WestJet Offers Incentives for Travelers Not to Fly
With all the bad weather around the country, WestJet needed to find a way to get people home. They opted to try using bribes.

Southwest Sees Benefits of RNP, Retrofits Older Aircraft
Say goodbye to the old round dials and hello to big, pretty screens. Why is Southwest bothering? It’s all to take advantage of RNP.

Required Reading: Hard Landing
It’s the holidays, so I have some spare time on my hands. I decided to go back and re-read Hard Landing again. If you’ve never read it, you certainly should.

Southwest Cash Position Declines Due to Hedging
Southwest’s cash position has plummeted, but it’s all due to hedging and not how they’re actually running their business. See why.

Air Cargo Declines 13.5 Percent in November
It’s not just passenger traffic feeling the heat in this slow economy. Air cargo is dropping quickly as well.

I think we can now unofficially declare the A380 dead. UPS announced today that they have canceled their order for 10 freighter versions of the A380.

Since Fedex already canceled their order and Emirates converted their orders into ones for the passenger version, that leaves no takers for the A380 Freighter anymore. I would imagine Airbus will just walk away from this so they can concentrate on the passenger version, but then again it wouldn’t surprise me to see them keep chugging along with the program to save face. (I hope not.)

I’m actually pretty surprised this didn’t get more attention last week. On Sep 15, US officials announced they’ll require all express cargo to be screened for explosives just like checked baggage.

I’ve heard plenty of people show their concern about cargo not being screened, so why didn’t this get more attention? Well, for one reason, it’s not much of a change.

A good example of express cargo is the Continental QUICKPAK. Basically, you go up to a counter at the airport and they ship it on the next flight out to any other airport for a hefty fee. Then someone has to pick it up at the other end. So, a very small portion of total airline cargo actually goes onboard as express cargo. On top of that, most airlines already do full screening of these packages anyway.

So, this announcement doesn’t say much except that the feds are actually keeping an eye on cargo. It seems to me it’s just a matter of time before all cargo is required to be screened.