American Airlines Gets Closer to A La Carte Pricing
American has talked about moving closer to a true a la carte pricing system like Air Canada. This is a big win for airlines and their customers.

Airlines May Weather Financial Crisis Well
Demand may be going down but so are fuel prices, and that could make for some good news for airlines. Quarterly earnings are right around the corner.

Are Delta’s Turboprop Moves an Ominous Sign for Memphis?
Word is out that Delta plans to shift some of Northwest’s turboprop flying into its Atlanta hub. Does this mean that Memphis will be shrinking?

Delta Reports Quarterly Loss But Outlook is Positive
It’s earnings season, and Delta kicked it off with a $26 million loss ex special items. These aren’t bad results, and the outlook is actually pretty positive.

American Sees Third Quarter Loss, Warns of Challenges
American reported a loss this quarter, but the outlook was thought to be improving. CEO Gerard Arpey, however, cautioned about challenges ahead.

Two Important Things to Know About Continental and Southwest Earnings
Hurricane Ike and fuel hedges? These two things matter a lot when reviewing Continental and Southwest’s earning reports.

Boeing Strike May Be Good News for Airlines
Maybe that headline is a bit of an overstatement, but the month-long Boeing strike isn’t all bad news for airlines. In fact, some may be happy with it.

I wrote about this on BNET last week when it was still a rumor. Now it’s been confirmed that Republic will operate Embraer 170s within Hawai’i for Mokulele. This seems like a smart move, and it will put some pressure on go!. [/caption]In fact, I’m tempted to refer to this as “go! Away Airlines.”

Here’s the plan. Republic will take up to four 70 seat Embraer 170s and operate them for little Mokulele Airlines in a traditional regional airline-style fixed fee agreement. Two of those aircraft will arrive in time for flights to begin between Honolulu and both Lihue and Kona in mid-November. I’m somewhat surprised to not see Kahului (Maui) on the list, but maybe we’ll see that when the other two aircraft join the fleet in March. Or maybe since that’s the most competitive market in the Islands, they’re going to play a game of wait and see. Either way, they’ll need to enter that route eventually if they want to be a serious player.

Unlike the all-coach airplanes that Republic will be flying for Midwest, these will actually have 6 First Class seats and 64 in coach. Republic spokesperson Warren Wilkinson confirmed that these were aircraft that had been operating for Delta Connection, but now that Delta has up-gauged to Embraer 175s, these aircraft needed a new home.

The one thing about this deal that makes it a bit more non-traditional is that Republic will actually open a line of credit for Mokulele worth $8 million. It’s unclear whether Mokulele will need to tap this line of credit, but if they do, Republic will have the right to turn it into an equity stake in the airline.

You might think the name Mokulele sounds familiar. I’ve written about them once before when they began flying as go! Express. Yes, that’s Mesa-owned go!, the very same airline with which Mokulele will now be competing. What’s the chance they continue to fly as go! Express for very long? Just about none. In fact, Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein was quoted as saying “he’s disappointed in Mokulele and says he does not plan to continue a partnership with a competitor.”

go! must be livid because this does not bode well for them. Economically, the 170s are better planes to fly between the Islands. So, go! is going to have a tough time competing on seat costs. Just when it thought capacity had rationalized with Aloha’s disappearance, this new operation comes along to make life more difficult again.

For Mokulele and Republic, I think this is a smart move. Mokulele enables Republic to fly planes under a local brand name, and we saw how much backlash their was against go! for being from the mainland. Besides, Republic has stayed away from being a marketing carrier in general, and they likely are not looking to build up the infrastructure required for things like marketing and revenue management. This partnership is good for both airlines. There also seems to be broad local and political support for this venture, especially since they are promising to put many ex-Aloha employees back to work.

In short, this is the right airplane for the market, and Republic had some planes it needed to get flying again. This is a very creative way to put those planes to work in a venture that I think has a decent chance for success.

American may have announced a $360 million loss excluding special items yesterday, but that news was overshadowed by the airline’s decision to order up to 100 787 Dreamliners. They join Delta/Northwest and Continental as having 787s on order while United . . . still does not.

So the story is that American has ordered 42 787-9s and kept the rights for 58 more of them. They have not ordered any of the smaller 787-8 aircraft, though I would assume that they could swap for them if they really wanted to at a later date.

The 787-9 will hold 250 to 290 passengers. That’s a decent increase over the 225 seats you’ll find on one of their 58 767-300s today, but it will slot in between those and the 47 777s they’re also flying. My guess is that if they do use this aircraft to replace airplanes instead of grow (as they’ve indicated), they’ll start with some of their older 767-300s (the first of which turn 20 this year).

But, by 2012 when the first plane arrives, they may very well use this plane to focus on expansion. By then there will hopefully be a stronger economy and an increase in global traffic. I would assume that they’ll keep the flexibility to make that decision later on if they can.

Wait, did I say 2012? Pretty interesting that though Boeing was thought to have its 787 line booked solid for years, they still found room for American to start taking deliveries in just four short years. You’ve always gotta take care of your best customers, right? According to the Airline Biz blog, American had actually negotiated in a previous contract that they get early dibs on aircraft if they want them.

Now, American just has to come to terms with its pilots on how much to pay them to fly the plane. If they can’t, they actually built in the right to cancel the order. Nothing like building in some leverage into your negotiations.

And yes, the question I’m sure every airline dork cares about (and nobody else does) . . . will the planes be able to keep the metallic finish that American is known for or will they have to paint the composite planes gray like they originally did with the A300? Well, this artist’s impressions makes it look gray:

But I think it’s safe to say that this is probably the last thing on their minds. We’ll figure it out down the road.

Thank you for submitting your questions after the inaugural Ask Cranky column. Please keep them coming . . .

Dear Cranky,

I’ve been reading you a while and I wonder what your experience/opinion is of the Clear program that is now in place at 17 US airports?

Thanks – Bill

Ah yes, the Clear program. This question is very timely since they raised price by more than 50% today. What I originally expected to be a trusted traveler program has become nothing more than a security fast pass. If you’re a member, you can skip to the head of the line. Don’t believe me? Here are the five benefits as listed by Clear.

• Get through security faster, in under four minutes.
• Don’t worry about unpredictably long lines.
• Access a designated security lane with special benefits.
• Allow our attendants and concierges to help you as you go through the Clear lane.
• Use your Clear card at airports nationwide.

For those keeping score, four of the five just mean that you get to head to the front of the class. The other point does mention that they have attendants to help you get through security. But what it doesn’t say is anything about separate screening equipment or an expedited screening regimen. No, all this does is let you cut in line.

So, let’s start with who doesn’t need this. If you are an elite member with one airline and don’t fly other airlines often or you fly in premium cabins, you probably get the same benefits already. If you’re an infrequent traveler, you’re not going to be able to justify the formerly $128 fee and now whopping $199 for the first year. And if you don’t fly primarily out of one of the 21 Clear airports, then you won’t get any use out of this either.

BUT, if you are one of the few who fly often and aren’t an elite member or you fly on a variety of airlines, this might be interesting for you because it will speed up the security process. Since they aren’t in any LA airports, I’ve never seriously considered it, but even if they were I doubt I’d do it. If you’d like to learn a little more, Benet Wilson has been covering this a lot over at Towers and Tarmacs, including the launch of Clear in Atlanta.

Delta put out a press release last week entitled “Delta to Offer 180-Degree Full Flat Beds to Heathrow From New York and Atlanta.” Sounds thrilling right? Not so much. But buried in that release was a little note that says “Air France has announced that it intends to discontinue service between Los Angeles and Heathrow as it adds the new nonstop Heathrow flight from New York.”

Very interesting. So the first true Open Skies experiment, where one European airline flew from another European country to the US, has ended in failure. Is anyone really surprised?

This route was questionable from the beginning but it was doomed within a few months. When Air France first announced it would fly the route, I was surprised. You can already fly nonstop from LAX to London on BA, Virgin Atlantic, United, American, and even Air New Zealand. So was there really a need for yet another flight?

Probably not, but there wasn’t a SkyTeam presence on the route, and Delta was in the midst of building up its LA hub operation. So, Air France must have thought it was worth a shot. Apparently, they were wrong.

I would be surprised if the route ever looked good, but once Delta dismantled its hub operation in LA, that had to be the death knell. Without any Delta feed, I can’t imagine this one had a shot. Now Air France will instead fly one flight a day from New York to London to complement Delta’s two flights. What’s the point? They want a piece of the rapidly shrinking financial services business? This seems like somewhat of a waste of a 777 to me, but maybe they’ll find a way to make this one work better than they did in LA.

Something tells me that Air France shouldn’t be focusing on London, but that’s for them to figure out.