The US Department of Transportation (DOT) will offer airlines increased flexibility under their CARES Act obligations. But rather than choosing individual airports that will be exempt the DOT is now going to let the airlines select which stations will see service suspended.
United raises ire in cutting hours for salaried employees
Last week United Airlines informed its Management & Administrative (M&A) work group of required unpaid time off this summer. This week the carrier shared some additional details related to the plans and the news for these employees is grim.
Avianca declares bankruptcy, seeks protection in restructuring
Colombia’s Avianca became the latest and largest carrier to seek financial protections as the coronavirus pandemic stretches on, grounding airlines and flummoxing their balance sheets
Past the bottom: Gogo sees demand returning and a potential to sell
January and February 2020 showed great promise for Gogo. New aircraft installations continued, particularly of the company’s 2Ku offering for commercial aircraft. And then the bottom fell out.
But the company sees a rebound on the horizon, and also possible a merger.
Fighting for the middle: A pandemic seating shift
Forget the fight over who gets the arm rests; middle seats on planes are now generating real fights over if they should be occupied at all. And airlines are fueling the flames with misleading marketing messaging.
Cape Air’s ugly April stats (and some possible good news for May)
Total flights down by 40%. Passenger count down by 90%. Load factor for the month of just 8%. Needless to say, Cape Air’s statistics for April 2020 are pretty awful, just like the rest of the aviation world. But the airline has some potential good news to consider as it looks to a slow summer and beyond.
Project Wingman USA Opens Lounges for Frontline Healthcare Heroes at Two Major New York City Hospitals
Project Wingman USA opened its two inaugural “First Class Lounges” this week, offering respite for frontline healthcare professionals. The program allows airline crew to offer peer support to medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Weekly Wrap: Fighting for Middle Ground
This week’s episode is all about the middle seat. Should it be blocked? How would airlines approach that task? And one briefly tried to charge passengers for that luxury, though quickly backed down when politicians got angry.
JetBlue delays London launch
JetBlue still intends to launch service to Europe. CEO Robin Hayes believes that “the need for us to enter that market and bring more competition” remains relevant. Just don’t expect it to happen quite so soon, and that may be a good thing.
JetBlue suspends six cities through June
With approval to reduce service to as many as 16 airports in its network JetBlue is taking a measured approach. The carrier will suspend service to six of these airports beginning next week through the end of June.