A headline on a Reuters story today says that American Airlines will discontinue their JFK-Stansted service “to manage costs.”  Um, I believe the costs they are managing are the costs of driving Eos out business.  Which they did.  Great job — keep up that fair competition.

I know that my readers will be interested in this:  Nevada’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel has offered to reimburse its customers $15 to cover American Airlines’ fee to check a bag.  I’m not sure if they’ll give you cash or $15 in services rendered.

You’ve no doubt seen elsewhere that American is now going to charge you to check your first bag. All of the stories, I’m certain, will have quotes from some travelers saying they’ll never fly again, and other quotes from travelers saying that they understand airlines have to make money. That’s the crux of [...]

Fuel cost have caused Oakland and LAX to lose existing and planned service:  American is pulling out of Oakland after serving the city for more than 60 years.  Oakland has also lost service from ATA, Aloha and Skybus in the past month or so.
JetBlue said that it will not launch planned service between LAX and [...]

American Airlines recently lost a lawsuit filed by skycaps in Boston who claimed they had lost wages because of American’s $2-per-bag charge for curbside check-in.  American’s subcontractor for skycaps then raised hourly rates for skycaps to about $12-14/hr, from the $5.15 per hour they used to receive (along with a hefty set of tips).
In response, [...]

A bit of a post-mortem on Eos:
Most of the articles about the bankruptcy have mentioned either oil prices or something related to the credit meltdown (Eos had additional financing lined up, but it fell through), but to suggest the airline failed because of either of those things is missing a far larger issue: Eos [...]

Continental Airlines gets all the credit in the world for their announcement yesterday that they will not continue their merger talks with United Airlines, instead they will persue some sort of vague alliance involving American Airlines and British Airways.  Until that’s a done deal, it’s not really worth speculating about (you can find that elsewhere), [...]

Former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall and I DO have something in common:  we both think the idea of airlines merging in this environment to be nutty.  In an op-ed in the NY Times, Crandall bashes the proposed (and rumored) mergers writing, “The case for mergers is unpersuasive. Mergers will not lower fuel prices. They [...]

US Airways announced its Choice Seats program where passengers can pay $5 to get an aisle or window seat in the first few rows of coach.
But that is nothing compared to the changes US Airways’ CEO say are coming down the ol’ pike.   You can read Douglas Parker’s note to his employees here, but [...]

I already wrote one (very, very) long post this week, so I won’t again, but just know that with Frontier’s announced bankruptcy yesterday, I officially nominate this as the worst 10 days in the history of aviation (excluding accidents, of course).  In case you’ve been elsewhere, here’s what’s happened:
– Aloha shutdown
– Skybus shutdown
– Champion shutdown
– [...]