,” its chairman, Jonathan Ornstein, told ATW Online, an aviation news site. Facing a projected $250 million drop in revenue this year, Mesa Air Group is finding it impossible to “support the same level of overhead,” Ornstein said, without adding details.

For August, Mesa reported a 13.9 percent drop in revenue passenger miles flown on an overall drop of 24.5 percent in total passengers boarded. Delta Air Lines dropped its contract with Freedom Airlines, a Mesa unit, in August.

Mesa currently operates 159 aircraft with over 800 daily departures to 126 cities, 38 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, the Bahamas and Mexico. Mesa operates as Delta Connection, US Airways Express and United Express under contract with Delta Air Lines, US Airways and United Airlines, respectively, and independently as Mesa Airlines and go!, the Hawaiian carrier that links Honolulu to the neighbor-island airports of Hilo, Kahului, Kona and Lihue.

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Airlines are having such a hard time selling tickets these days that an old joke can be adapted to fit the situation:

CUSTOMER — “What time does the flight to San Diego leave?”

AIRLINE CLERK — “What time can you get here?”

Good news for frequent fliers. In general, with airline traffic falling sharply, this is a very good time to redeem frequent-flier miles for award tickets and upgrades.

Meanwhile, Virgin America just upgraded its award-trip feature online. Here’s the announcement.

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Minnesota’s Sun Country Airlines is warning employees that it could shut down later this fall, but hopes to stay in business.

A month ago, Sun Country joined some of the big guys in alienating customers and added a fee ($12) for the first checked bag. Not that an annoying extra fee could put you out of business in this terrible economic climate, but it sure can’t help you keep customers loyal. Sun Country’s basic problems, of course, are the FBI investigation of its parent company (see post 9/25) and the credit crunch.

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The world really is changing.

Southwest Airlines said today it will introduce priority security lane access for its Business Select and Rapid Reward A-List Customers at select airports.

Southwest said it will open the lanes, branded “Fly By,” at these airports later this month:

Baltimore/Washington International, Dallas Love Field, Phoenix Sky Harbor
International, Orange County John Wayne, Denver International, San Francisco
International, and Los Angeles International.

Southwest said it plans to add more airports to the Fly By rollout starting in November, continuing to implement the priority security lane program throughout its
system on an airport-by-airport basis.

To use the lanes, passengers must have an A-List identification card or a Business
Select boarding pass.

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