Cranky Weekly Review Presented by San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport: DOT’s DCA Sweepstakes Winners, United’s Profits Soar

---

DOT Announces DCA Winners

The long-awaited results of the DOT’s awarding of five new perimeter-exempted slots at Washington/National Airport were revealed this week and the results were…not shocking.

The five largest airlines all took home one new pair of slots each. The winners are:

• Alaska to San Diego
• American to San Antonio
• Delta to Seattle
• Southwest to Las Vegas
• United to San Francisco (for a second daily flight)

The government was unmoved by JetBlue’s proposal to add capacity to San Juan or Frontier and Spirit’s claim that they be considered incumbent carriers at the airport. Each of the non-winners has one more opportunity to object to the DOT’s ruling. It’s unlikely to change anything, but could provide their lawyers with something to do to kill time before they can go back to their first love, scaring children on Halloween.

United Has a Billion Reasons to be Pleased with Q3 Performance

United Airlines’s Q3 Earnings Report was quite good… good enough that the airline is implementing a $1.5 billion share buyback program — its first since the pandemic.

The carrier posted a net profit of $1 billion for the quarter, with pre-tax earnings between $1.3 and $1.4 billion. This came on nearly $15 billion in revenue — $14.84 billion to be more accurate — a 2.5% jump from a year ago. The report led UA’s stock to rise to $72.02, a high-water mark since the pandemic.

United expanded capacity by 4.1% during Q3, coinciding with a 13% jump in corporate revenue, a 5% increase in premium revenue, and a 20% boost in suckers basic economy revenue. It ended the quarter with $17.1 billion in liquidity, most of which it has offered Delta to pay the ransom for the United double agents Crowdstrike employees Delta is still holding hostage in the Biscoff tunnel in Atlanta.

Elliott’s Exciting New Podcast

Because what we all need is another podcast in our life, Elliott Investment Management has launched a podcast providing exactly the thrills you’d expect from a sit down with its proposed new members of Southwest’s Board of Directors.

The podcast comes as the investor is throwing its weight around and calling for a special shareholder meeting on December 10 to discuss its planned changes for the carrier, including the ouster of eight board members. It has the right to call for the meeting because it exceeded the 10% threshold of required stock to do so — but that doesn’t mean it’s going to work.

Southwest recently unveiled a series of changes both in personnel and in policy designed to stave off the takeover attempt by Elliott and keep a majority of shareholders in the corner of the current administration and CEO Bob Jordan. For more on Elliott’s latest heave, and a breakdown of the first podcast, please visit yesterday’s post from crankyflier.com.

Alaska Enhances Mileage Plan

There’s nothing airlines like more than enhancing their loyalty programs, dressing up devaluations and losses for the customer as enhancements. This time, its Alaska’s turn to enhance its loyalty program — although this update seems to mostly add benefits without a major devaluation, which is just really confusing.

The carrier’s award chart is staying in place, as it will eschew going to dynamically priced awards like most other major U.S. airlines have done. It is changing the way customers can qualify for elite status and is managing to do it without raising the thresholds — not yet at least. Mileage Plan members can earn 1 elite-qualifying mile (EQM) for every $3 spent with Alaska’s credit card, up to 30,000 EQMs in a year, which is raised from the current 20,000 annual limit.

Passengers will also earn EQMs on award redemptions — a policy Delta has had in place for a couple years now, and something reminiscent of many hotel loyalty programs. The carrier is also adding milestone rewards, the first level which will occur at 10,000 annual EQMs, or half the necessary amount for MVP status. There are various thresholds and levels up to 250,000 annual EQMs, with anyone exceeding that total being offered an opportunity to ban any Basic Economy passengers from using the lavatory on flights flown by the elite member at his or her discretion.

Delta to Debut New Cabin Interior

Delta Air Lines announced a new cabin design that will — wait for it — enhance the customer experience, first aboard its narrowbody B757 fleet, followed closely by its fleet of A350s.

Delta knows what customers want — it’s not low prices and an on-time operation — it’s enhanced lighting, a renewed color palette, new decorative motifs, and signature branding. Finally the cries of customers throughout the industry are being heard with these new cabins that “infuses utility with beauty to create an atmosphere that feels fresh, elevated, and timeless…” Because that’s what you want when you’re stuck in 36E in the second hour of a runway delay at JFK before your six hour flight to LAX — utility infused with beauty.

The airline says the new interior is “intentionally designed to make Delta customers feel at home during their travels,” which seemingly defeats the purpose of traveling away from home in the first place. Restrooms will be refreshed with “bright walls and an accent wall opposite the mirror in the Celestial Sky pattern,” which will really bring out the, um, water, that’s pooled on the floor around the toilet when you step in.

The redesign process is expected to take several years to complete over the entire fleet.

• Air New Zealand is putting a new interior in its Dreamliner fleet, one that we assume with infuse utility with beauty.
• Air Tahiti Nui named Phillippe Marie its new CEO.
• Air Vanuatu is back in control of itself.
• airBaltic priced an additional €40 million bond issuance.
• Armenian Airlines received a 16-year AOC extension despite having almost nowhere it can fly.
• American was awarded $9.4 million in its lawsuit against Skiplagged.
• Azul is close to scoring a, well, you know, in its merger with Gol.
• BRA needs the support of three additional ATR72s.
• Caribbean Airways and Red Air — two carriers that we believe are real — both have joined the TSA PreCheck family.
• Chair Airlines finally sat down and hammered out a deal to extend its A319 leases.
• Delta pulled all hot meats from flights departing Detroit after food earmarked for Basic Economy passengers was mistakenly served to entire aircraft.
• Emirates ordered additional freighters.
• FedEx successfully delivered two new pandas and seven orders of orange chicken aboard its “Panda Express” to Washington/Dulles this week on their trip from China to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C.’s Woodley Park neighborhood.
• Flair says its summer 2025 schedule focuses on high-demand routes which is a nice pivot because focusing on low-demand routes was not a successful path for the carrier.
• Frontier pilots’ next frontier is a potential strike after 97% of the union voted to authorize one. As always, this isn’t as big a deal as it seems.
• Hawaiian‘s codeshare partnership with BFF Alaska is growing.
• Hi Fly scooped up two more A330-200s.
• Lufthansa would like to pay less to use airports in Germany.
• Malaysia Airlines has a new codeshare agreement with IndiGo.
• Mesa had about $20 million fall off the table.
• Norse Atlantic is going to hop off a plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan.
• PLAY is going to reduce its North American route network.
• QantasLink‘s first A220 service outside a major Australian capital city landed in Tasmania this week.
• Ryanair expects to fly less next year.
• SkyWest will begin operating CRJ550s on behalf of United Express later this year.
• Thai is about to begin a capital restructuring.
• Tunisair is adding two big planes.
• Virgin Australia completed a profitable fiscal year.