Makes me remember an old ‘I Learned About Flying From That’ column in Flying magazine, in which someone flying a Cub along the Massachusetts coast in an increasing westerly, barely made it back upwind into the Plum Island airport.

(Written on 28/03/2020)(Permalink)

The company created by the merger was a new US Airways Group. Initial ownership was: 37% former America West Holdings stockholders 11% old US Airways Group debtholders 0% old US Airways Group stockholders 52% new equity investors The new equity investors included Airbus, Air Wisconsin Airlines, and ACE Aviation Holdings (parent company of Air Canada.) Headquarters of the new company located at the previous America West hq in Arizona, with America West management in charge. The claim that USAir bought America West is not supported by these facts. That said, of the two airlines, US Airways was a considerably larger operation than America West, which no doubt made the nitty-gritty of combining the two feel like US Airways was taking over. I recall that initially the two operated separately - East and West - and that it took several messy years to actually integrate the two into one airline.

(Written on 24/03/2020)(Permalink)

In 1979 I flew Boston to Los Angeles and back. One-stop same plane BOS-CLE-LAX, same route coming back, both flights red-eyes, both on American 707s. My YN round trip fare: $345. Did the same trip in 2016, nonstop BOS-LAX and back, westbound daytime, eastbound red-eye, both flights on Delta 737s. My round trip economy fare: approx $450. usinflationcalculator.com tells me that my 1979 fare would have been $1,140 in 2016 (assuming fare regulation continued, and assuming fares rose in line with overall inflation.) If I’d budgeted up to $1,140 for the 2016 trip, likely I could have flown business class, and enjoyed all the perks we nostalgically remember (or think we do) from the old days, but it was good to have cheaper options. Do we really want to go back to the regulation era, when many many people could rarely if ever afford airline travel? If we did, and fares were in line with my inflation-calculator exercise, the US airline industry would be a helluva lot smaller than it

(Written on 21/03/2020)(Permalink)

It worked in the sense that there were no significant airline shutdowns and chapter 7 liquidations because of 9/11.

(Written on 20/03/2020)(Permalink)

AA would be named America West, if the acquiring company’s name had been retained after two mergers. America West acquired the bankrupt USAirways, used the better-known USAirways name for the combined company. Lather-rinse-repeat: the new USAirways acquired the bankrupt American, again kept the better-known name. The America West management then, namely Doug Parker, engineered both mergers, runs American now, and is responsible for the now-controversial stock buybacks.

(Written on 20/03/2020)(Permalink)

It worked in the sense that there were no significant bankruptcy liquidations. We were in an economic downturn anyway, so some airlines which received aid later went chapter 11 bankrupt, notably USAirways and Frontier, but the aid likely postponed the reckoning.

(Written on 20/03/2020)(Permalink)

Reuters reports today that the US administration proposes $50 billion for secured loans to distressed airlines. Sounds like the Air Transportation Stabilization Board program after 9/11, which offered $10 billion in federally guaranteed loans. The idea then was tp prevent collapse of the industry to the point where we no longer had a functioning air transport system. Worked then, it’ll work now, but as back then airlines should have to show that they can’t get financing from the private sector. Loans are fine, cash grants to airlines are not. Any cash grants should go directly to out-of-work airline employees, not to the airline companies.

(Written on 18/03/2020)(Permalink)

I like that the new livery tastefully places the Caribbean name above the windows, not in the largest possible lettering with the line of windows through the middle, as in the old Caribbean livery and the new United livery. The latter looks like it was printed on an old IBM punchcard, with the cabin windows being the punched-out chads: yuck!

(Written on 17/03/2020)(Permalink)

“perhaps, just perhaps, articles like this that show her true majestics, get more orders...and not just freighters.” Wishful thinking: sadly, the majestic look of the “queen of the skies” doesn’t make the business case for acquiring/operating new 747s.

(Written on 20/02/2020)(Permalink)

“....when you have bad weather, you just have to make it work.” No, you don’t, you go to your alternate.

(Written on 17/02/2020)(Permalink)