- Porter is boosting service to Toronto from Boston, adding a fifth daily roundtrip during the week. Air Canada and American Eagle go there as well, though they fly to Pearson (Porter goes to Billy Bishop City Airport).
- Air Jamaica is going away on April 12th, when operations pass over to Caribbean Airlines.
- And, most likely on a related note, Air Canada is boosting service to Kingston, Jamaica. That destination, which usually gets served with an A319, will be seeing a 767 on some days.
- GOL and American are getting closer, enhancing their current frequent flier partnership. Codeshare flights are expected to launch sometime in the second quarter.
- Hawaiian has ordered an additional A330-200 for delivery in the second quarter of next year, bringing its total orders of the type to ten aircraft. Deliveries begin in April and extend to 2014. Three years later, Hawaiian will receive its first A350.
Archive for the 'Saturday Links' Category
I know, it’s been forever since I’ve done one of these. Sorry about that!
- A bunch of US airlines (American, Continental, Delta, Hawaiian, and United) are vying for access to Haneda, and Cranky has all the details.
- Frontier is pulling out of San Jose, California, where it currently has two daily flights during the week, and both Southwest and United have higher frequencies on the route.
- Alaska and Horizon are launching paperless boarding passes in some markets. Alaska is finally getting a mobile website, too.
- Lufthansa’s pilots will be striking from Monday to Thursday this coming week. The airline, will, however be operating some flights – click here for a schedule.
- Qantas is taking first class off 9 of its 747-400s, and 8 A380s on the way wont be getting first at all. Flight has all the information.
- American is furloughing 175 pilots, in addition to the nearly 1,900 pilots already there.
- Japan Airlines (JAL) filed for bankruptcy this week (to no one’s surprise). Of course, the battle between American and Delta (and therefore, oneworld and SkyTeam, continues).
- The US Airways A320 that landed on the Hudson last year (registration N106US), is now up for auction.
- Jon Ostrower reports that LAN has swapped some 787 delivery slots with ANA, enabling the former to get some 787s sooner.
- Air France has some PR issues this week when it adjusted its policy for the larger passengers out there. They actually made the policy more favorable, but unfortunately the media didn’t see it that way.
- Can you believe that it’s been a year since US Airways flight 1549 landed on the Hudson River?
- Sean Menke has decided to resign, and I agree with Cranky’s take on this: it can’t be good.
- Alaska just launched a miles promotion for residents of Oregon and five counties in Washington.
- Jon Ostrower has a very well-written post reviewing the first month of flight tests for the 787.
- Mary Kirby provides an update on Southwest’s in-flight Wi-Fi – apparently they still haven’t made a deal with Row 44.
- Boeing now has no orders for the -3 variant of the 787, as ANA has converted its orders to 787-8s.
- Aer Lingus is cutting back its Gatwick base, which is only about a year old.
- EasyJet has announced a slew of new routes.
- Is a second stretch of the CSeries going to happen? One Wall Street analyst appears to think so.
Finnair’s new business class seats. Photo credit: Finnair.
- Finnair has taken delivery of its first A330 its with new business class seats (pictured).
- Midwest and Frontier have now expanded their codeshare to include Midwest’s Kansas City flights.
- Singapore is making some capacity adjustments on some routes, including increased flying on some United States routes, with SIN-EWR service going back to daily, and SIN-DME-IAH service getting a fifth weekly flight.
- Everyone here has most likely heard about the attempted attack on a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Thankfully, the attack was unsuccessful. All of the details aren’t known at this point, but security measures have been increased, including restrictions on carry-on items and additional screenings. If you’re flying to the US from another country, check with your airline and consider getting to the airport earlier than usual.
- Ryanair is going the way of many American carriers and placing advertisements on boarding passes. Who knew airlines on this side of the pond beat Ryanair to a source of ancillary revenue?
- The British Airways cabin crew strike was ruled illegal, which is obviously great for passengers, but only delays the inevitable if Unite and BA can’t come to an agreement.
- In an incredibly generous move, British Airways passengers traveling during the would-be strike period are being given bonus miles – up to 25,000 for those in premium cabins!
- Continental has signed up to have Aircels Gogo service installed on 21 757-300 aircraft. But, interestingly, it will still be testing out LiveTV’s Kitline service on 737-900ERs. Hmm. Of course, Mary Kirby has all of the details!
- A Japanese newspaper is reported that JAL is most likely going to go with Delta and join SkyTeam…but nothing’s final yet.
- The uber-handy Great Circle Mapper has created its 100,000,000th map! Congratulations to creator Karl Swartz on this achievement, and thanks for creating such a useful tool!
- Copa has ordered two additional 737-800 aircraft.
- bmi has sold some of its Heathrow slots to other Star Alliance carriers.
- Whoops! A Qantas spokeswoman decided to complain about JetStar on Twitter. Apparently she forgot that the airline is owned by Qantas.
- Australian authorities have approved the joint venture between Delta and Virgin Blue.
- Swiss has announced that they’ll be launching service between San Francisco and Zurich next year.
- In addition to the SAN-HNL route from Delta that I wrote about a short while ago, they’re also bringing back Detroit-Honolulu service.
- Korean Air has become the second customer for the 747-8I (the other is Lufthansa). Interestingly, both are also A380 customers.
- Virgin Atlantic is removing half of the Upper Class seating in the upper deck of its Heathrow-based 747s to be replaced with economy seating. Virgin tells me this move won’t be affecting “Snooze Zone” service, though.
- Lumexis says they have a customer for their new IFE system. Cranky takes a few guesses as to what carrier has made the order.
- An interesting report on the Irish Travel Tax commissioned by Aer Lingus, CityJet, and Ryanair was just released. As one might expect, the results haven’t been too great for the airlines.
- JAL is now receiving assistance from the government-owned Development Bank of Japan.
- Jon Ostrower explains the pros and cons of the A350 and 787 for United’s upcoming order.
- Remember Northwest flight 188? Well, the ATC transcripts have been released.
- Continental, ExpressJet, and Mesaba have all been slapped with fines from the DOT as a result of that ExpressJet flight that spent the night in Rochester, Minnesota last August.
- CNN has a cool article on “mileage millionaires.”
- ANA is upgrading its seating options, and Cranky has the pictures we can all drool over.
- Found via Benet Wilson’s famous “Strange But True Aviation News“: a man ended up making his flight divert after stealing a beer and trying to flush the can down the toilet. Really.
- Jon Ostrower has some great pictures from the Dubai Air Show.
- There is speculation that United will be making an order from either Airbus or Boeing in the next few weeks.
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