3 Links I Love: Breeze Shifts Inflight Plan, Alaska’s Fleet, Another New Airline

Breeze, Links I Love

This Week’s Featured Link

Breeze eases plan to rely on students as flight attendantsThe Associated Press
It never seemed like a great plan, and now Breeze has learned that relying on college kids as interns to be your entire flight attendant complement isn’t going to cut it. Oh, but it’s not because the airline has realized it’s a bad idea. It’s just because it hasn’t been able to get enough sign-ups. Can’t wait to see how this works out.

Chart of the Week

This is the Alaska Airlines fleet count over a 10 year period by type. Alaska announced earlier this week it would exercise options to add 737 MAX 9 and Embraer 175 aircraft to its stable. As you can see, the NG remains the king of the castle, but the MAXes are climbing quickly. Meanwhile, the Airbuses are almost gone, dropping to only the 10 A321s by 2023.

Two for the Road

Dash Air Shuttle to serve Port AngelesDash Air Shuttle News
Add this to the list of airlines trying to start up. I know nothing about it, but the Facebook page says the airline is looking at a “Founders” membership for travelers where you prepay for a fixed number of flights. That sounds like an airline that needs more funding.

‘Amazing’: Pilots, passenger uninjured after midair crashThe Associated Press
Holy crap. Just click through and look at what happened to that flying pencil Metroliner. That thing is an absolute tank to take that kind of beating and still land safely.

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8 comments on “3 Links I Love: Breeze Shifts Inflight Plan, Alaska’s Fleet, Another New Airline

  1. That Metroliner reminds me of Aloha Flight 243. Thank goodness everyone was okay; it’s amazing that everyone was able to walk away, including the pilot (who was the sole person) on the Metroliner.

    Flying small cargo planes to build up hours in your logbook isn’t easy, and as this shows, it isn’t the safest job.

    It’s worth noting that the other plane in the collision, the SR22, was saved by its emergency ballistic parachute. The invention and more widespread adoption of systems like that is perhaps one of the more underrated innovations/trends in general aviation in recent decades.

    The VAS Aviation YouTube channel (no affiliation), as usual, had the ATC of this incident captioned and animated with radar imagery within hours of the crash happening, and is a GREAT resource for avgeeks and those curious to see how pilots & ATC handle emergencies.

    1. VAS aviation does an amazing job every time. While we will have to wait for the official report from the NTSB, this collision screams deviation by the Cirrus. He came in way too fast turning base and completely overshot his approach. I haven’t flown the Cirrus but it looks like he was coming in too fast and perhaps misjudged the wind pushing him into the parallel traffic.

      Score one for the San Antonio Sewer Tube; I’m amazed the tail didn’t fall off. The best part is if you listen to the ATC recording, the Metro pilot thought he had simply lost an engine. I can only imagine his expression when he shut down on the ramp, turned around and saw the light pouring through the cabin.

  2. > The best part is if you listen to the ATC recording, the Metro pilot thought he had simply lost an engine. I can only imagine his expression when he shut down on the ramp, turned around and saw the light pouring through the cabin.

    Exactly. If the Metro pilot didn’t get the shakes and lose control of a few vital bodily functions after seeing that upon landing, he’s a much stronger man than I am.

  3. Is anyone keeping a list anywhere of all the carriers starting up this year? LOL keeps growing and growing…

  4. Alternate headline: “Breeze can’t find enough volunteers indentured servants to make labor exploitation scheme sustainable”

  5. Dash is well funded and supported by a team that has a collective 100 years of airline experience. Would love to fill you in on our details and plans for the future.

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