Cranky Weekly Review Presented by OAK: FAA’s Captain Abandons Ship, JetBlue Gets (First) Classy

FAA Administrator to Resign

FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker announced this week he would resign at the end of president Biden’s term in office next month, opening the top job at the agency to be filled by the incoming Trump administration if it nominates someone capable and the Senate ever gets around to advising and consenting, something it has not been overly successful at doing for this role in recent memory.

Whitaker spent a short time on the job — stepping into the role in October of 2023 — meaning he will have only served about 15 months when he officially steps down in January. In addition to Whitaker’s resignation, Deputy Administrator Katie Thompson also announced she was stepping down from her job, leaving a two-person sized hole at the top of an agency that desperately needs functional leadership to fix the air traffic control crisis, among other oh-so-inconsequential problems like aircraft certification and crucial blowtorch rules.

The FAA has struggled to find someone willing to complete a five-year term as administrator, with Michael Huerta being the last person to serve in the role for a full term or greater — and he’s been gone since 2018. Perhaps the FAA would consider changing the name of the top job from Administrator to something more aspirational like czar or grand poobah — no one, except maybe Elon Musk, grows up saying their goal when they’re older is to be the administrator of a government oversight department.. But if the role were titled “Airplane Overlord” there might be a lot more interested candidates.

JetBlue’s First Class Foray

Last week it was Frontier and this week it’s JetBlue’s turn to add first class to its fleet as the WSJ reported that JetBlue will add a domestic first class — separate from Mint — to the bulk of its fleet starting in 2026.

Travelers can expect two rows of 2-2 seating on the carrier’s fleet of A220s, with three rows of 2-2 seating on its A320 and “Core” (read: non-Mint) A321 aircraft. The soft product that will accompany these seats remains a bit of a mystery. JetBlue does not have ovens on its short haul aircraft, which would make serving hot food a challenge assuming it does not choose to retrofit its galleys. There is the aforementioned proposal for FAs to use blowtorches on board to heat up meals for FC passengers, but that is not a guarantee. The current FAA administrator points to safety regulators that make that seem problematic, but all bets are off when the new administrator — if someone is ever nominated and confirmed — walks in the door.

JetBlue is only committed to keeping pitch in the rest of the aircraft “at or above” that of its competition, and it also seems loathe to reduce the number of seats on its airplanes, which seems to indicate that its current economy class layout is going to get squeezed at least by an inch or two.

Alaska Goes Long

Alaska’s merger with Hawaiian got real interesting this week when the carrier announced it would begin longhaul service to Asia for the first time, utilizing Hawaiian’s A330s to fly from its Seattle base to both Tokyo/Narita and Seoul/Incheon. Both will operate daily, with NRT service beginning on May 12, and ICN in October. Tickets for SEA-NRT are on sale now with ICN expected to be available in the not-too-distant future.

With Alaska pledging to maintain separate brands, these flights will be operated by its Hawaiian subsidiary which will — for now — look and feel like Hawaiian flights, so POG juice for everybody!

As part of Alaska’s desire to swap capacity between to the two brands to take better advantage of aircraft utilization, Hawaiian will end its service on Kona to LAX, Kahului to Portland and San Diego, and the previously announced Honolulu to Austin with Alaska picking up the slack on KOA-LAX and OGG – PDX/SAN. That will be a temporary solution as well, as eventually Alaska intends for all flights to, from, and within the islands to be operated by Hawaiian.

Alaska has also announced plans to grow its presence in its Portland (OR) hub, which we can only assume will be operated by new subsidiary Oregon Airlines.

For more on Alaska’s changes announced at its investor day this week, please take a look at Tuesday’s post from crankyflier.com.

Korean Completes Asiana Acquisition

Korean’s four-year quest to acquire its main competitor in Asiana was completed on Thursday, as the airline formally took control of 64% of Asiana for the cool price of 800 billion Korean won, which is believed to equal about $11. The combined carrier is now 12th in the world as ranked by international capacity, but finds itself in the bottom 5 (400-way tie) when ranked by intra-California capacity.

The final purchase price for Korean came in at 1.5 trillion KRW when combining this week’s payment with the 300 billion KRW it used a down payment and the 400 billion KRW it sent as an interim payment. To satisfy European antitrust regulators, Korean sold off Asiana’s cargo business and t’ransfered four European routes to Korean LCC T’Way Air.

Korean expects to complete its OZ integration within the next two years, and will do so without workforce restructuring. It will submit its revamped loyalty program proposal to the Korean Free Trade Commission this summer, and Asiana is expected to appoint Korean’s preferred board members at an extraordinary meeting next month.

Avelo Adds Five More

Last week it was North Carolina, and this week Avelo is getting back to its roots in the Nutmeg State as it adds four domestic destinations from New Haven and an international route to Hartford.

Nonstop flights will begin in January from New Haven to Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Jacksonville, and Portland (ME). All four routes will operate 2x weekly at their launch, with DFW and JAX slated to fly year-round and DTW and PWM to be seasonal. Jacksonville flights begin February 14, Dallas/Fort Worth on March 7, and Portland on May 22.

Strangely, Detroit flights start on April 4. We had expected the “season” would be winter when demand to flee the state rises dramatically. But then again, if your option is to flee to New Haven, well, there’s really never any demand for that.

Hartford will be getting Avelo flights to Punta Cana as seasonal, 2x weekly flying begins February 21. PUJ will mark Avelo’s third international destination from BDL, joining Cancún and Montego Bay.

• Aeroflot is buying five B737 freighters in order to strip them for parts. Things seem to be going very well for them.
• Air Cambodia — which you didn’t even know existed — is leasing three ATR 72-600s next year.
• Air Canada is adding free wi-fi.
• Air India ordered 100 new Airbus — with 10 A350s and 90 A320s on order.
• Alaska finally let the cat out of the bag on its big news of the week — it’s sharing a check-in counter with Hawaiian at San Francisco’s Terminal 1, the closest terminal at SFO to San Francisco Bay.
• American seems to have enhanced its loyalty program without enhancing it.
• Avianca plans to announce a new U.S. destination just as soon as it figures out for itself what it is.
• Azul is feeling less blue about its restructuring.
• Delta opened its third Delta One lounge — this time in Boston — on Wednesday.
• easyJet will finally be playable in Microsoft Flight Simulator for everyone who always wanted to see what it was like to pretend to fly from London/Southend to Faro.
• Emirates is adding a third daily non-stop to Melbourne.
• Flair CFO Sumanth Rao is in a heap of trouble with the law.
• Finnair pilots aren’t happy.
• Gol will now have a goal to have its reorganization plan approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
• JetBlue opened a crew base in San Juan.
• Kuwait Airways took delivery of its first A330-900 this week.
• LEVEL appears to be interested in getting in the wet-lease business.
• Neos will fill the hole in your life that was the lack of nonstop service between Bari and the U.S. as it files 1x weekly BRI-JFK beginning in June.
• Star Alliance will be swapping deep dish and hot dogs with celery salt with poutine and Tim Horton’s at its gatherings for the foreseeable future.
• Southwest is adding 2x daily service from Orlando to four Florida destinations: Fort Myers, Miami, Sarasota, and West Palm Beach.
• Vietnam Airlines has a dream.