- ATA announced last week that it would acquire World Air Holdings, which owns charter carriers World Airways and North American Airlines. North American, based at JFK, offers some regularly scheduled service. World Air Holdings did not acquire North American that long ago itself. The airlines would be operated as three separate airlines under one corporate umbrella. All three do business as military charters, as well as civilian charters. With the combination, they could more precisely focus their operations and specialties, and may opt to do so. ATA’s parent company has now changed its name to Global Aero Logistics. We look forward to seeing what will happen.
- Skybus Airlines has been granted a waiver to begin selling tickets for its upcoming service, hopefully starting in late May. Skybus will be based in Columbus, OH and will use aircraft leased from Virgin America while it awaits its own. Skybus is based on the ultra-cheap Ryanair model. So far, there is no news on routes.
- Alaska Airlines announced a new flight schedule for Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay and Barrow, Alaska. Effective June 3rd, the number of daily roundtrips will increase from two to three. Service is operated using 737-400 combo aircraft, with 72 passengers in the back and main-deck cargo in the front.
- A Jetblue Flight Sunday night from Raleigh-Durham to Boston stopped short on the runway after the crew realized a cockpit window was possibly unsecured. All passengers were given $50 vouchers.
- Delta, in cooperation with new partner Big Sky Airlines, has announced new nonstop service from Islip N.Y., Burlington VT, and Allentown PA to Boston, Thrice daily Islip service will begin July 15th, and twice daily service to Allentown and Burlington will begin August 20th. All service will be operated with B1900D 19-seater turboprops. We wonder what Big Sky will do next with its 19-seater planes with “stand-up cabins.”
- Delta is expected to roll out a new paintscheme for its planes. Nothing is finalized yet, but it is expected to bring back the triangular shield logo known as the widget, in a new futuristic version. We wonder if they might not have better things to spend money on post-bankruptcy.
- Eos Airlines will expand its schedule to three flights on peak travel days starting April 15th. Peak travel days will be Sunday, Monday, and Friday. Eos is an all-premium class airline operating 757 aircraft with only 48 flat-bed seats.
- Today in the Sky showed us that in addition to Southwest’s renewal of its Coke contract, they have recently resumed serving honey-roasted peanuts, after its supplier was able to supply them at the same price as dry-roasted ones.
- New nonstop flights from Austin to Seattle began today. A big user of the flight is expected to be Microsoft’s over 150 employees in the Austin area.
- South African Airways and United Airlines have expanded their codeshare agreement to inclue 15 additional cities. New South African Airways U.S. code-share cities serviced by United Airlines now include Atlanta, Ga.; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, N.C.; Cleveland, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Detroit, Mich.; Houston, Texas; Indianapolis, Ind.; Kansas City, Mo.; Miami, Fla.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and St. Louis, MO. Existing U.S. SAA code-share locations already provided by United Airlines include popular connecting cities such as Boston, Mass.; Chicago, Ill.; Denver, Colo.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Los Angeles, Calif.; New Orleans, La.; Orlando, Fla.; San Diego, Calif.; San Francisco, Calif.; Seattle, Wash.; and Tampa, Fla. United codeshares on 14 SAA routes to South Africa.