JetBlue Airways will continue limiting the number of seats it sells on each flight into early next year, CE Robin Hayes said Wednesday, citing the role the policy plays in customer confidence. The decision sets it apart from low-cost peer Southwest, which last week said it would stop blocking middle seats on Dec. 1, referencing recent medical research showing that the risk of contracting the coronavirus on airplanes is very low. “Our view is that over the course of time the seat caps will go, but right now it’s a very important issue for customer perception,” Hayes said. Hayes warned, however, that the policy is “incredibly expensive, especially in an industry that’s struggling.” JetBlue posted on Tuesday a $393m net loss in Q3 as a slump in travel demand due to the pandemic hit revenues. Like other airlines it is burning millions of dollars of cash every day. Hayes said he expects JetBlue’s business to be “largely recovered” by the end of next year given the low-cost carrier’s focus on domestic leisure travel, which is expected to recover before corporate and international travel. Business travel accounts for less than 20% of JetBlue’s flying, he said.<br/>
unaligned
In 2019, Frontier Airlines was on a roll. The ultra-low-cost carrier had inked a deal to buy the newest version of Airbus’s A321XLR jet. It was snapping up slots at airports abandoned by its competitors and launching nonstop service for unbelievably cheap prices. The airline ended the year on a high note, announcing it would invest $10m to build a new training center at its Orlando hub and open a third base at Miami International Airport in 2020. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, upending an industry that had been on the verge of another record-breaking year. Since then, airlines have furloughed more than 33,000 workers, despite receiving more than $50b in government support. Thousands more workers have left the industry permanently. Analysts are predicting it could be three or four years before passenger traffic returns to 2019 levels. Even so, Frontier CE Barry Biffle remains bullish on the airline’s prospects, arguing that at a time when fewer business travelers are flying, his airline’s dependence on leisure travelers means it is better positioned to weather the downturn. At the same time, he acknowledges that talk of expansion has been tempered by a harsh new reality as the entire industry faces a future that could mean fewer travelers not just for months, but years. The numbers are stark. Frontier expects to carry at least 20m fewer passengers this year than it did in 2019, when it flew more than 31m people. “We had high margins, low costs and a good growth trajectory,” Biffle said. “And then we hit a huge, massive speed bump.” Story has more.<br/>
Allegiant Travel Company, the parent of ultra-low-cost carrier Allegiant Air, is “flirting with break-even” as point-to-point leisure travel rebounds faster than other parts of the passenger air transport industry after it came to a near-standstill earlier this year. The Las Vegas-based airline on 28 October reports a $29m loss on $201m revenue, down 54% year-on-year during Q3 2020. But as the quarter progressed, the airline was no longer burning cash like its peers, and saw up to $3m in new bookings per day in both September and October, Allegiant’s CFO Greg Anderson says. While average daily cash burn for the quarter was $1.3m, September was “cash-flow positive for the airline”, he adds. “We had a very good quarter,” says Maurice Gallagher, chairman CE of Allegiant Travel Company. “I’m happy to say that we can report some optimism... It appears the domestic leisure space will pull itself out of the pandemic in 2021.” Following the collapse of passenger demand in March, “it was the end of our history as we know it”, he adds. Except for the month of June “each consecutive month has improved since that time”.<br/>
Southwest will commence operating flights for its new Chicago O’Hare service on 14 February, with 20 total departures to Nashville, Baltimore/Washington International, Denver, Dallas Love Field and Phoenix. The Dallas-based airline had announced earlier this month that it was expanding beyond its traditional footholds in Chicago and Houston by adding service at Chicago O’Hare and Houston George Bush Intercontinental airports. The carrier will continue to operate flights from Chicago Midway and Houston Hobby airports. Southwest is also adding service from Colorado Springs Municipal airport and Savannah/Hilton Head International airport in Georgia. Service from Colorado Springs will commence on 11 March. Southwest expects flights from Houston George Bush and Savannah will begin sometime during the first half of 2021.<br/>
A brawl broke out on a Spirit Airlines flight, which culminated in passengers throwing punches at one another and a woman being tasered by police. Video shared on social media shows the moment the woman leaps over an aircraft seat to hit another man who yanks on her hair, while cabin crew struggle to hold them back. The incident occurred on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on 26 October, although passengers have given conflicting accounts as to what started the fight. The man who filmed the encounter, Carlos Paredes, told CBS reporter David Begnaud that the fight broke out because “the woman refused to follow the airlines protocol to wear a mask”. Puerto Rico police also said that the woman in the video, identified as passenger Nyasy Veronique Payne, “provoked an incident by acting in what witnesses called an aggressive, hostile, and defiant behaviour.” She was accused of hitting 28-year-old Javier Lopez Cruz. However, another passenger on board disputes the story, saying the violence was initiated by a male passenger. It was the woman who was arrested and spent the night in jail.<br/>
Ryanair will temporarily cease operations from all Irish airports except Dublin for a one-month period, blaming “government mismanagement” and a “complete collapse in travel demand”. From 14 November to 12 December, the low-cost carrier’s Irish services will be entirely flown from Dublin, it said . “Ryanair recently announced its reduced winter schedule, taking capacity down to 40% compared to the prior year,” the carrier said. “As a result of continuous government mismanagement and a complete collapse in travel demand, additional cuts regrettably had to be made across our Irish airports.” That means the airline will not operate from regional airports including Cork, Kerry, Ireland West and Shannon during the period. Cirium schedules data shows it is operating 325 flights from those facilities in October, with Cork accounting for 150 of that total. In October 2019, it operated nearly 800 flights from those airports, according to Cirium data. “Operations will resume on 13 December ahead of the Christmas season to allow Irish families to reunite,” the airline added.<br/>
Emirates President Tim Clark postponed his retirement into next year to help steer the world’s largest long-haul airline through the toughest crisis in its history, according to people familiar with the matter. The 70-year-old, who had already delayed a June retirement plan, hasn’t yet set a departure date, said the people. Emirates hasn’t yet named a successor. Clark has been the architect of Emirates’ rise from desert outpost to the world’s largest long-haul carrier, with the biggest fleet of Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s connecting destinations around the globe through its Dubai hub. Yet just as he was due to the hand over the tiller, the Covid-19 pandemic plunged the global aviation industry into a prolonged slump that shows little sign of coming to an end. Emirates has had to cut thousands of jobs, idle the majority of its A380 fleet and defer jet orders. The carrier’s focus on lengthy international flights is particularly vulnerable as travelers shy away from long-distance travel, which is expected to recover more slowly than shorter journeys. Clark has been president since 2003, having been part of Emirates founding executive team from 1985. “I know what we did in the building of Emirates, and I know how the markets, particularly on the network basis, responded to what we did,” Clark said this month.<br/>
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has begun an investigation into a 300m ringgit (S$99m) loan from Sabah Development Bank Bhd (SDB) to budget airline AirAsia Group Bhd , an officer of the agency said on Wednesday. MACC director for Sabah state, S. Karunanithy, confirmed that the agency was investigating the loan approved by the Sabah state-owned bank but declined to elaborate. "We have started our investigation to look into whether there had been any violation," he told Reuters in a text message. Sabah-based newspaper Daily Express reported earlier on Wednesday that the state's recently installed Chief Minister Hajiji Noor had ordered a forensic investigation by an independent audit firm into the bank's decision, and called in the MACC. The investigation will look into how the funds were disbursed quickly within a few days of the installation of the new state government, the paper said, adding that the loan was approved on July 2. Former Sabah chief minister Shafie Apdal said he welcomed the investigation and that there was nothing hidden behind the loan. AirAsia last Friday said the loan had been approved and disbursed from the bank to its group of companies as part of the fund-raising efforts undertaken by the airline, but did not specify when.<br/>
SpiceJet is starting a seaplane service connecting the city of Ahmedabad with Kevadia, site of the world’s tallest statue -- a 182-meter tribute to the country’s first home minister, Vallabhbhai Patel. Flights will start this Saturday, the 145th anniversary of Patel’s birth, from Sabarmati riverfront to near the so-called Statue of Unity. Fares for the 30-minute trip on a 15-seater Twin Otter 300 aircraft start as low as 1,500 rupees ($20) one-way thanks to a government program that subsidizes tickets while offering free landing and parking to airlines. “Infrastructural challenges have been a key deterrent for providing air connectivity to smaller towns and cities,” SpiceJet Chairman Ajay Singh said. “With the ability to land on a small water body, seaplanes are the perfect flying machines that can effectively connect the remotest parts of India into the mainstream aviation network without the high cost of building airports and runways.” The Statue of Unity, about 200 kilometers to the southeast of Ahmedabad and also in the state of Gujarat, is double the height of the Statue of Liberty and about 40% taller than the Spring Temple Buddha in China. SpiceJet, which almost shut down in 2014 after running out of money, has focused on alternate sources of revenue, including cargo, regional flights with smaller planes and even retail. The airline said it has approvals for 18 seaplane routes. This is the first it will operate, through its subsidiary Spice Shuttle.<br/>