You would think that with the number of press releases Virgin America has sent out, they’d actually be flying by now. Of course, you’d be wrong.

This airline sounds exactly like what they call “vaporware” in the tech community. Defined by Webopedia, vaporware is “A sarcastic term used to designate software and hardware products that have been announced and advertised but are not yet available.”

Sounds about right, huh?

So, Virgin, er, Vapor America continues to soldier on before they’ve even heard back from the DOT about their objections. What’s the latest?

Yesterday, the airline announced that Sam Skinner, former Chief of Staff under Papa Bush and former DOT secretary, will join the Board of Directors. This seems like an attempt to cull favor in Washington, but I can’t imagine it will. The annoying indignant tone hasn’t gone away, and unless the ownership problem is fixed to the Department’s satisfation, they can add whoever they want to their board and not get anywhere.

Then today they announced their first six cities. They had already announced San Francisco and New York/JFK, but now they’ve added that within the first nine months of flying, they’ll also be in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Washington/Dulles. That’s about what I would have expected, but right now, who cares? They’re trying to get the public excited, but once again, public support isn’t going to change ownership issues.

Head on over to Lufthansa’s website and you’ll find that they’re getting strict with seatbelt use. The blurb from the current info page is as follows:

In the event of unexpected turbulence, injuries are often
the result on board passenger aircraft, whereby this could be prevented in many
cases if passengers kept their seatbelts fastened. For that reason, up to now
Lufthansa has recommended that passengers keep their seatbelts fastened. In the
interest of the safety of its passengers, the airline has now decided to make it
generally compulsory to fasten seatbelts. Passengers will still be allowed to
stand up, for example, to stretch their legs or to visit the toilet, unless
fasten seatbelt signs are switched on. The new regulation also applies to
Lufthansa Regional partners. Incidentally, the aircraft itself is designed to
resist the extra strain resulting from turbulence without any significant
damage.

I’m all for it. If I’m in my seat, I always have my seatbelt fastened. You know those stories about planes hitting severe turbulence and people getting hurt? 99.9% of the time those people didn’t have seatbelts on.

Then again, I suppose you could argue that not requiring seatbelts allows natural selection to run its course . . . .

Allegiant issued their first earnings report since going public today, and there were a couple of interesting tidbits in there worth talking about.

First of all, the amount of ancillary revenue per passenger rose from $13.99 in the fourth quarter of 2005 to $18.84 in the fourth quarter of 2006. What is ancillary revenue? Well it’s all the money they make from sources other than airplane tickets. We’ve talked about this before, but getting every passenger to pay just shy of $20 above and beyond the ticket is pretty impressive. What do they sell to convince each person to shell out the extra dollars?

If you go to their website, you’ll see them hawking hotel rooms pretty aggressively. They get a cut each time you book. Want an assigned seat in advance? You’ll pay for that. Need a soda or a snack? Oh yeah, fork over the cash. How about some Vegas or Florida souvenirs? Or a model of an Allegiant plane? Maybe a pillow and blanket? It’s all for sale.

So remember, if you fly Allegiant, you can expect to pay somewhat more than just the price of the ticket.

The second piece of interesting info is that Allegiant may have chosen their newest focus city. At the end of the year, all their flights were from smaller cities into either Las Vegas, Orlando, or St Petersburg/Tampa. Since the beginning of the year, they’ve quietly launched a twice weekly flight between Bellingham (Washington) and Palm Springs. This flight runs through the peak season and ends in April. Could this be the start of more Palm Springs flights?

As the bids for Alitalia came in yesterday, I must admit I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. In the middle of the group of private equity investors and a lone airline was buried an individual named Fabio Scaccia.

Fabio is a high school teacher in a suburb of Rome and he makes a mere 1,200 euros a month. Now considering that Alitalia is projecting 4.33 billion euros in revenue for 2006, you’d think that a 1,200 a month salary wouldn’t quite be enough to be able to buy the airline. Then again, they are projecting a horrendous loss of 380 million euros for the year, so they should have to pay this guy to take them over.

Seriously though, how did this guy get his bid into the process? Well in true Alitalia fashion, the process was a mess. According to this article, Fabio went online and found the address. He put together an expression of interest and sent it off. Even though bidders had to have at least 100 million euros in assets, the Italian government didn’t even bother to check out the bidders. So, Fabio’s name joined the ranks of the big boys.

The funny thing is that he has a plan that would probably work better than what current management is doing. He says he’s happy with his salary and he’d be willing to work for the same amount running Alitalia. That alone would save the company more than 2.6 million euros per year considering the current CEO’s outrageous 225,000 euro salary PER MONTH.

Then Fabio would “concentrate on maintenance, invest in new aircraft and centre all the activities around a single hub in Rome (instead of having a second hub in Milan).” Hey, gotta give the guy credit for trying. He seems to have a better plan than anyone currently running the show, though I’m guessing the other 10 potential investors might be able to do a better job.

And now for a brief lesson on aircraft engines.

This is what a GE CF34-3B1 engine on a Mesa Airlines CRJ in America West Express colors is supposed to look like.

Now, here’s a picture of that same type of engine after a flight from Denver to Phoenix last Thursday.

Now, only the most detail-oriented people will be able to spot the difference. Can you see it? Yup, that’s right, the engine on the bottom is SHREDDED! Not freaky enough? How about this side view:

According to Flightglobal.com, this apparently happened on a Mesa Airlines flight operating as US Airways Express last Thursday. The flight left Denver and about 50 miles out had a, um, minor problem when it “shed a fan blade and the forward cowling from its left engine.”

The flight turned around and landed without any problems, but this picture is fairly disturbing. This is the first problem of its kind for this type of engine, so it will be interesting to see what they uncover.