Virgin America Unit Revenues Fall More Than 20 Percent
Virgin America’s revenue for the first quarter fell dramatically.

Virgin America Makes Progress on Costs
Revenues don’t look great, but costs are definitely looking up.

American Ends Austin - San Jose Flights
American is killing its nerd bird flight. It’s a sad day.

April Premium Traffic Continues the Downward Spiral
IATA’s monthly premium traffic report had some glimmers of hope, but I wouldn’t get too excited yet. It’s still ugly.

Continental Reveals Domestic Load Factor Strength, International Weakness
Loads actually look decent on some Continental routes this summer, but this is probably not the great news you would hope it would be.

United’s Cash Position to Hold Steady During Second Quarter
United’s cash is expected to stay around $2.5 billion after the second quarter.

United Removes Website Hold Feature
United is no longer allowing you to hold reservations booked online. Did they really need to ditch that?

Skepticism Surrounds Potential United Aircraft Order
United is talking about ordering new airplanes, but few believe the airline is revealing its true motivation. There are plenty of theories that make a lot of sense.

May 2009 Airline Traffic Numbers
Raise your hand if you think traffic looked good in May. If you raised your hand, put it down. You’re wrong.

Allegiant’s Low Aircraft Ownership Costs Allow Schedule Flexibility
In a recent presentation, Allegiant showed just how unique their model is. Some months, they cut capacity by more than a third. Not many airlines can pull that off.

Hawaiian Finally Showing Improvement in Mainland On Time Performance
You may think Hawaiian has great on time performance, but that’s definitely not true on their mainland flights. Fortunately, in April they finally showed some improvement.

Lower Demand and Higher Oil Prices Lead to Fall Capacity Cuts
Oil is going up and demand isn’t getting any better. That means it’s time to cut capacity once again.

Virgin America Cash Levels Plunge in the First Quarter
Virgin America released first quarter results today and cash is a concern.

The long awaited day is here. Virgin America and V Australia have finally entered into an interline agreement. It’s a fairly limited set-up right now thanks to technical limitations, but eventually it will become a full-fledged interline and codeshare agreement.

So what do I mean when I say it’s fairly limited? Well, as of now, it can only be booked via V Australia’s call center or a travel agent. Starting June 8, you can also book on on the V Australia website. But nothing can be handled from the Virgin America side of the house.

There is also no frequent flier reciprocity at this point. You can only earn frequent flier points in the program of the operating carrier. That means Velocity points for the Transpacific flight and eleVAte points for the domestic US run.

So why is this so limited? It’s the same thing that prevented this whole thing from getting off the ground until now . . . technical issues on Virgin America’s side. According to Virgin America spokesperson Abby Lunardini, Virgin America and V Australia are “working towards reciprocal interline and codesharing agreements ultimately. We hope to have that functionality in our VX systems sometime in 2010.” The timeline is similar for reciprocal frequent flier earning, though that should be in early 2010.

Until then, at least you’ll be able to transfer your bags directly.

ExpressJet To Fly 10 Planes for United This Summer
Looks like ExpressJet is flying for United this summer, and it seems like a win-win for everyone considering the circumstances.

Delta Pulls Out of Boston - Baltimore Route
That didn’t take long. Delta is pulling out of the Boston-Baltimore route, but can the remaining three make a living on their own? I doubt it.

Hearings on the Buffalo Q400 Crash Begin Today
The hearings on the downed Q400 begin today, and fingers look to be heading toward Colgan’s training and the pilot onboard.

Virgin America Shows Worse Q4 Numbers Excluding Lower Fuel Prices
Low fuel prices made Q4 look better for Virgin America, but don’t let that fool you. This wasn’t a great quarter.

Virgin America Posts Low January Load Factors
Part 2 of my Virgin America review looks at the low load factors that plagued the airline in January.

Digging in to Virgin America’s Q4 Operational Stats
This is the last post on this for awhile, I promise. But I decided to dig in to operational stats and the results told some interesting tales.

Former America West Pilots Win in Court Ruling Over Legacy US Airways Pilots
We may be one step closer to seeing the US Airways/America West seniority problem solved, but not quite. The old US Airways pilots are going to appeal. *sigh*

Spirit Wants People To Know Who They Are
You know who Spirit is? If so, you might not like them. They’re trying to change that, but not by improving customer service. Just by talking.

Cranky is on vacation, but I pre-scheduled a handful of posts over at BNET. Here are this week’s.
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Montie Brewer Ousted as CEO of Air Canada
Air Canada’s board decided to clean house last week in order to face its impending cash crisis. But was it really Brewer’s fault?

Oberstar Questions Virgin America’s Citizenship Status
Though the DOT may not have been too high on reviewing Virgin America’s ownership status before, Rep Oberstar’s intervention will certainly change that.

Airline Executives Talk About Oil and the Economy
I promise I’m almost done with my wrap-up from the Phoenix Aviation Symposium. This is part one of the executive panel.