Alaska and Jetblue are winners!

JD Power and Associates ranks North American airlines based on customer satisfaction.  In the full service catagory Alaska Airlines took the award taking 5 stars (or dots) in all categories. “Alaska Airlines has made notable improvements in the courtesy and knowledge of its check-in staff from 2008,” said Dale Haines, senior director of the travel practice at J.D. Power and Associates. (Business week, June 30th) I do remember some concerns from ranking agencies from Alaska Airline in some specific but I guess they have improved.

Continental took second prize which is surprising. JD Power said that “Continental Airlines performs particularly well in the in-flight services and cost and fees measures.” Um doesn’t, Continental have a $15 check bag and $ 25 second check bag fee. So I don’t understand that part, they seem pretty average with checked baggage. Then for the second part their IFE (in-flight entertainment) they have been installing LiveTV on there fleet and again that is limited to a few aircraft. This makes me question JD power a bit.

In the Low Cost carrier category JetBlue ranked 1st. JetBlue has received awards by these agencies ranking airline. People really seem to like Jetblue IFE, which is oddly enough LiveTV (different link). Southwest who ranked second along withWestjet, ranked lowest in In-flight entertainment and aircraft experience. The In-flight entertainment thing I can understand but Aircraft experience? It a regular 737 on all the flight but then again JD power doesn’t exactly specialize in airline. One more interesting thing about Airline service rankings, Skytrax ranks Southwest as a 3 Star Carrier but scroll down to customer ratings they are way higher than 3-Stars. Just a thought.

This A350 thing is getting serious?

If you have’t hear already Boeing delayed the launch of it’s Dreamliner. Well it not the first time and it may not be the last, the thing that is difficult for the public and for the business world to understand that plane aren’t like blackberries. If you make 20 broken blackberries no one dies and Research in Motion (makes Blackberries) probably won’t lose 200 million dollars. In the aviation world products take time and once it’s finished it can’t have many problems.

In fact yesterday if you watched CNBC (all of you, I am sure) you would have seen a group of investor, stock brokers or some kind of bussiness person tell you to sell your Boeing stock and that the company is “mismanged”. A few news agencies called it the “In your Dreamliner” or something to that effect. Okay? Is it mismanagement that a company decides ‘hum, our product isn’t ready yet, lets wait until it’s finished.’ After Boeing annonced this Boeing’s stock took a tumble and many called Boeing on the way out, really? A what did they use to justify it, look the A350 won 500 orders at the Paris Airshow!!! Oh yeah Boeing is definately going to blow-up. Well lets look at the real facts okay 500 order for a concept plane vs. the 787 with 866 for a plane soon to have a it’s first test flight, I think the dreamliner wins.

What another reason that Boeing is doomed, the 747-800, Worldliner. What the problem it has one order, oh thats so funny, did you count cargo orders? Plus did you see how many Lufthansa ordered? That is a big number and once this thing gets off the ground order will go up just like it did after the A380 madien flight. You also have to look at the fact that many carries have 747 that will need replacing and they are commited to the 747, but currently distracted by the thunder from the 787.

The market and most of the business community simply doesn’t understand the years and years of planning that goes into a plane. It’s not lets just build something and hope it flys. It is also important to realize that Boeing is introducing a huge number of innovations with it’s next generation line of planes. No, Boeing is not failing.

Airviation Relaunches

After quite awhile of no activity on Airviation, we are back! To celebrate this we will be relaunching with a new look and a new strategy. I would be open to any suggestion or changes you would like to see with our site, thanks for revisiting us.

Please leave suggestion in comments or contacts me. Oh and Welcome Back!

JetBlue Leaving Long Beach?

After Brett Synders interview with CEO of JetBlue Dave Barger and his remark about the possibility of leaving Long Beach Municipal, has set of a wave of aviation community panic. It even reached the top rungs of Aviation blogging community going all the way to USA Today’s in the sky Blog . Yes the CEO did say that it was a possibility because of the lack of cooperation with city and airport people, which are more or less the same people. But lets get real, look at Long Beach Airport there are three airlines with full service to major cities, Delta goes to Salt Lake city with some regional brand but that’s not important. Here is the breakdown.

That’s a clear JetBlue majority, plus do they have any competition, barely. Oh another thing can they get more competition? No, all the slots are filled.They have created a fortress hub, a perfect location in between Los Angles and Orange County two big markets. So lets look at the competition if they were to more to LAX on one route. LAX to JFK there are seven airlines this service. Okay to compare, LGB-JFK one airline, Jetblue. They would have to completely nuts to leave this airport.

I apolgize for not posting in awhile, I have been extremely busy. Thank you for your understanding.

Virgin Responds to Bag Charge

From the Virgin America Facebook Page:

In response to yesterday’s baggage news:

Share

Today at 12:14pm

Thanks for the feedback guys. Although we know this has an impact, there is a real weight/operational cost for airlines to carry bags and our $15 per bag fee is competitive with, or lower, than all our major network competitors who offer a very different flight experience (i.e. no beautifully designed new planes, in-flight TV and movies, videogames, power outlets and USB ports at every seat along with in-flight WiFi). We just reduced our web change fee and are charging way less than the other carriers for second and third bags and still have the most generous first bag weight limit in the business – up to 70 lbs. We do thank you for the feedback and hope you’ll keep flying and keep in touch.

 http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=58936547105&ref=nf

Virgin America Chargings for Bags

Virgin America is now sadly part of the tied of other airlines in the US that charge for bags. This is probably because of the current economic crisis and the fact that Virgin really hasn’t been doing the very well I think they lost a good amount of money just like everyone else but, they had that added disadvantage of start-up costs on top of the losses. Anyway the airlines announced that yes it will $15 for bags one through ten and _____ dollars for the eleventh but I certainly don’t know anyone that has eleven bag so it should be a huge deal. Here are some exceptions:

“Main Cabin Select guests and guests who purchase the fully refundable Main Cabin fare are welcome to check one bag free of charge with all other bags checked for a fee of $15 each. First Class Cabin Guests are welcome to check up to two bags free of charge with all other bags checked for a fee of $15 each.”

But! There is one reason why this should be considered bad for Virgin, why? When you think Virgin America what is the first thing that comes to mind, for most I think it is Different, Avaunt Guard & cutting edge. If you think about what are they doing, being like everyone else. Even the slights association with the norm may not be health branding material. They have set themselves apart as different and many don’t think this to be different. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52I5G520090319

http://www.virginamerica.com/va/infoDeskCheckIn.do

More International Capacity Cut

Delta Airlines has announced that they are starting major cuts in their international flights. An average of 10% will be cut from their flights offered beginning in September. Apparently they say that a number of jobs will be lost as a result of the “restructuring”, but they did say that 2,100 of there employees will be leaving voluntarily over the next few months.

The Delta cut are estimated at 11-13 percent for transatlantic and 11-14 percent for transpacific flights. So yes these are big cuts yet they are still non-specific. It is wide range of cut so they impact is variable. Overall the cut to their entire network id about 7%. It is a necessary step to stay ahead, the airlines said that the cut will be in weak markets, kinda obvious.  The article did note expansion that is planned for the Latin America sector. 

Another airlines looking to cut international capacity is United, it was a short piece so I will quote the article.

NEW YORK — United Airlines operator UAL Corp. said Tuesday it is targeting a 12% reduction in consolidated seat capacity for the first quarter and a 7.5% cut for the year. On the international front, capacity is expected to fall 14.5% for the current quarter and 5.5% for the year. Speaking at an analyst meeting, Chief Financial Officer Kathryn Mikells said international demand and sales of premium cabin seats continue to show softness, adding UAL can further reduce its capacity if needed. Shares of UAL rose 12% at last check to $4.31.

 

Copyright © 2009 MarketWatch, Inc. 

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Delta_to_cut_additional_10_pct_of_i_03102009.html

http://www.keprtv.com/news/business/41025977.html

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/transportation/ual-slashes-seat-capacity-international-travel-weakens/

Olympic Air bought by rival?

The much smaller Aegean Airlines of Greece is looking to buy out their government competitor Olympic Air.

Olympic Air is frankly a mess, the airline is a giant loss making contraption, it’s like the Greek Alitalia (note their close promity) but seriously the Greek Government has been looking to get this heap of their hands for awhile, the highest bid until today was some Greek firm, but they were outbid by Aegean Airlines.

Their are number of problems with Olympic as of now. The airlines had been investigated several times for talking government cash injection to keep them running. The EU has investigated them a number of time. The airlines has also been restructured a countless number of time, however every attempt has been for the most part a whole lot of nothing. Relaunches and re-organization over and over. The next problem I think is their fleet: 4 Airbus A340-300, fourteen ATR 42 & 72, 1 Boeing 737-300 and sixteen 737-400 and finally 4 De Havilland Canada Dash 8-102. Notice mostly older inefficient models. That A340 could be better replaced by A330.

So why would anyone want to by this mess? Well not alot of people have, until know Aegean Airlines who offered “offered 90 million euros ($112 million) for Olympics flying operations and 20 million euros for its aircraft maintenance base. It also offered 60 million to buy Pantheon, a company set up by the government as a successor of debt-free Olympic Airlines.” However is Aegean they up to the challenge, yes. They have strong ties with Star Alliance, who if the bid goes throught would be happy to help them. Aegean is even part of the “Lufthansa Global Network” which I take is strong code-sharing. So although they are a small regional, Aegean looks legitimate they have received a number of award and just maybe able to turn this mess around. Just comparing their website Aegean was alot easier to use. Hey first impressions are everything.

If you have flown with Aegean or Olmpic Airlines and would like to share you experiences feel free to comment or email to Discover10@gmail.com.

http://www.aegeanair.com/

http://www.olympicairlines.com/

http://www.reuters.com/article/mnaNewsFinancialServicesAndRealEstate/idUSL41329020090304?sp=true

US Airways Denies Boston Rumors

Recently rumors have been circulating about the “Southwest affect.” Meaning that Southwest go’s into a market and a legacy airline can no longer make profit there. 

“It is sometimes true that when Southwest enters a market, the economics change and flights that were profitable for US (Airways) could become unprofitable,” he said in the newsletter. “However, the opposite has also occurred, and there have been times when Southwest entered into markets that US (Airways) was serving and later pulled out completely, such as service to Hartford, Conn.”

However US airways is strongly denieing such notions, they say that even thought they have hurt in the past, most noticablely at Las Vegas. Where US Airways has ended a larger amount of their services due to competition from Southwest. However they are staying at Boston Logan, they have a good number of flight to the airport and according to article about 15%  of the traffic.

This said there will be effects, fares on competing  routes will likely drop. But we need to remember that Southwest is staring service but not staring a hub. A notion has come up that they will dominate this airport, there is a possblity in the future. Looking at the situation if Southwest does expand then US Airways may have problems. Jetblue is a major carrier at the airport so there is already steady competition competition.

Sort of going off in a different direction, Southwest seems to be going after it’s competition lately. In recent months the carrier has followed Virgin American around and after coming to Boston, Jetblue. Until this point these low costs haven’t overlapped alot but know there are to major airports, San Francisco and Boston Logan. It will be interesting to see the effects of recent overlaps. 

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/03/04/carrier_aims_to_dispel_rumors_of_logan_cuts/

Some Airlines still expanding

This article is part of our "Silver Lining series:"

Today we look at a number of service expansion from all over the world…….

UK: 

The small airline Aurigny which operates with the UK, specifically between Jersey, an Island in the UK and other destinations. There new flight will be from Jersey Airport to London’s Stansend Airport. The UK domestic market still seems to be growing slightly as we have seen with Flybe recently.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7917611.stm

Ryan Air is resuming it flight Newquay in Cornwall after a dispute with the airport manager or something. Ryan Air is planning to run 13 flights from Newquay to London, Alicante and Barcelona.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/7918965.stm

US:

Spirit Airlines is flying a new route to from Myrtle Beach to Chicago O’hare. They are calling this the golfers route and the golf courses are throwing money at this route to promote it to Chicagonians. The route was original route by United until the 9/11 attack. The route, if successful will bring business to Myrtle Beach and help Spirit’s base there.

http://www.thesunnews.com/business/story/802401.html

Unitied & Frontier Airlines & Alligent have recently annoced flight to Rapid City Regional. United & Frontier are both flying to Denver and United is planning a direct route to Chicago O’hare. Then in June Alligient is planning to fly from Rapid City to Las Vegas and Phoneix, with there MD-80’s of course.

http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail6371.cfm?Id=0,81308

Mexico: 

The Mexican equivalent to Southwest Airlines is planning to come to San Jose in 2010. I believe Mexicana was planning this route but fail to launch after they were denied a customs desk. Now this is not confirmed by any means, they are saying that they are strongly interested. So when 2010 come around we will know for sure.

So what is the point if this? It is that all hope isn’t lost, the world of airlines is not coming to an end as many have been saying. It is a expansion is a good thing that will continue, but at a slower pace. So keep hope, that is the point of this post to show that things except bankruptcies are happening.