Airline Fanatic

Breaking News: American Airlines announced this morning that they will divest themselves (investment speak for sell) their American Eagleregional subsidiary next year.  I think this is probably good news for them.  American Eagle has lots of old aircraft and probably runs a lot of American’s shortest and biggest money losing routes.  Cutting them out will definitely improve the financials at AMR.

Shareholders were pleased with the announcement – American Airlines stock (AMR) is currently up about 8% on the news.

[Via PlaneBuzz]

Ben Mutzabaugh of Today in the Sky has a post up about a report out of Boston stating that Hainan Airlines(which is re-branding itself as Grand China Air) will start nonstop China service from the northeastern city in 2009.  The new service would use Hainan’s Boeing 787 aircraft, so the exact start of service depends on Boeing’s delayed delivery schedule.

Grand China Air’s hub is in the southern city of Haikou, but I highly doubt they would offer nonstop service all the way from Boston to there.  A more likely situation is service from Boston (BOS) to Beijing (PEK), also a city served by Grand China.  The bottom line however is that this is not an announcement, just rumors circulated by a paper, so nothing may materialize at all.  Having said that it does seem fairly reasonable to assume that Boston would get a nonstop China flight sometime in the future.  Sit tight Bostonites!

It’s been a long road for Singapore Airlines in their bid to take a combined 24% stake in China Eastern Airlines, but today they are one step closer to the final sale.  A date has been set for China Eastern’s many shareholders to take a vote on the sale to Singapore, on January 8th.  The ownership structure of China Eastern seems to be quite complex, with several state and private interests making up the biggest chunk of outstanding shares.  The way the vote is organized however (shareholders in Hong Kong and Shanghai will vote simultaneously, and state owned players are not allowed to vote) indicated the sale will proceed once the vote finally takes place.

Donal Trump Jr. just put an editorial piece in the New York Times explaining to America just how normal he is, and that even he gets stopped at security for asinine reasons. I can’t really tell if the article is more about Donald the Younger trying to convince Americans he is just your average Joe, or if he really believes the fact that he got a secondary screening at an airport is worthy of an article in the Times. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two explanations, but here is a quick summary anyway:

Obviously, in this day and age, security needs to be tight. But it was an alarm clock. Despite my best efforts in trying to explain the situation, security shut down the lane. I felt like an idiot. And by the way, no one much cared about what I had to say.

The T.S.A. agents called in the state police. It took them only five minutes to figure out that I was indeed carrying an alarm clock. One of the officers spoke to the gate agent on my behalf, while I was being held, sockless and shoeless, in the screening line. The whole alarm clock affair took about 25 minutes.

Sometimes it pays to be a Trump. Frequent flying isn’t one of those times. But at least I got my alarm clock back.

I’ve been in and out of Laguardia enough times to recognize the 727 sitting on the tarmac with a huge TRUMP on the side of it.  I’m sure it costs a hell of a lot of money to park your plane at one of the busiest small airports around, so why not just use it when you actually have the need to fly somewhere?  Granted that model wouldn’t be able to reach any of the international destinations Trump listed in his article, but I’m sure it would be much better than flying economy and answering “Apprentice” questions for hours on end in the back of an airplane.

Not one week has gone by since the last time Virgin America dropped a nice promo code on our laps, but today they’ve come out with an even better one!  Here’s the deal: Book any itinerary for two people by December 7th for travel through March 9th, and you get a free companion ticket!  Its as easy to pick up as it is to book too, just enter the promo code DIGGNATION when prompted, and fares will be automatically adjusted to reflect the free companion ticket.  I did some checking and came up with round trip flights from LAX to JFK for just over $300, which is not surpisingly what it normally costs for just one person!
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Originally this code was for viewers of the Diggnation podcast, hence the promo code, but anyone who knows about it can use it!

Just keep track of the blackout dates for this one, which are: December 19th through January 6th, and February 14, 15, and 18.

The date is fast approaching when all air travel will be done using electronic tickets.  For the most part this is because of the innate advantages electronic tickets offer over their older paper brothers.  There are of course plenty of countries lagging in this effort, so global legislation enforced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has made electronic ticketing mandatory for all airlines as of June 1, 2008.  The IATA recently placed an order for 16.5 million paper tickets to supply those airlines bringing up the rear in the race to convert over to e-tickets, but that order was their final one.

China and Russia are the two last major countries trying to meet the deadline in this global effort.  In 2005 for example only 10% of Chinese travelers used e-tickets, but that number skyrocketed to 90% by 2006.   Russia actually had legislation forbidding airlines from using e-tickets (who knows why), which leaves them in last place with only 42% total tickets being electronic. Most countries, even impoverished ones, are ready for the transition however, with Nepal and Papua New Guinea both using 100% e-tickets.

[Via the New York Times]

According to NBC Nightly News, British Airways is flying a good number of their transatlantic flights without any passengers whatsoever! You can see the original report, which aired a while ago here:

British Airways flying on empty

With oil prices hovering around $100 a barrel I found this new to be shocking. The TV report focuses on the environmental waste these flights produce. Since the planes were operating normally scheduled routes however BA is correct in pointing out no extra CO2 is produced because the planes fly empty.

What is surprising though is that BA would not just cancel the flights outright instead of hemorrhaging money on empty 747s. Its hard enough as it is right now to make a profit on a sold out flight, so I can’t imagine how much money is being lost every single time these planes leave empty. Why would BA do this if its so expensive you ask? Put simply, because of other political factors.

London Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world, and because of it is regulated by a certain number of arrival and departure slots available for the airlines to use. These slots come with a use it or lose it policy, meaning if BA doesn’t use all their allotted slots then other airlines can file for permission to use them instead. BA, famous for its anti-competitive behavior, would prefer to lose millions of dollars flying empty planes than it would see those slots going to Virgin Atlantic (or any other number of carriers now that Open Skies is in effect).

British Airways claims the reason the flights go empty is because there aren’t enough staff to comply with safety regulations, and so passengers aren’t allowed on board. The obvious question to me here is, why doesn’t BA just hire or promote enough flight crews so they can allow passengers on these planes. I’m sure there are literally tons of British Airways flight crews that would be eager to take up long-haul international routes vs. shorter domestic or EU flights. And it would work out better for BA too since long international flights across the Atlantic are so lucrative.

Overall this seems like a poor scheme from BA, and I doubt they will be able to support it much longer either due to cost or government intervention. Either they get there act in gear and start letting people on flight for which they are booked, or they should forfeit the slots to airlines than can use them.