I’m not going to spend too much time talking about what happened today, because it’s been covered by just about everyone. (I should say overdramatized by just about everyone.) In short, Southwest had to take 38 planes out of service to perform a 90 minute check to see if there were any fuselage cracks. They canceled a fair number of flights today (Wednesday), but they should be back to normal tomorrow.

The reason I’m not going to spend much time on this is because I just don’t know much about what’s going on. Southwest says that there was an “ambiguity” related to the required checks that they discovered last night when they were going over maintenance records. So, they decided to be conservative and pull the planes out immediately.

What was this ambiguity? If they self-reported the problem to the FAA a year ago, shouldn’t those ambiguities have been discovered then and not a year later? I said before that we need to wait before condemning Southwest as being unsafe. I still stand by that, because there’s a lot that we don’t know, but this “reinspection” of aircraft certainly does not help their cause in my eyes. I still tend to think that the FAA is going to come out worst of all here, but Southwest isn’t going to come out smelling like roses by a longshot.

At the end of October, I asked whether Bombardier and SAS should kiss and make up over their differences. Yeah, sure there were three Q400 landing gear issues in two months, but what’s a little malfunction between friends?

Fortunately, that’s all water under the bridge now, and the two sides did come together to hash out a reconciliation. What’s the plan? Bombardier will fork over 1 billion Swedish kronor. That’s only about $164m today, but just wait a week or two and I’m sure that’ll rise to, oh , maybe $300 or $400m.

But wait, there’s more.

As part of the deal, SAS has to buy 27 new planes from Bombardier. Thirteen of those are CRJ-900 jets and fourteen are . . . Q400 NextGen birds. Whaaaaaaaat?!?

Oh yeah, they’re going back to the well. Presumably the title “NextGen” can be interpreted as “LandingGearNowWorks.” But I’d like to quote CEO Mats Jansson here from back in October. “Confidence in the Q400 has diminished considerably and our customers are becoming increasingly doubtful about flying in this type of aircraft.”

Uh oh.

So, they took a huge hit by grounding the entire fleet and saying it wasn’t safe. Now they’re going back to flying the aircraft. Even if everything is fixed up, this still is not going to be an easy marketing sell for the airline to the locals. I bet they’re wishing they hadn’t bad-mouthed it so much back then.

It appears that Virgin America is getting desperate. Repeat after me . . . MUST-RAISE-CASH.

A friend forwarded me an email that was apparently sent to at least some of Virgin America’s eleVAte frequent flier program members. I’m not sure how many people got it, but this friend has flown them a few times so he isn’t exactly in need of being convinced to fly them further. It is an EXTREMELY generous offer that is not exactly what you’d want to be doing in this cost environment. Here it is.

As an eleVAte Member, you’re entitled to exciting travel privileges, like the opportunity to fly free once in a while.

So we’re extending a special offer to just a few, special eleVAte Members – that would be you.

When you fly two paid roundtrips on Virgin America, we’ll give you a free roundtrip ticket* valid for travel through June 1, 2008.

It’s simple. Book and fly your two paid roundtrips between March 5 and May 4, 2008. After you complete your second paid roundtrip, we’ll automatically send you an email with everything you need to claim your free trip.

Grab a seat at virginamerica.com and you’ll be on your way to a free trip before you know it.

San Francisco : Las Vegas : Los Angeles : New York : San Diego : Seattle : Washington, DC

I read through the terms and conditions, and there don’t appear to be too many restrictions. It looks like two quick trips from LAX to SFO and you’ll have a freebie you could use to get to the east coast. No fare restrictions, just make sure you’re in coach. Now that’s a steal.

Did anyone else get this? Are there any eleVAte members out there who didn’t receive it? I wonder how widespread this is.

In case you’re curious, here’s all the mice-type that was in the email.

* To qualify for the promo code for one (1) roundtrip ticket, eleVAte members receiving this FLY2GET1 offer must book and complete four (4) one-way trips (or two (2) round-trips) on Virgin America between March 5, 2008 and May 4, 2008. Promo Code is valid for travel in the Main Cabin; the applicable travel must be completed between March 15, 2008 and June 1, 2008. If travel is changed to a date outside of this window or if itinerary is modified outside of the promo period, promo code discount will become inapplicable, and the guest will be responsible for a $40 change fee and any increase in air fare. Promo code may be used only towards newly-booked travel and may not be applied to prior bookings. Using the promo code will deduct 100% of base fare; the guest will still be responsible for Passenger Facility Charges of up to $9 each way, September 11th Security Fees of up to $5 each way and a Federal Segment Tax of $3.50 per domestic segment. A segment is a takeoff and landing. Promo code may not be redeemed for cash and may not be used towards premium seats (such as exit row seats) or upgrades. Seats are limited, subject to availability, and may not be available on all flights. The start dates for certain non-stop service are as follows: San Francisco (SFO) – Seattle (SEA) on March 18, 2008 and Los Angeles (LAX) – Seattle (SEA) on April 8, 2008. Only one (1) promo code may be used per eleVAte member in connection with this FLY2GET1 offer, even if the member books and completes more than four (4) trips during the qualifying period. If the person booking the four (4) qualifying trips is different from the person actually flying those trips, promo code will be awarded to the person who actually flies those trips. Promo code may only be used for booking via virginamerica.com.

I don’t like that this is being sent to eleVAte members. You’d think these would be the people who are most likely to be flying the airline already, and this is a very rich offer. Maybe they should start actually defining redemption values for eleVAte members instead of focusing on these offers. That’s right, I haven’t seen anything saying how many flights you need for a free trip in the program. Has anyone else?

This is just one of several cash grabs going on. They’ve had a couple rapid-fire sales lately including one going on right now. You can see where they’re weakest. In coach, everything is cheap. Previous sales have had a premium in JFK over DC, but that’s not the case in this one. Dulles appears to have climbed a little in price. The only strength is in the first class cabin, except for San Diego and Seattle where there are sale fares. Still, with such a small first class cabin, I don’t think that’s going to help them too much.

We’re at around $108 for a barrel of oil and counting. They’ve got to figure something out quickly. Oh, but they aren’t the only ones. ExpressJet announced a big loss this past quarter and for the full year. Those 50 seaters aren’t cheap to run and they’re getting more expensive as oil goes up. They’re going to be feeling more pressure to get out of the branded flying business as this goes on. Consolidation may not be necessary . . . just wait for oil prices to drive airlines out instead.

There has been a ton of interesting news to write about in the last few days, and I’d been having trouble figuring out with what to lead . . . until yesterday. Turns out that I was voted one of the the world’s 50 most powerful blogs by The Observer in the UK.

Holy crap! That’s kind of scary. But, I’m guessing that means I’ll have a bunch of new visitors from that side of the Pond (welcome, everyone), so I’m going to post Sunday night instead of my usual Monday morning. And, while I’m being accommodating, let’s focus on something that probably causes you newbies pain and suffering more often than not: Heathrow.

Usually, any discussion of Heathrow involves a lot of cursing, rising blood pressure, and possibly some crying. With any luck, we’ll see less of that in the near future, but it’s likely to get worse in the short term. Why?

Well, we’re getting closer to the big terminal move. On March 27, BA will land its first flights at the brand-spanking new Terminal 5 and that begins a long period of transition for the airport as just about everyone save Virgin Atlantic moves locations.

I’ve tried to put together a handy guide on all the terminal moves so you can actually figure out where you’re supposed to go for your next flight. First, we’ll start with oneworld airlines, since they have the most changes happening the earliest.

Now let’s take a look at SkyTeam. In short, when Delta, Northwest, and Continental start flying to Heathrow in March, they’ll be in BA’s old Terminal 4. The rest of the carriers won’t move until early 2009, when a major terminal renovation will have been completed. Anyone who has flown BA out of that terminal lately knows that it is in desperate need of some help.

I’d like to list the Star Alliance changes here as well, but I haven’t been able to find them. In fact, while oneworld and SkyTeam have been on top of the changes, Star Alliance has been silent. I sent the alliance a request and their response left me wondering if they actually meant to insult my intelligence or if they just don’t speak English very well.

We would like to inform you, however, that the Star Alliance is a network of 19 individual airlines. Operational matters are handled by the airlines themselves. Therefore, for more information, you will need to contact the individual Star Alliance member airlines directly.

Really? You guys aren’t an airline yourself? No sh**. Well, I also asked United directly and spokesperson Robin Urbanski told me that the airline will be moving to Terminal 1, but it’s unclear when that might be and that will happen on June 1. Clearly, this alliance is a little less organized, probably because the changes aren’t coming as quickly as with the others.

We know that the airlines in Terminal 1 will stay there for now. Terminal 2 will be demolished starting this year, so those guys have to move somewhere. On March 27, BA moves nearly all of its domestic and European flights out of Terminal 1, so I have to assume that everyone from Terminal 2 will move in before their terminal disappears. Will the Terminal 3 airlines move at the same time or will they stay longer? My guess is that they won’t move immediately because there’s no urgency. Here’s how they stack up right now along with my best guesses as to where they’ll go. The only thing I know for sure is that US Airways will go to Terminal 1 when it starts service to the airport on March 30.

Update 3/25 @ 822a – Star has put out a press release with much more guidance. All Star carriers will be expected to move to Heathrow East in 2012 when the terminal is completed, but I haven’t included those changes in here.

Of course, not all airlines are in alliances. Virgin Atlantic, for example, will stay in Terminal 3, so you won’t see any changes there. All other unaligned airlines (except for former oneworld member Aer Lingus which will be in Terminal 3) will end up in Terminal 4. Again, I’m not entirely sure when that might happen, but one thing is clear . . . there will be a lot of confusion at Heathrow until things settle down, and that could take years.

If you have to go to the airport in the near future, leave plenty of time and bring lots of patience. If you have the misfortune of connecting through Heathrow, especially while these changes are in progress, may God have mercy on your souls.

Click for more on Heathrow and more on BA. And click if you’d like to subscribe via RSS or daily email.

This is definitely the hot topic of the last couple days, and I must admit I’m still trying to sort it all out. This is what I’ve put together so far (with the help of some good reporting from the Dallas Morning News).

Back in 2004, the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive (AD) saying that operators of certain 737s needed to inspect their aircraft for fatigue cracks. On March 15, 2007, the airline notified the FAA that it actually hadn’t completed all the inspections necessary on all the aircraft and it would do it immediately. Up until that point, the airline had flown almost 60,000 flights with those aircraft without knowing there was an issue. For that, the FAA has proposed a relatively minor fine of $200,000.

The inspections were completed between March 15 and March 23, 2007. During that time, they didn’t pull the planes out of service completely, with the blessings of the FAA, and they actually operated an additional 1,451 flights even though they knew they hadn’t done the inspections. For that, the FAA threw down a major $10m fine.

These, of course, are serious issues, but the media and a certain Congressional rep have blown this way out of proportion to try to scare everyone. It all comes down to this letter from the FAA to Southwest detailing the charges. You’ll notice the following.

The aircraft . . . were unairworthy when they were operated on the flights above because the required AD inspections had not been accomplished.

Oh boy, the media had a field day with this one. CNN put out an article entitled, “Records: Southwest Airlines flew ‘unsafe’ planes” and Rep Oberstar was quoted as saying that “The result of inspection failures, and enforcement failure, has meant that aircraft have flown unsafe, unairworthy, and at risk of lives.”

But before you freak out and stop flying Southwest altogether, let’s review what exactly it means when an airplane is “unairworthy.” It sounds pretty scary, but in this situation, it’s more of a technical description than anything else. If an aircraft has not complied with an AD by the required date, the aircraft is automatically considered unairworthy. If you want to read the entire definition, take a look at our National Policy on Airworthiness Certification of Aircraft and Related Products. Ok, maybe it’s best if I just point you in the right direction. In section 45 on page 20, you will see described the “Basic Eligibility Requirements.” It says that “Before a standard airworthiness certificate can be issued, the applicant must show the following . . . All applicable ADs have been complied with . . . . .”

So as you can see, this was more of a technical description as opposed to saying that the planes were truly unsafe. But that doesn’t mean that they weren’t. They did, after all, find 6 aircraft had small cracks that needed to be fixed. So were they unsafe? Probably not. There are so many strange political moves in here that I get the feeling we haven’t heard the whole story. Check these out.

• The FAA came out with the fine a week before congressional investigators were to have issued a report. Why not wait?
• FAA supervisors actually permitted Southwest to keep flying those planes after they admitted they hadn’t complied with the AD. Why?
• Boeing says “In Boeing’s opinion, the safety of the Southwest fleet was not compromised.”
• Southwest says We assure you that this issue never compromised the safety of our fleet.

As you can see, there is a lot of conflicting information out there. What we do know is that Southwest failed to respond to an AD in time, self-reported when it uncovered that fact, and then continued to fly those aircraft until they were fixed with the blessing of the FAA.

When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound that bad. In fact, the worst part of the whole thing is what drew the smallest fine – that Southwest simply failed to perform the work required in the AD in the first place. Will this make me less likely to fly Southwest? Nah. This kind of stuff does happen, though I’m obviously not thrilled to see it. I do want to know more about what Southwest is doing to make sure this doesn’t get overlooked in the future.