Cranky Weekly Review Presented by OAK Airport: Delta Runs to the Sun, United’s Goes Further Afield

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Delta Adds Sun Flying

Delta Air Lines announced new service to the Caribbean, along with Mexico and Central America today, including two new nonstops from its Atlanta hub: Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The winter flights will begin December 20 and operate through April 12, both operating daily. Also for DL, Detroit will add Saturday only-service to Grand Cayman while increasing frequencies to Nassau and Cancún.

Those looking to escape Minnesota winters can now fly seasonal, Saturday-only flights to Nassau, while Boston will see daily service to St. Thomas during the holidays. Other new routes for Delta include 1x weekly flights to Cancún from Nashville, Kansas City, and Indianapolis, plus Raleigh-Durham to San Juan. Austin to Los Cabos also joins the fray, and it will join BOS-STT operating daily during the holidays only.

In other news, Delta will change its name to Sun Country to better reflect the airline’s new network plan.

United Expands Pacific Network

United Airlines — which will change its name to Far Flung Country — announced three new(ish) destinations across the Pacific earlier this week, becoming the lone U.S. based carrier to operate to Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, and Adelaide. The long hoped-for expansion to dominate Mongolia with service to the second largest city and burgeoning metropolis of Erdenet (population 97,000) did not materialize.

BKK and SGN will both operate daily from Hong Kong, paired with UA’s existing service from both LAX and SFO to HKG. Service to both destinations will begin October 26 and be operated by a B787-9 Dreamliner. Adelaide will receive 3x weekly nonstop flights from San Francisco — also on the B787-9 — with flights beginning December 11. While UA will be the only U.S. airline at any of the three at Adelaide where it will especially standout since it currently has limited international service to anywhere (and no, New Zealand doesn’t count).

United didn’t stop there — however — it will add a second daily frequency between SFO and Manila, with the double-up beginning October 25 and being flown by a B777-300ER.

For more on United’s foray into both Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City please visit yesterday’s post on crankyflier.com.

ITA Gets a (Gold) Star

ITA Airways received formal approval to begin its membership into Star Alliance, giving hope to chaotic and misrun organizations the world over — airline or not — that if you too, apply yourself, a Star Alliance membership could be coming your way.

The currently is currently owned by the Italian government which posseses a 59% stake, while Lufthansa owns the rest. LH’s ownership stake is expected to grow in the near future, provided it doesn’t get cold feet once it sees how the carrier really operates itself.

The process is expected to be completed early next year and when it does, ITA will be the 26th airline in the alliance, and the first to be a four (hundred)-time winner of the Cranky Flier Worst Airline Ever award.

Southwest Ends Fuel Hedging

Here’s one more thing to throw on the pile of “stuff Southwest did forever but won’t do anymore.” The carrier will end its policy of hedging its fuel purchases to guarantee future cost certainty in an effort to further cut costs.

Southwest has participated in the practice since the 1990s, but this change will supposedly save it money by ending the premium it was paying to secure the hedge and the high costs it claimed which were required to manage the program. CEO Bob Jordan said the program has rarely been profitable for the airline’s bottom line — a shock to just about nobody — and that the increase in premiums have made the practice untenable. He said this holding a copy of today’s newspaper with a gun held to his head by an Elliott executive while also confirming that Elliott provided him with three meals a day and access to a shower at least once a week.

Despite this policy shift, Southwest won’t see a dramatic change right away as it’s locked into certain hedging contracts through 2027, although it has the ability to pay $27.99 to receive EarlyBird access to the ending of the deal.

Avelo Adds a Base, Makes a Windy City Swap

Avelo is adding an eighth base for its operation, this time growing its presence in Wilmington (NC). In addition to adding a base at the airport, Avelo began three new routes from ILM earlier this week — Manchester (no, still not the English one), Nashville, and Rochester (and no, not the Minnesotan one) — all three will operate 2x weekly.

Avelo also announced a change in its Chicago operation — after previously serving Chicago/Midway from New Haven, the carrier will now fly to Chicago O’Hare instead. Service to ORD will operate 2x weekly beginning May 15. Avelo first began flying to MDW in May of 2022 and some people did actually take the flight from time to time.

• Air Canada resumed service between Ottawa and London/Heathrow.
• Air Senegal is adding A340s via a wet lease.
• Avianca is adding four new nonstops to the U.S.
• Breeze continues to blow closer to Brazil.
• Delta has finished adding free Wi-Fi across the Atlantic.
• easyJet will wet-lease three A320s in Milan.
• Fiji Airways became a full member of oneworld earlier this week.
• Finnair is number one — in a very specific category.
• Fly Angola is slowly building back its domestic network.
• JAL will shift some of its domestic fleet to fly overseas routes.
• Jeju Air is borrowing nearly $100 million to make payments on its B737 fleet.
• Korean is grounding nearly half of its A220 fleet.
• Lufthansa is sending four A350s to Frankfurt to help pick up the slack in its increased summer flying schedule amidst aircraft delivery delays.
• Play Europe received an AOC in Malta.
• Riyadh Air doesn’t fly anywhere yet — but it’s gonna have an airplane just like Baltia and Global… but this one will have WiFi.
• Ryanair flew 200 million passengers last year, a record for European carriers. A few of them even enjoyed the experience.
• South African Airlines is being targeted by a South African corruption investigation unit.
• t’way Air is considering a r’ebrand which will be d’evastating to us unless it becomes WestarJet.
• United received FAA approval to move forward with adding Starlink to its fleet.
• Virgin Australia‘s IPO could be coming soon.
• WestJet Cargo‘s newest passengers are simply the best.
• Wizz opened a new base at Bucharest’s other airport — Bucharest/Baneasa (BBU).