I almost never take a break. Even if I’m traveling somewhere, I usually end up pre-writing posts so that you don’t even know I’m gone. But now, I AM going to take a break, and I’m going to let the blog go (mostly) dark for two weeks. After today, there won’t be another post from me until August 19 when the regular schedule resumes.

I know, I know. It’s gonna be weird, but fear not! Andrew will still keep you updated with the Cranky Weekly Review Presented by San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport each Friday giving you a rundown of the news.

In the meantime, I had been poking around a variety of things for a possible post, but nothing really came together in time for this week, so I decided to just give you some bits and pieces to read or listen to while I’m breaking. It’s kind of like the old 3 Links I Love…

1) Catch Up on The Air Show

We are also going to take a two week break from The Air Show, but you can listen to this week’s episode where Jon tells us all the good stuff he learned at Farnborough International Airshow. Once you’ve heard that one, you’ll definitely want to go back and relive some of our best shows. (No, I won’t tell you which ones those are.)

And if you haven’t been listening at all, then the next couple weeks will be a perfect opportunity to get caught up before our return.

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Pocket Casts

2) Spirit Goes, Goes Savvy, Goes Comfy, and Goes Big

Spirit has announced a set of bundles to make flying the airline easier. These are the new bundles:

This differs from Frontier in that it actually alters the onboard experience. Flight attendants will have to know who has a snack included and who gets drinks. It’s definitely a notable change.

I very easily could have written this up as a post… except we have no idea what it’ll cost. It won’t be for sale until August 16, so right now it’s hard to judge this. One thing is clear — as I told the Washington Post, Spirit is trying to make it easier to fly the airline, even if that means making things harder for itself.

3) JetBlue Sees Success With JetForward Plans

JetBlue surprised with a Q2 profit this week, though as is the case with everyone else, the forward-looking guidance is gloomier. But still, this is progress for JetBlue which is now branding its new plan as JetForward. What does that mean? According to its Q2 presentation, this means the airline wants to:

Be loved.
Be profitable.
for crewmembers, customers, and owners

You can read the deck, but there are four prongs to this plan with the one generating the most revenue being an effort to capture a higher share of premium customers. It’s also deferring airplane deliveries to save money and reworking the network as we’ve already seen with 15 city exits and dozens of routes killed.

Wait, that’s only three prongs… it’s improving the operation as well. In Q2, JetBlue beat its most recent unit cost plans with half of that benefit from actually running a better operation. According to Anuvu data, Q2 of this year saw the airline complete 98.81 percent of flights with 74.39 percent arriving within 14 minutes of schedule. In Q2 of 2023? Those numbers were 97.98 percent and 66.62 percent respectively.

Nice work by the blue crew. It just goes to show how quickly a new, capable leadership team can make real progress.

4) Hawaiian and Alaska Agree to Make My Life Easier

Hawaiian and Alaska are trying to merge, and to do that, they would really like if the Department of Justice agreed not to sue to block them for getting together. They provided a ton of information to DOJ, and that started the 90-day clock. If DOJ did nothing by that day, then the merger was free to move ahead. Now, the airlines have agreed with DOJ to extend that review period to 12:01am on August 15.

This means it won’t be too stale for me to write about this after my break. This could very well mean they’re close to a deal with DOJ, or it could be an ominous sign. Either way, thanks everyone for pushing it back!

Now, enjoy the break, and I’ll talk to you again on August 19.