This Week’s Featured Link
China Eastern Airlines flight 5735 crashes en route to Guangzhou – Flightradar24
This descent rate is… well, it’s just not something that can easily be reached.
Image of the Week
I took this photo after a late flight from Santa Rosa to LAX a few years ago, but why am I showing it now? Alaska has just announced all its Airbus and Q400 aircraft will be gone by the end of next year.
Two for the Road
AMLO’s Fast-Track Airport Set to Open With Few Flights, Ample Criticism – Bloomberg
The new Mexico City airport that was built hastily and far away isn’t an instant success? I’m shocked… SHOCKED.
New Flybe Announces Launch Date, Route Network – Airways Mag
It’s baaaaack. Or at least, it will be on on April 13.
8 comments on “3 Links I Love: China Eastern Crash, Mexico City’s Empty Airport, Flybe is Back”
Maybe (U)LCC’s get a good deal to go to the new México city Airport?
Hopefully they are smart enough to give VERY good deals for airlines to fly there since nobody really wants to. That should definitely be its niche. Simultaneously jacking up the fees at MEX would also be a good idea.
Just here to say that I am incredibly sad to see the Q400’s go. QX was the first airline I worked for (after being at a handler), and I fell in love with the Dash almost immediately. Not hard to do when the other options were Metros, D328s, and F28s, but still… I also have an affinity for small airports, and this is another blow to those communities.
They should have named the new Mexico City airport “Mirabel Sur”
Not quite *all* the Airbus aircraft. They’re keeping the A321neos, but they’re actively shopping for buyers.
The investor presentation stated that Alaska will be all B737/E175 by 2023.
James – The A321s will be gone by the end of 2023 as well.
Alaska/Horizon is retiring the Q400s? That makes me really nervous, with Q400 cities Kelowna (YLW) and Wenatchee (EAT) being my two main origin airports for Alaska. When they retired the Q200s/Dash 8-300s, EAT went from 4 flights most days to 3 fights most days, and that in practice made connections much more difficult. And do they have the E175 capacity to replace the Q400s? I see they’re retiring 32 Q400s and adding 19 E175s.
Q400s and E175s have the same capacity (unlike Q200s and Q400s), so maybe they’ll keep the same frequency, but I’m not optimistic, since my understanding is that Q400s beat the pants off of anything else, including E175s, in costs for short flights like these.