Cranky Weekly Review Presented by OAK: Silver’s Finances are Anything but Golden, BA Goes Revenue-Based

Silver Files for Chapter 11

As the minutes counted down to the end of 2024 earlier this week, the number of Florida-based airlines whose name begins with “S” that filed for bankruptcy protection during the year doubled from one to two. Silver Airways announced it would be restructuring since that seemed like more fun than just shutting down completely.

The carrier operates a fleet of 12 ATRs that it flies around Florida and the Caribbean to airports that it manages to pay its rent to, while facing eviction from those that it leaves in a lurch. It says it will continue to operate as normal during the bankruptcy process — meaning most flights will continue to be delayed as usual — and hopes to complete the restructuring by the end of March.

Among its debtors, Silver owes $4.5 million to aircraft lessor Azorra, $2.1 million to the IRS, and $200 to its bookie after its disastrous bet on Oregon to win the Rose Bowl on Wednesday.

British Airways Loyalty Goes Green

Goodbye British Airways Executive Club and hello The British Airways Club — this dramatically generic rebrand to BA’s loyalty program comes with an overhaul of how status will be earned with the carrier as Tier Points will be earned solely by spend. Redemptions are not changing — for now — as Avios will remain in place for those wanting the honour of paying absurd fees to transit the UK in a premium cabin.

BA is pushing this as an enhancement — of course — with all the new ways customers can earn tier points including credit card spend and paying for things that used to be free — you know like seat selection and checked bags. 1 point will be earned for each £1 spent, which we believe is the equivalent of 134 SkyPesos.

Qualification for elite status begins at 3,500 Tier Points for Bronze status and up to 20,000 for BA Gold. Other spending with the carrier that will earn points includes up to 1,000 Tier Points for participating in BA’s SAF scam at a 1:1 ratio, an uncapped 1:1 ratio for spend with BA Vacations on overpriced trips to Cardiff… but credit card spend on a co-branded AMEX will be capped at 2,500 Tier Points per year.

DOT Fines JetBlue for Delays

The DOT imposed a $2 million penalty on JetBlue for operating “chronically delayed flights,” specifically 145 delays on four specific routes — New York/JFK to both Fort Lauderdale and Raleigh/Durham and Fort Lauderdale to Hartford and Orlando. JetBlue attempted to argue that passengers asked for the flights to run late, so the airline was just doing them a solid, but DOT rejected that argument, noting that nobody leaving Hartford has ever wanted to stay longer than necessary. The carrier was responsible for over 70% of the delays on the four routes with the remaining issues clearly being the fault of CrowdStrike.

JetBlue is required to pay $1 million to the federal government and use the remaining $1 million as compensation for passengers for the next year. Passengers on any of those four routes that are delayed by three hours or more will be entitled to at least $75 or a free carafe of Dunkin’ coffee on their next JetBlue flight, which if ordered from an airport Dunkin’ location likely costs way more than $75.

The DOT said it is investigating other carriers for similar “unrealistic scheduling practices” and that more fines could be coming in the future.

AA FA’s Lose AArbitration Case

American Airlines flight attendants suffered a loss in arbitration over an effort to increase on-board staffing levels to pre-pandemic standards after an arbitrator ruled that the cAArrier is within its rights to reduce some staffing figures.

AA cut its staffing levels in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 when fewer passengers were flying and in-flight service for those that were was greatly reduced. But with flights leaving at or near capacity now, AA elected to not return to pre-pandemic staffing levels, instead asking the cabin crew to make do with less. Passengers cheered the ruling, saying they were pleased to have fewer surly FAs to interact with during the flight.

Most long-haul crews are operating with one fewer FA than before 2020, while some B777-300ER crews are operating with two fewer. The arbitrator ruled the longer service times that result from less staffing is not within the purview of the union and they didn’t have standing to require additional staff to speed up service. The APFA called the ruling “fundamentally flawed” but will likely not be able to force a change considering the two sides just reached an agreement on a new contract just a few months ago.

airBaltic Summer Reductions

airBaltic is cutting 19 routes off its summer schedule and reducing frequencies on 21 others in what it says is due to delays in engine maintenance for its A220-300 fleet of aircraft.

The airline has 49 A220-300s in its fleet but says the process of maintaining the flawed Pratt & Whitney PW1500G engines is behind schedule. The carrier says it’s bracing for “several” of its A220s to remain grounded for much of the year due to the backlog of engine maintenance. But it also argued that this wasn’t a problem since most people don’t even know where Riga is anyway and probably wouldn’t want to go there if they found out how close it was to Russia.

All in, it has 4,670 flights currently on the chopping block due to the engine troubles with more potentially on the horizon.

• Air Canada‘s Maple Leaf logo turned 60 on Wednesday.
• Air India began offering free Wi-Fi on domestic flights on Wednesday.
• Alaska Flight 700 from Seattle to Phoenix experienced injuries to four crew members and one passengers due to severe turbulence but all doors remained affixed to the B737 MAX operating the flight leading Alaska to call it a success.
• Avianca‘s newest city is Tampa.
• Bamboo is wet-leasing an A320. Finally.
• Bees is all out of honey.
• Breeze is blowing out of Mobile.
• Delta flight crew removed a stowaway — the carrier’s second in about a week — just before its flight 487 departed from Seattle to Honolulu. After being apprehended, the passenger said he or she wasn’t a stowaway but just got a really good deal on the flight, with a one-way redemption of just 5,000 SkyMiles, a figure so low its cash equivalent is less than a dollar — making it seem as if he was trespassing.
• easyJet is trying paint that weighs less.
• Emirates is increasing service to Sri Lanka. Finally.
• IAG is in discussions to improve its on-board connectivity.
• IndiGo is dreaming of wet-leasing six aircraft next year.
• Korean took delivery of its first A350 this week.
• Northwestern Air will end scheduled operations later this quarter.
• Qatar is headed back to Syria.
• WestJet CEO Alex von Hoensbroech is optimistic about his airline’s performance in 2025.
• Wizz Air plans to keep at least 40 aircraft grounded this year as it found out operating the planes without working engines is a challenge.