After American walked away from its St Louis hub, Southwest came in with additional flights. Now, the onslaught continues. Looks like Southwest is making its move on the Gateway City.

Southwest’s May schedule is now out (PDF) and there are some interesting moves. I’ll start with St Louis. The following flights are being added.

• St Louis to Los Angeles starts with 2 daily flights
• St Louis to Nashville starts with 2 daily flights
• St Louis to New Orleans starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to Raleigh/Durham starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to San Diego starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to Seattle starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to Houston goes from 3 to 4 daily
• St Louis to Minneapolis goes from 2 to 3 daily

The LAX and Seattle flights are interesting because those are both still flown by American. I believe Southwest actually used to fly the LAX route before, but now it’s apparently the right time to come back in. While I doubt they’ll push American off the LA route just yet, I bet we see American walk away from Seattle one of these days. Speaking of LAX routes that Southwest is re-entering . . .

Long haul is making a comeback. Southwest is bringing back the Baltimore to LAX nonstop flight that it cut awhile back. The single daily flight, along with a Baltimore to Seattle run, will mark one of the first times we’ve seen Southwest go back into coast to coast flying after severely cutting back in recent years. Baltimore is also seeing an additional daily flight to Albuquerque, Buffalo, Denver, Vegas, Manchester, Norfolk, Phoenix, and Raleigh/Durham. Only the Florida markets of West Palm and Ft Myers lose a flight – going into the slower summer season that makes sense.

By the way, those LA and Seattle flights? Those are currently flown by AirTran. Looks like Southwest is making a little run at them to reassert their position in Baltimore.

Southwest also put out its Panama City schedule. They’ll run twice daily to Baltimore, Houston, Nashville, and Orlando. Looks like they’re spreading the wealth around so they can maximize connectivity. Seems like a smart way to go into that airport. I’m sure Nashville is happy to see service to a new airport from the get go. They seem to have been neglected down there for awhile.

Overall, the moves look good. We should thank Southwest for continuing to be very transparent with these changes.

It’s Wednesday and I think we all need a break from the problems of this industry. Let’s forget about looming strikes, delayed deliveries, red ink, etc and simply focus on the wonders of flight. The 787 finally slipped the surly bonds of Earth yesterday, and it was a beautiful sight. Here’s a shot from Boeing.

Take a look at that wing flex. Pretty crazy, huh? The 787 doesn’t look nearly as mean as it did in its initial renderings, but it’s still a very nice-looking airplane. Those massive Rolls Royce engines do seem disproportional to the body though. (GE ones begin testing soon.) Then again, they need those bad boys to save gas and fly further.

Fortunately, it didn’t just take to the air, but it also came back down and landed safely. The flight lasted only about 3 hours; it was cut short due to weather. This is just the beginning of a long road ahead. First deliveries to launch customer ANA are still probably a year away.

If you didn’t see the live webcast from Boeing or the countless images from the media, take a look at this video of the flight from David at AirlineReporter.com.

If you really want to follow the details, you have to follow FlightBlogger. He has plenty of videos and info over there.

Congratulations to all those who have worked on this airplane around the globe. It must be an incredible feeling to see your work take flight.

UPDATE 12/17 @ 853a – The strike is off!

If you’re booked on British Airways for the holidays, you might be kicking yourself right now. The cabin crew (a fancy name for flight attendants) overwhelmingly voted yesterday to strike for a dozen days beginning at the end of this month. This is likely to be very painful for travelers if it happens, and the flight attendants certainly aren’t getting any sympathy from me. In fact, they get the coveted Cranky Jackass award instead.

The plan is this. Flight attendants expect to begin striking British Airways on December 22 and go for 12 straight days through January 2. Clearly this was planned in order to wait until the busy Hanukkah travel rush ended, but the flight attendants seem to have forgotten about a slightly more widely celebrated holiday called Christmas. And of course, there’s New Years as well.

So nice of them to do it right over the holidays, huh? Could they really not do this in January? Or maybe cut down from the 12 days? I guess not. The union, Unite, has apparently lived up to its name. More than 90% of the flight attendants united and voted in favor of this. Wow.

I spoke with British Airways and asked how they’re planning to deal with this. Spokesperson Michele Kropf said that since this just happened, plans are still being formed. They have, however, been internally preparing since the strike vote was first announced. The first step was for them to waive change fees during the period. If you’re traveling between December 20 and January 4, you’re able to change without penalty for up to 12 months from now. Of course, you’re probably traveling during that time because it’s the holidays, so you don’t exactly have the flexibility. But at least that option is out there.

Michele told me that they are working on their flight schedules now, but nothing has been canceled as of yet. From what I’ve seen (and this didn’t come from BA), these things generally result in at least a portion of the airline continuing to operate. There are always management crews who can step in to help, and sometimes flight attendants cross the line to work. There probably won’t be many of those in this case. History shows us that short haul flights tend to get canceled more because there are better alternates than long hauls. But I would be shocked if they could run their entire long haul schedule. It just isn’t very likely.

If you’d like to put a face on these people, here’s an interview with Len McCluskey, assistant general secretary of Unite. Watch in amazement as he tries to justify striking at Christmas yet still saying he sympathizes with customers.

What’s this fight about anyway? Oh, it’s the usual. BA has been absolutely hemorrhaging during this downturn. That’s what happens when you rely hugely on premium traffic. So, CEO Willie Walsh has proposed some pretty serious cuts in numbers and wages. The flight attendants aren’t happy and they’ve started their “United we stand” campaign. No, I swear this has nothing to do with United.

So why strike now? It appears that they think they need to make their point at the busiest time of the year. Unfortunately for them, that is highly unlikely to get them any sort of sympathy. While I know what they’re going through is difficult, striking during the holidays is simply unconscionable to me. While they might have received some sympathy for a strike during off peak times, a strike during the holidays will only hurt their cause in the public eye.

I wish everyone holding a ticket on British Airways this holiday season good luck. Hopefully this gets settled in the next week and we don’t actually see a strike, but you should be mentally prepared for the worst just in case.

[Updated 12/15 @ 417p to reflect that the comments about historical reactions didn't come from BA but were rather my own speculation.]

First Alitalia had to go and post a profit and now Virgin America has done it. What is this world coming to?!? Ok, so they didn’t actually post a profit. They still lost money, but they did squeak out an operating profit. Though this is certainly encouraging news for Virgin America, this is just one quarter and there are a lot of things to be concerned about. Still, they’ve done better here than I ever expected.

I’ve obviously been a harsh skeptic of the viability of Virgin America since the beginning. While I’m sure there are many expecting me to eat crow, I’m not quite at that point. Sure, maybe I’ve picked up the fork and knife, but there’s a lot more we need to see before proclaiming this to be a true victory for the airline.

Virgin America says it posted an operating profit of $5.1 million in the third quarter of 2009. That comes out to be a 3.2% operating margin. Good for them. But let’s think about a few things here.

Remember, this is the third quarter and it’s the easiest quarter to make money. A single almost-profitable quarter in the summer, while good news, is not an indication that all is rosy now. If they can pull out a profit in the fourth quarter, then that’s a different story.

The information here is somewhat opaque and will remain so until they go public. The nice thing about being private is that you get to remain relatively quiet about your financials. The airlines in the US still have to submit their data to the government for dissemination, but it’s hard to really understand what’s going on there. For example, I remember a few quarters ago when Spirit posted a profit in the government data. It turned out they sold a bunch of hedges and made money that way. So it can be misleading.

While they’re touting their operating income, they bury the piece at the bottom showing that they still lost $6 million on the quarter. That’s obviously still a big improvement. How did they do it? Unit costs excluding fuel were down nearly 25%. How did they do that? Is it a permanent reduction or was there something in there that skewed it?

According to spokesperson Abby Lunardini, “The reduction in unit costs was primarily driven by our growth (and the efficiencies of scale that come with that) and cost control.” Very good. But there are clearly some secondary reasons that kept costs low as well, and we don’t know what those are.

Also, while they may have posted an operating profit, they still lost cash. At the end of the second quarter, cash was at $28 million. At the end of the third quarter, it was down to $23.2 million. Will that be enough to last the winter?

The data hasn’t been filed with the government yet, so I can’t dig into that. I only have the press release to go by. Yes, this was a good quarter comparatively, but there is still a lot to worry about.

Enjoy foreign service on N. American flights – USA Today
I talk to USA Today’s Ben Mutzabaugh about some of the “fifth freedom” flights operating in the US, including my personal favorite – Air New Zealand from LAX to London.

Airlines Fill Seats with Ease in November, Southwest Leaps Ahead – BNET
Southwest boosted its loads by 13.3 points in November. Yeehaw, that’s a lot.

Airlines Charging More for That Sought-After Seat – The New York Times
I voice the somewhat unpopular sentiment that charging for better seats on the plane is a good thing.

United Airlines Fights Mesa Air Group Over Airplanes (Part I) – BNET
United is suing Mesa over the introduction of 10 regional jets into service. This is the story of how they got to this point.

United Splits Its Widebody Fleet Order Between Boeing and Airbus – BNET
Why did United split its fleet order? Blame the manufacturers.

United Airlines Sues Mesa Air Group Over Airplanes (Part II) – BNET
And now, part 2 of our saga. In short, it seems to me that United wants out and Mesa made a mistake.

Radio Interview on the Noon Business Hour – WBBM 780 Chicago
I spoke with WBBM on Boeing’s prospects after the United order. My segment begins at the 25 minute mark and goes for about 3 minutes.

Japan and the US Near Aviation Open Skies Agreement, American and Delta Salivate – BNET
The Japanese market is one of the most fascinating to watch right now. Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening.