The Main Squawk: Spirit is transitioning to a “peak-day only” operation with zero flights planned mid-week and on Saturdays
Spirit exited bankruptcy last month with a plan to revitalize the “bare fare” by implementing a permanent part-time schedule. No longer will the Airline be known for flights that delay until 2:00 AM, only to cancel promptly at 2:01 AM. Spirit 2.0 is slated to be an airline that operates three days a week, and sometimes on Sundays (if the weather is good and no one calls in sick).
I know this sounds like a late-April Fool’s Day joke, but it’s not. The Cranky Flier has a whole article on it. And it’s not a revolutionary idea. Allegiant operated its schedule in a similar way in the early-2000s and it worked well for them. But as The Cranky Flier points out, part of what made it work was its access to cheap planes and cheap labor. (Which was mostly MD-80s and a pilot group that couldn’t organize.)
Those days don’t exist anymore. Spirit’s 3,000+ pilots have a good contract and earn fair wages. Its fleet of Airbus A320neos are a far cry from clapped out MD-80s. And it’s operating in cities that don’t necessarily have the lowest fixed costs. This is not the same thing as the operation that helped Allegiant gain its footing in the early-2000s.
Exactly how Spirit implements this “part-time” operation will be a sight to see. My guess is that they take a page out of Herb Kelleher’s playbook, find a way to minimize turn times, and fly the pants out of their crews and planes, but time will tell.
An air traffic controller at Washington-DCA Tower was arrested after assaulting one of his colleagues on-duty. Tensions have been running high at Washington National following several incidents involving a mid-air collision in January and several close calls. Apparently, we’ve reached the point where controllers are willing to up the ante and get physical with one another.
According to The Daily Mail, two working controllers got into an argument in the tower when one lunged at the other, spattering blood over another controller’s console. Neither of the controllers involved in the argument were working on the night of the deadly collision in January.
The FAA is under criticism for not delivering enough support to the controllers who were on duty on the night of the collision over the Potomac.
The Daily Mail’s source told the online magazine that “the people working in that tower had to sit and watch bodies being pulled out of the river. There was no way you could not see it.”
United is shifting its strategy in a few Asia-Pacific markets by cutting six routes to China and Hong Kong, and adding flights to three new markets: Adelaide, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh City. The cuts were made over the weekend prior to the Airline’s announcement to launch service to its three new destinations. Service from Chicago-ORD and Newark to Beijing-PEK and Shanghai, Newark to Hong Kong, San Francisco to Chengu, and Washington-IAD to Beijing-PEK will end in late-October.
Daily service from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City via Hong Kong, and three flights weekly between San Francisco and Adelaide, will begin in late-October.
If you feel like more service is being cut with these changes than being added, you wouldn’t be wrong. While Asia-Pacific flying from United’s two east coast hubs and Chicago-ORD don’t account for a large portion of block hours across its widebody fleet, cutting six routes with what was supposed to be daily service is significant.
To make up some of the lost block time, the Airline will increase service between San Francisco and Manila by launching a morning flight to complement its existing red eye between the two cities. That won’t be enough to cover the lost time from cutting all those routes, so it’ll be interesting to see what United chooses to do with all this freed up block time over the coming months.
Source: Great Circle Mapper
Air Canada and Porter join U.S. carriers in cutting service between Canada and the U.S. for the entire summer travel season. The changes were first reported on AeroRoutes earlier last week, with Air Canada withdrawing thousands of seats between its three Canadian hubs and virtually every U.S. destination it serves and Porter doing the same. The reductions in service will go into effect gradually over the next few months and reach minimum levels by the end of August.
Porter is shifting some of this flying to some domestic flying within Canada, and is surprisingly increasing service between Ottawa and Boston, and Toronto-YYZ and San Francisco. It was not immediately clear what Air Canada planned to do with its freed up block hours.
American is now flying non-stop from New York-JFK to Dallas-Fort Worth in as little as fourteen hours. (They diverted half-way to Tokyo-HND for maintenance.)
Boom CEO claims supersonic travel is more than practical if it can capture virtually the entire international premium market. American and United pilots aren’t holding their breath.
China Airlines finalized an agreement to buy ten Airbus A350-1000 aircraft. It is unclear when the Airline expects to receive delivery of the aircraft.
Delta is threatening to sue a retired pilot over defamatory remarks about Endeavor Air Flight 4819. Delta’s attorney sent a letter to the pilot on February 27 demanding an immediate correction to her false statements. You’re on Guard! applauds the Airline for defending its pilots.
KLM is reducing the frequency of its inter-European flying by nearly 3% in flight reductions, and nearly 4% in overall capacity.
LOT Polish and TAP Air Portugal are expanding their codeshare agreement to better serve Lisbon and Warsaw.
The NTSB is investigating a close call between a Delta Airbus A319 and a U.S. Air Force T-38 near Washington-DCA.
United received approval from the FAA to install Starlink on its Embraer 175 fleet.
Virgin Atlantic posted a nearly $300 million profit for 2024, its first profit since 2016. In the same breath, it warned that its 2025 outlook wasn’t as rosy.
Editor’s Note: You might have noticed that activity on You’re on Guard! has been pretty light as of recent. March was a busy month for me, and being a solo operation, keeping up with this site on my own can sometimes be a challenge.
In an effort to effectively keep our readers up-to-date on the news, You’re on Guard! is actively seeking contributors who may be able to write an occasional post or two. If you enjoy poking fun of the industry, trying to make sense of “the big picture,” and feel you have all the answers, then 1) you must be a pilot, but 2) reach out! I’d love to bring you on payroll† and cut you loose.
† Spoiler alert: There is no payroll.
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