Cranky Weekly Review Presented by San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport: Southwest Gets Better, All Aboard SkyTeam’s Newest Partner

---

Southwest. Even Better. They Pinky Swear.

Southwest Airlines unveiled its $4 billion plan to transform the airline at its Investor Day event Thursday in Dallas. The headlines included some things we already knew — the arrival of assigned seating and an extra-legroom offering in the front of the plane — and confirmed that its free checked bag policy is here to stay for the indefinite future.

The carrier is also bringing back interline partnerships with other carriers, starting with Icelandair. The two will team up for connections in Baltimore beginning next year, with more cities and airlines expected to be added later. It’s also going to update its Rapid Rewards program, as the main perk of the program — access to Boarding Group A — will go away once open seating goes away.

Getaways by Southwest will be a new product that replaces Southwest Vacations, so the three people that use that service per year will need to learn a new 800 number. Other than that, it also wants to improve operational productivity with shorter turn times, operating as a 24-hour airline — including redeyes — and reducing staffing through retirement and other attrition, but avoiding layoffs…for now.

Only time will tell if this is a true fix for Southwest or an effort to buy more time to hold off Elliott, but in the meantime, we’ll all have a front seat view — provided we get an early enough boarding number — to see what happens.

Come back next week for more detailed posts on what the airline is doing.

SkyTeam Prepares to Ride the Rails

SkyTeam has apparently conquered the sky and with nothing left to do in the air, is now turning its attention the ground and signing an MoU with Eurostar to be the alliance’s first non-airline partner.

In theory, customers will now be able to combine air and rail into one reservation, while still taking advantage of their SkyTeam benefits — meaning Delta Medallions are going to be aghast when they see how easy it is to board a train in Europe, and that they’re SkyPriority boarding benefit is of no use.

Eurostar’s current network offers potential connections to Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.  SkyTeam CEO Patric “sauce me” Roux describes the partnership as a natural fit for SkyTeam showing he doesn’t really grasp what the “Sky” in “SkyTeam” means. 

Southwest Slashes Atlanta

Like General Sherman 160 years ago, Southwest is taking an aggressive stance towards burning through Atlanta, as the carrier plans to dramatically reduce its footprint at the world’s busiest airport beginning next spring.

As part of the rollback, Southwest will reduce its weekly flights through ATL from 567 to 381, it’s destinations it serves from 37 to 21, and gates used on ATL’s Concourse C from 18 to 11. The winner in this reduction is Atlanta’s neighbor to the north — Nashville — which will add six new destinations and new redeye service.

It will also reduce the amount of staff based in Atlanta — while no one is being let go, many pilots and FAs will have to shift their base and now be required to commute to their base to begin their trips. TWU 556, the union that represents Southwest’s FAs say as many as 300 cabin crew will be displaced by the reduction in service to Atlanta and that no amount of salty death mix will make up the loss.

Alaska Updates Subscription Offering

Alaska Airlines is making its subscription pass simpler, leaving customers with just two options — six yearly round trips or 12 yearly round trips.  The carrier is eliminating its 24-flight option, but will let both customers currently subscribed to that option to change to a new option or cancel for free.

Alaska’s flight subscription is valid to select west coast destinations on the carrier to cities in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah.  Flights can be booked up to two weeks in advance, and do not come with change fees or blackout dates.

As part of the new plan, pass holders can finally book their flights on the carrier’s website — leaving 1994 and the requirement to call an agent behind.  New suckers subscribers will also receive a free year of its “Alaska Access” program, which usually costs $60 and includes a voucher for once-monthly internet access and allegedly offers early access to some sales for flights to destinations you definitely want to go to.

Air Haifa Prepares to Begin Service

Air Haifa, the turboprop startup carrier based in Haifa in the north of Israel received its air operating certificate and plans to begin service this upcoming Monday.

When it takes to the sky next week, it’ll be Israel’s first startup carrier in a generation, and the first to be based in Haifa. The new airline will fly a fleet of ATR 72-600 turboprops in a coach-only configuration with 72 seats in a 2-2 layout. It’ll first focus on leisure destinations to both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, operating first to Eilat (ETM) and Larnaca (LCA).

It will operate — at least at first — as an LCC, charging for everything except a personal item. Its biggest selling point to potential customers will be convenience, and it will offer an alternative for the ~three million Israelis living in the north of the country an option besides driving to TLV.

• Aer Lingus is concerned about a restriction of nighttime flights that’s being considered in Dublin.
• Air Astana added additional fuel tanks to its A321LRs so that the LR part is more accurate, now allowing it to serve London/Heathrow from Almaty without a stop.
• Air France is adding buy-on-board for some intra-Europe flights. But Wi-Fi will be free.
• Air Transat has a new CF Montréal livery.
• Alaska may be excited about its merger with Hawaiian, but Moody’s Ratings — not so much.
• Alaska Air Cargo made a few leadership changes in the wake of its merger with Hawaiian.
• American flight 281 from DFW to Seoul/ICN earlier this month was forced to turn back to Dallas after an issue with a toilet malfunction. No Basic Economy passengers were harmed during the malfunction.
• Caribbean Airlines is back in the B737-800 game.
• Cathay Pacific is adding Dallas/Fort Worth service in April.
• Condor resumed service to Thailand.
• Delta‘s next Delta One lounge will open next month in Los Angeles. It won’t open in Salt Lake City, despite the carrier announcing it plans to connect SLC with Seoul next summer.
• Emirates is adding a fourth daily frequency to Johannesburg.
• Eurowings has a beefed up winter schedule.
• Icelandair will begin flying to Nashville next year.
• JetSmart made a chAAnge in its frequent flier loyalty program.
• Korean is adding to both China and Japan.
• Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is threatening to raise prices.
• SAS signed its codeshare agreement with Delta. As part of the new agreement, passengers flying the carrier from one Scandinavian destination to another will now be required to change planes in Atlanta.
• Southwest also is going to debut new uniforms for its front-facing staff, with the total bill for the new threads expected to come in right around $4 billion.
• Transavia is growing its network from Bordeaux.
• T’way is l’easing five A330neos.
• United is leasing 20 A321neos.
• Wizz Air Abu Dhabi will begin taking delivery of A321XLRs with new engines in 2026.