Tag Archives: American Airlines

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

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Hello all.

Here’s hoping that all of you had a wonderful Turkey Week. I did. Although I didn’t end up with enough left-over turkey. I may have to roast another one here shortly, just so I can have leftovers to make turkey hash with.

This post-Turkey Week issue we talk about a lot of things. First, our column this week looks at Orbitz and how it got to where it is today — and why American Airlines is trying to pull its inventory from its website. I take a look at the history of the company — and how it has evolved from its humble beginnings. Ahem. You all remember those beginnings. The company was set up as the “Travelocity Terminator” — the first attempt to set up a “direct connect” OTA for the airlines that created it.

My how things change.

Of course we talk about the as-yet-to-be-announced delay for the Boeing 787, the update from Qantas on its A380 operations, and yes, we even talk about how Air France is going to once again undertake recovery operations to find the black boxes and anything else it can find from its lost Airbus in the Atlantic Ocean this coming spring.

Union talk? Of course. We follow up our issue last week with a great letter to the editor from one of our subscribers in which he touches on both the Continental/united scope “problem” and the flight attendant situation at American Airlines. In a very astute manner I might add.

Airline stocks? This week we talk about the latest from Morgan Stanley analyst Bill Greene. Mr. Greene happens to believe that there is opportunity in them there shares. Airline shares that is. Right now.

Virgin America lands in Dallas this week. Yee haw! In anticipation of Virgin’s arrival, American is offering their customers the usual heavy dose of frequent flier points on DFW flights to LA and SFO, but as I talk about this week — is this tired and true tactic still relevant?

I’m not sure. At least not in this case. The Virgin product is a nice one. And there are a whole lot of folks for whom accumulating more AAdvantage miles is not nearly as important as a nice comfy seat, cool onboard entertainment and food options, and well….that whole Virgin Vibe thing.

Oh, we talk about a lot more this week — but I need to get this posted.

Subscribers can access this week’s issue here! Now!

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

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Greetings to all you turkey lovers out there.

It’s Monday. It’s time for this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Speaking of turkeys, yes, we’re talking about the TSA this week. Isn’t everyone?

But we’re also talking about Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Linenberg’s rather gushing research note on Republic Holdings. Also — where does Mike think the industry now has too many competitors?

We’re talking union stuff too. Two more thumbs down employee votes at Delta Air Lines, a thumbs up from the Southwest Airlines’ flight attendants on their contract ratification and a thumbs up ratification from the AirTran pilots on their new contract.

However — there is one part of the new AirTran pilot contract that we are curious about. Can you guess what part that is?

Then there is the picketing this week by the Continental and United pilots. Pahleez. Is this really necessary?

Not sure if you have been keeping up with the fight north of the border, but Canada and the UAE are about to go to blows over the issue of giving Emirates more access into Canada. I mean, this is getting serious.

We have a lot more information this week regarding exactly what happened when that Qantas A380 had an engine suffer an uncontained failure. The laundry list of items that were affected on the aircraft is not pretty.

Meanwhile, as has been the case since the beginning, most of the information coming out concerning the problems with the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine is not coming from Rolls-Royce.

Then we had Boeing running around, telling websites they had to remove photos of the damage to its 787 test aircraft. Lovely. I do so love it when a company thinks they can make a problem go away by removing the evidence in a rather heavy-handed manner.

On the GDS front, American Airlines seems more determined than ever to cause mayhem and madness in the travel agency business. More on their latest moves in this week’s issue as well.

All this and more in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week’s issue here.

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

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Hello to everyone on what is a dark and stormy night here in the DFW Metroplex. This week’s mega-earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Be prepared. It’s another long one.

This week we take an in-depth look at the recent third quarter earnings from JetBlue, Hawaiian, Allegiant, and Alaska Air Group.

All in all, a very impressive group of industry representatives.

If you are looking for an airline that is doing its best to run itself like a real honest-to-god profitable investment for its shareholders, look no further than Alaska Air Group, which is now poised to hit its 10% ROIC target for the year.

Not only that but the airline posted an exceptional operating margin for the quarter.

I can’t say enough good things about the management team at Alaska. They have done one heck of a job over the last five years at the airline.

Hawaiian Airlines also had a very good quarter, although the airline continued to see fierce price competition on its trans-Pacific routes. I like the airline’s continued expansion into Asia as a good hedge against the continuing trans-Pacific warfare.

JetBlue posted good numbers as well, and that ROIC metric was thrown around in their call as well. The airline has postponed some aircraft deliveries, it continues to work through its migration to the Sabre reservation system, and overall the numbers for the quarter were good.

Allegiant came in a bit above the analyst consensus numbers that were in place in mid-October, but the air travel company that also happens to run Allegiant Air didn’t quite come in as high as had been previously modeled by most analysts. So — their results were a bit of a good news, “okay” news situation. In terms of the stock — the news was good enough to create a short squeeze on shares of the airline’s stock though. Going into October the airline was the most heavily shorted of all the airline stocks.

This last week yours truly was at Southwest Airlines for their Media Day event. I talk a lot about that in this week’s issue as well. Yes, the rumor is true. The airline had all us media types board an aircraft outside its hangar at the airline’s headquarters — to show us how fast its Row 44 Wi-Fi product is — and it wouldn’t work. We couldn’t connect.

I felt sorry for them. We’ve all been there, right?

Lots more about what we heard and saw over on Denton Drive in this week’s issue.

Also — the hot topic that is filling up our email bag this week are the various heated communications that are coming from almost every pilot union or pilot MEC group that we know of. The subject? The new “enhanced” security measures that the TSA just rolled out this week that includes the “body scanners” in addition to pat downs that we have heard from various people go way beyond what most people are comfortable with.

I fly to Los Angeles on Wednesday. I always get nabbed for secondary screening anyway because of this hunk of titanium that is in my leg. I am not going to be happy if now, I am subjected to a more “enhanced” pat down every time I fly as a result.

Anyway, we talk about all that as well.

We’ve got all kinds of other stuff too in what I figure is easily another 100 plus page issue this week.

Subscribers can access this week’s issue here.

Nine Years Later: September 11

Nine years ago today I received a phone call from a friend at approximately 8:10 A.M. My friend said in a rather quiet and measured tone, “I think you need to turn on the TV. A plane has hit the World Trade Center.”

I responded, rather disinterestedly, “What kind of plane?”

“Don’t know,” he said.

“Turn on the TV,” he directed.

“So how bad is it?” I asked, still, obviously, not grasping the seriousness of the situation.

“Turn on the TV. Now,” was his only response.

I hung up. I turned on the TV.

And so the morning of September 11, 2001 began to unfold. In horrible fashion.

This year, the anniversary of that horrible day hits on the same weekend PlaneBusiness Banter resumes its weekly publishing schedule — after our usual August hiatus from almost all things airline-related.

As we always do, we will honor those airline employees who lost their lives that day in this week’s issue of PBB.

Here too, we do the same.

While the world takes a moment today to commemorate the events that happened that day in a much larger sense — particularly the thousands of people who died in New York City — we here at PlaneBusiness, as we have since that awful day, focus on our departed airline family members. Those crew members who went to work on what was a beautiful day in the Northeast that day — but never came home.

American Airlines Flight 11, Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center.

CREW: John Ogonowski, Dracut, Mass., Captain; Thomas McGuinness, Portsmouth, N.H., First Officer; Barbara Arestegui, flight attendant; Jeffrey Collman, flight attendant; Sara Low, flight attendant; Karen Martin, flight attendant; Kathleen Nicosia, flight attendant; Betty Ong, flight attendant; Jean Roger, flight attendant; Dianne Snyder, flight attendant; Madeline Sweeney, flight attendant.

United Airlines Flight 175, Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center.

CREW: Victor J. Saracini, Lower Makefield Township, Pa., Captain; Michael Horrocks, First Officer; Amy Jarret, flight attendant; Al Marchand, flight attendant; Amy King, flight attendant; Kathryn Laborie, flight attendant; Michael Tarrou, flight attendant; Alicia Titus, flight attendant.

American Airlines Flight 77, Washington to Los Angeles, crashed into the Pentagon.

CREW: Charles Burlingame, Captain; David Charlebois, First Officer; Michele Heidenberger, flight attendant; Jennifer Lewis, flight attendant; Kenneth Lewis, flight attendant; and Renee May, flight attendant.

United Airlines Flight 93, Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

CREW: Jason Dahl, Colorado, Captain; Leroy Homer, Marlton, N.J., First Officer; Sandy Bradshaw, flight attendant; CeeCee Lyles, flight attendant; Lorraine Bay, flight attendant; Wanda Green, flight attendant; Deborah Welsh, flight attendant.

May they all continue to enjoy peace in a much better place.

PlaneBusiness Banter Posted!

Greetings to all on what was a very hot Memorial Day here in the Dallas-Ft.Worth Metromess.

I hope all of you had a good Memorial Day holiday and most importantly, I hope all of you took a minute between bites of your grilled hamburgers to thank those who serve this country in our Armed Forces. Or who have served.

The latest issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access the newly posted issue here.

This week I talk about the new “ugly girl” in the industry. Yep, I’m talking about American Airlines and that airline’s merger options.

But American is in the news for other things — including yet another TA with a TWU-represented employee group. However, to say the union leadership gave the deal a lukewarm endorsement would be an understatement.

British Airways saw itself in the middle of yet another strike by its cabin crew members today. This one started on Sunday and as today is a Bank Holiday in the U.K, the work slowdown will probably hit the airline a bit more than the last one. Which just ended on Friday of last week.

I know. It’s pure insanity.

This last week airline stocks had a great week with shares of US Airways leading the pack. Handily. The main reason for this sudden burst of vitality? Two bullish analyst notes. JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker upgraded the entire sector, and had very positive things to say about US Airways in particular. His comments were then followed by a bullish American Airlines/US Airways research note issued by Bob McAdoo with Avondale Partners just a few hours later.

The combined one-two punch was clearly felt across the sector, but especially in shares of US Airways.

Is the Porter Airlines IPO in trouble? First quarter numbers sure didn’t help it much.

Virgin Blue had a surprise for its investors this week, and in our Market Review this week we talk about the resurgence of private equity support for the aircraft leasing sector.

All this and more in this week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.

This Week in PlaneBusiness Banter

Terry Maxon with the Dallas Morning News dropped me a friendly note today and asked me if I had forgotten to finish my thought from last night.

No, just had to get my hard drive upgraded in the laptop today. And I simply forgot to update the post-in- progress from last night. My bad.

I could have used the excuse that I was trying to recover from what had to be one of the best sporting events I’ve ever watched last night — but no, I had a much more pedestrian excuse.

So what are we talking about in this week’s issue?

Judging from the email box today, the most talked-out piece is our PlaneBusiness Brown Bag Analyst guest column. In this column, a subscriber of ours who also just happens to be an expert in the confusing subject known as the Canadian aviation market, pens his take on the Southwest Airlines-WestJet codeshare “disagreement.”

Our guy knows his stuff.

And yes, of course I weigh in again on the American Airlines/JetBlue announcement from last week — following up on the blog post that first appeared here.

I still like the deal.

Then there is the story of the ALPA poster boy for ethics.

If you’ve read this month’s issue of Airline Pilot, the in-house mouthpiece of the Air Line Pilots Association, you know that, unfortunately, ALPA decided recently to parade out a particular ALPA member each month who it had determined exemplified the “best” of ALPA.

Yes, well, this month’s ALPA poster boy for ethics, Tim Martins, who we think has most recently been employed as a pilot for American Eagle, apparently has a problem with putting things on his Facebook page that aren’t true, much less telling the publication other, er, “facts” that now, apparently we find out, are not quite true.

A complete and total PR disaster for ALPA.

More on all this in this week’s issue.

We talk about the disappointing “agreement” that the EU and the U.S. recently trumpeted in the ongoing Open Skies negotiations. I’d argue, “What agreement?”

On the Wall Street front, one of the most well-respected airline analysts is coming back for more fun and frolic. He is going to take over for Mike Linenberg, who is getting ready to flee Bank of America/Merrill Lynch for Deutsche.

Who is the analyst that proves “everything new is old again?”

We also talk about Hudson Securities analyst Dan McKenzie’s latest competitive analysis notes. We always like to read these as they give us such a great insight as to how the major players are moving the chess men about the playing field.

We also have a couple of good letters this week, and a whole lot more.

If you are not already a subscriber to PlaneBusiness Banter — you should be. You can find out more here!

Happy April Fools Day

Thanks to JetBlue and American Airlines for providing us with a nice bit of April Foolery this year. Yeah, right, they are going to join in some kind of partnership, slot swap, interline agreement.

Good job guys.

Oh, wait.

That was yesterday.

Today is April 1.

Hmmmm.

So what is your take on all this news? I admit it. I was surprised at the news. I thought April Fools Day had come a day early when I first saw the headline.

If you could put two airlines in front of you that exhibit totally different cultures, management attitude, brand, and product — well, here you go.

If, on the other hand, you want to strip all that out and strictly look at the deal from a strategic viewpoint — then I can see the merit.

From American’s viewpoint, clearly this gives the airline an opportunity to strengthen its position in New York at a relatively low cost — as opposed to Delta Air Lines, which continues to throw the kitchen sink, the garbage pail, and the baby’s bath water into the market in an attempt to snatch market share.

From JetBlue’s standpoint, the agreement will allow its passengers to book international flights much more easily, utilizing JetBlue on the domestic segments, and American on the international legs. In addition, JetBlue should would get eight slot pairs at Washington Reagan (which the airline has lusted after for a long time) while American would pick up 12 slot pairs at JFK.

But having said that, we have to wonder — what does Lufthansa think about all this? Remember, the German uber carrier owns a piece of JetBlue. When the airline first wrote out the check to JetBlue, the assumption was that this was because Lufthansa was less than impressed with Star Alliance partner United Airlines’ presence into New York.

What presence? Exactly.

So what happens with all this? How can JetBlue serve two alliance masters?

Aside from that niggly problem, I think this is just another example of what we are now going to continue to see more and more of in this industry — creative deals that go against what we have seen done in the past. The reason for them? Necessity. Efficiency. This is what is motivating the Delta/US Airways slot swap request. The AirTran/Continental deal.

So, on the surface, I like it. I’d be happy to see even more of these things. (But only if the airlines’ respective IT systems are up to the task!)

My only question for JetBlue would be this — have you surveyed your passengers who fly into JFK as to whom they fly on to Europe? Is American their first choice?

I would be curious to know the answer, because my gut feeling is that someone who is going to fly on JetBlue into JFK and connect to Europe might not necessarily be someone who would fly on American.

Yep. It’s that mismash of culture and expectations thing I’m thinking about.

Then again, maybe, just maybe, that might be one of the reasons American was receptive to do the deal. They knew that too.

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

Hi guys. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

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This week we talk about round two of the British Airways strike — and about how we think Unite’s efforts are — or are not having — an effect on the airline’s operations.

Meanwhile, there is a pilot strike now scheduled against Lufthansa in two weeks. Not only are the pilots there picking up verbal support from other pilots groups worldwide, but now another airline employee group may join them on the picket line.

Did we just have an outbreak of Norovirus on an airline flight? Yuck.

WestJet’s new CEO dropped a bomb in an interview Friday with the Financial Post. Looks like WestJet isn’t going to wait on Southwest to get it’s IT act together. It’s apparently considering a codesharing agreement with Delta. Is this a good move for WestJet? We talk about it — as well as one of our subscribers who has been taking a closer look at the airline and its market opportunities.

Then there is the slot swap deal involving US Airways and Delta Air Lines. The two airlines don’t think the FAA should be involved in the deal at all. Or the DOT.

Want to take a guess as to who they think should make the decision on this proposed deal?

We have a guest columnist this week in PBB. I’m not tellin.’

Airline stocks had a great week again this week, we have the latest “Airline Question of the Week” from Morgan Stanley, and we talk about why it is Barclays is bullish on JetBlue in Beantown.

All this and more – as we all eagerly await the arrival of the Easter Bunny here at the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Headquarters later this week.

Subscribers can access this week’s issue here.

1933 American Airlines Video: What a Hoot

This is simply too good. A 1933 “American Airways” Promotional video.
And I quote, “From the beginning of time, man has been the master of his own journey, he chooses the road by which he goes. He steps ahead or he steps aside. Here’s the man who steps ahead. The kind of man who gets things done. He knows where he’s going and how to get there — The American Airways way.”
Oh, I’m telling you. It’s a trip. Watch it. It runs about 21 minutes.

This Week in PlaneBusiness Banter

You want to know how much money the airline industry had to shell out in additional GDS fees in 2009 as a result of the OTAs dropping their online booking fees?

We know the answer. At least we know how much Forrester Research estimates the airlines lost.

This week in PlaneBusiness Banter I sit down with Henry Harteveldt, VP and Principal Analyst with Forrester Research. We not only talk about the airlines and their additional GDS costs, we talk about onboard Wi-Fi and why AirCell’s pricing is too expensive, American’s lousy business class seats, Braniff, the shift that Forrester sees happening from legacy carriers to LCCs by corporate travel managers, and, of course, United’s decrepit onboard entertainment systems.

In other news, we look at the surprise Continental Airlines pulled on its pilot group last week. Hey, if the pilot group is going to keep waving the Delta Air Lines‘ pilot contract around — why not just give it to them? With a few minor revisions. That is exactly what the company has offered as a counter-proposal to what the pilots offered up in December.

Is this a good deal for the airline? For the pilots?

Meanwhile, Unite, the union that represents the cabin crew at British Airways made good on their promise to strike the airline this weekend. The airline estimates it has lost £7 million ($10.6 million) for each of the three days. It also says it will take the rest of the week to get itself re-positioned. Then– on Saturday, Unite has scheduled to begin a four-day strike against the airline.

Not to be outdone by the British Airways‘ cabin crew members, pilots at Germanwings and Lufthansa Cargo are now set to join Lufthansa pilots in a strike against that airline in April. After Easter. (That was considerate of them.)

This last week ISTAT held its annual conference in Orlando. We talk about the feedback we received from several subscribers who were in attendance — and yes, ILFC’s Steve Hazy was there talking up his new airline leasing venture.

Meanwhile, lots of regulatory news last week from the FAA, the NTSB, and the Office of the Special Counsel. We talk about all that — and yep, then there was that “Flight from Hell” on Virgin America last week. JetBlue saved the day. Ouch.

On the analyst front — Dan McKenzie with Hudson Securities issued an informative research note last week that looks at the changes in the competitive capacity game. We always like those.

All this — and a lot more. In this week’s issue.