So this morning during my news hunt I found this story from Reuters. To quote it:
International air cargo shipments fell 2.7 percent in August while international air passenger traffic rose a disappointing 1.3 percent, airline industry body IATA said in a statement issued in Hanoi and published on its website.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Fell 2.7% compared to what? July 2008? August 2007? When one goes to the official news release, it turns out to be a 2.7% decrease compared to the same month last year. I think that it would be nice if news stories clarified data to make it easier for readers.
And that’s my nitpick for the day…
Court from Airplane Geeks sent this story to me this morning:
ZHENGZHOU, China, Sept. 27 (UPI) — Passengers in Zhengzhou, China, say they had to push a 20-ton airplane to the terminal after it flew 500 miles and broke down after landing.
Passengers were summoned to help after an airport tow truck broke down and airport staff couldn’t budge Shandong Airline’s CRJ7 passenger plane, which flew from Guilin in the south of China with 69 passengers and seven crew members aboard, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.
Read the rest here.
All I can say is wow, and I have no idea why that was required or allowed.
Hopefully this will not be the next fuel saving idea by the American carriers. 
There’s a good debate going on in the Southwest forum on FlyerTalk right now – Will Southwest Win the Fee vs. No Fee War? As I’m sure all of you know, Southwest has decided to not follow all the other airlines in adding fees for checked bags and other items. Some seem to be wondering if that will be effective in attracting passengers. So, time for a poll I think!
Do you compare airline fees before booking a ticket?
- Yes (76%, 44 Votes)
- No (24%, 14 Votes)
Total Voters: 58
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Happy voting!
Apologies that these are up a bit later than usual…
- The Alitalia drama continues, though it looks like the airline will keep flying.
- Shareholders of both Northwest and Delta approved the merger.
- Boeing expects the price of oil to stabilize around $70-$80 in 2008 dollars. That would be nice.
- Delta Shuttle is going to have first class, and travelers can earn double miles on shuttle flights to boot.
- There are some more regulatory hurdles regarding the DHL-UPS deal.
- Looks like some interesting things happened over at the parent company of Sun Country.
- I talked about Air New Zealand’s fuel-saving efforts this week, here’s an article on an upgrade to BA’s 777s that will help save fuel.
Ok, maybe I exaggerated a little bit when I said Alitalia was saved. I was just excited to see the thread on FlyerTalk. But, there does seem to be some progress being made with the unions! It appears that the CAI Consortium might make a new offer, and the unions might be willing to take it. It is also possible that Air France-KLM will take a minority stake.
Overall I’m hopeful for Alitalia. The unions really need to cooperate though. Yes, I know there will be job losses, but personally I think it’s better to have a smaller Alitalia than no Alitalia.
Check out the story here.
Today in the Southwest forum on FlyerTalk, SWABrian announced that Southwest is introducing “Fly By Security” for Business Select and A-List customers. Basically, they will have their own priority security line. I’ve read on FlyerTalk that in some cases Business Select passengers have gotten this privilege in some airports lately, though now it is official.
The porgram will be available at the “majority” of Southwest stations “in the near future.” On October 17th it will be available in Dallas, Phoenix, Orange County, Denver, and Los Angeles. I really like this move by Southwest, and I am sure it help attract the business travelers they have been trying to bring over recently.
The only issue some FlyerTalkers have found so far is that companions flying on a companion pass booking will not be able to use the priority line.
Edit 9-29: According to Cranky’s post today, families/companions of A-List holders won’t be able to use it, either.
If you want to learn more, check out the original thread.
Anyway, lots of good stuff to cover tomorrow, the NW-DL has been approved by stockholders and Alitalia has been saved!
Remember how a few weeks ago Midwest announced that it was trimming its mainline fleet from 25 to 9 717s, and would be replacing some of those with E170s?
The pilots at Midwest (represented by ALPA) aren’t too pleased with the move, and have filed a grievance. Here’s the main issue – initially, the E170s will be flown by Republic Airlines, meaing some Midwest pilots will lose their jobs.
The plan is to eventually have the E170s flown under Midwest’s operating certificate by Midwest pilots, though the union has a point about that as well:
When the deal with Republic was announced earlier this month, management said that Midwest pilots might operate the EMB 170s in the future on the condition that the pilots acquiesce to significant economic demands before management would be willing to petition the FAA to permit Midwest to add the Embraer fleet to its operating certificate.
We’ll certainly have to see how this develops…according the news story I found an arbitrator will be reviewing the matter in 30 days.
A couple of press releases involving Air New Zealnd came out yesterday. The first was one announcing that five 767-300s will be fitted with blended winglets. That isn’t too shocking because this is a popular option for many airlines, and there was another press release on it from last week.
That press release also mentioned that Air New Zealand has been participating in a special progam in San Francisco. Lo and behold, I just completely missed the press release. The airline is testing out a special kind of approach there. Basically, instead of the typical approach that is full of descending and leveling off, the aircraft starts descending at a gradual pace far away from the airport, without ATC directing them too much. I’m not sure if this is the same thing, but it seems quite similar to a program at LAX that Cranky describes
Then there is the airline’s biofuel effort, which I hope we will hear more about soon.
Finally, back to yesterday’s press releases. The second one anounced that dryers will be installed on a combination of 737, 767, 777, and A320 aircraft for a total of 42 installations. Apparently moisture is often trapped between the insulation of the aircraft and the skin, which increases the weight of the aircraft by about 200 kg, according to the press release. The airline hopes to save 500,000 gallons of fuel a year with this move. I’m not sure if I understand too well how the whole process works, so look over to the press release for their explanation.
I really have to give credit to Air New Zealand. They have certainly worked on a plenty of projects to help reduce their fuel bill, and I hope their efforts to find an alternative fuel find success.
According to ATW this morning, the FAA has approved a Delta-Northwest merger plan. In roughly 15-18 months, the airline will be on one operating certificate. The stockholders vote on the merger Thursday. Overall, I’m quite impressed with the way the merger planning has been going, and I don’t think there have been any major bottlenecks.
Speaking of mergers and using one operating certificate, all US Airways flights are now using Cactus as their callsign, which was used by America West.
British Airways has canceled all of its flights to and from Pakistan. The action is a response to the horrific terror attack on the Marriot in Islamabad that occured this weekend. Interestingly, the airline did not say when operations will resume. I wonder if any other airlines will make that choice. I’m hoping not too many passengers were stranded due to this move, though I’m sure BA alerted everybody.
I’m cynical whenever I read an article about Alitalia because it seems that every one says a collapse in imminent in a couple of days but they just keep flying. But, it does seem that the end is really starting to come now. From Reuters:
As concerns about Alitalia’s ability to pay for fuel grew, it suffered its first asset seizure with the Israel Airports Authority confiscating its bank accounts over a $500,000 debt.
And then…
Fantozzi meets civil aviation authorities on Monday to see if Alitalia can retain its operating licence, and he must then decide on announcing the public tender for Alitalia’s assets.
The authority says that if there is no feasible rescue plan, Alitalia’s planes will be grounded within a week to 10 days.
This is certainly a sad situation, and honestly I think the unions can be blamed here. Their constant refusal to accept any offers last week simply made the situation worse. I can certainly understand labor negotiations, but last week it seemed pretty clear: accept the offer or instead of some layoffs, the airline closes. Now it seems that they’re more open to negotiating, but it could be too late.
We’ll have to see how things develop I guess…
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