Vegas Hotel Rooms Growing; Flights Shrinking
Hotels rooms in Vegas are growing rapidly but flights are disappearing. How are they going to find enough people to fill all those rooms?

Hawaiian Adds Winglets to Some of Its 767 Fleet
Hawaiian is putting winglets on nearly half its 767 fleet. Why aren’t they going all the way? Is it really worth it to put these on?

United Double Second Bag Fee to $50; Unfairly Blames Fuel
Fuel prices are dropping like a rock, yet United is still blaming their “volatility” for adding on extra fees. Hmm, the word disingenuous comes to mind . . .

Does Spirit Really Have the Best Operating Margin in the US?
Spirit reported the best operating margin of all US carriers in the second quarter. Why isn’t this all that it seems?

United’s Fuel Hedges are Underwater
Fuel prices are down, so that means some fuel hedges are going to mean higher costs for airlines. United said it could lose millions, but this isn’t necessarily bad.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of MAXjet. Then raise your hand again if you can tell me why airlines can’t just use normal capitalization rules in their names.

If you live in New York, Washington, or London, there’s a good chance you know of them. Otherwise, well, maybe not. mAxJeT is one of the new business-class only airlines that started up in the last year. They fly 767s with a product that won’t rival British Airways’ business class, but it certainly beats flying coach. With fares comparable to full coach, they’ve started to build a nice little niche for themselves. Flights currently run between London/Stansted and both Washington/Dulles and New York/JFK.

Today, maxJET announced that on November 2, they will begin twice weekly flights between London/Stansted and Las Vegas. Now at first glance this looks like a very odd route for an all-business class airline. Flying only twice a week is not a business schedule, so who is going to pay for it?

I think it has to be the casinos.

MAXJET has scheduled flights on Thursdays and Mondays - that’s a perfect long weekend for a UK gambler. The casinos can fly their high rollers out in style, make obscene amounts of money off them, and then send them home. With only 102 seats per flight, it doesn’t take much to make that route work.

If there is actually a contract with a casino, this seems like a great move for MaxjET.