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Hello, Seattle! We are doing our first ever LIVE taping of The Air Show podcast, and you can join us in the audience. We’ll be interviewing Alaska President Shane Tackett on stage right after the airline’s media and investor day on September 29. There will be plenty to discuss, and as an added bonus, Boeing has given us access to the company’s Customer Experience Center for the event. Buy tickets today before they sell out.

Southwest Announces Entry Into Lounge Game

It’s being called the worst-kept secret in the industry, and that’s probably accurate — but it’s a secret no more, as Southwest announced its plan to open 11 lounges across the country — the first of which will open by the end of 2027.

The lounges will be opened in conjunction with Chase and “will combine the warmth and friendliness Customers expect from Southwest with sophisticated design, locally-inspired dining, high-quality amenities, and valuable travel benefits that are offered today in the Chase Sapphire Reserve Lounge Network,” according to Southwest. The first four locations will be Austin, Baltimore, Honolulu, and Nashville. These serve as three of the top hubs intentional connecting opportunities in Southwest’s network… plus Austin where Southwest is in a dogfight with Delta. They’re all natural first choices.

Exact access procedures to the lounges is not known at this point, other than that a Chase credit card will be a factor. Whether or not those on Business Select fares receive access also is not yet known. Our suggestion to Southwest (and this is free of charge) is to give customers a letter and number upon checking in (say, something like A25 or B11). Then they can attempt to source some sort of placard or post which allows customers to line up in order of their assigned number and can then be admitted to the lounge in that order.

Air Canada’s Summer Expansion

This week it was Air Canada’s turn to announce new global destinations for summer 2027, and the carrier is adding to Asia, Europe, and Latin America with new flights from its three main international gateways in Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Five new cities will join the AC family:

• Basel
• Dubrovnik
• Guangzhou
• Oslo
• Shannon

From Toronto, AC will operate summer seasonal service to Oslo, operating 4x weekly on the A321XLR. Toronto – Shannon will also fly on the XLR, and it will operate 3x weekly during the summer. YYZ to Nice will also be summer-only, and it’ll fly 2x weekly on the A330-300. Also from Toronto, 1x weekly Guatemala City service will become year-round beginning in May, and the airline will add a 5th daily YYZ-LHR, bringing back the daytime flight east, with the XLR leaving Toronto at 8:30 a.m. and arriving in London at 9 p.m.

Vancouver to Guangzhou will fly 3x weekly and year-round beginning May 4, and will operate on the B787. The Francophone’s out there will want to try out Montréal – Basel, a 4x weekly flight operating next summer on the A321XLR in competition with Air Transat’s service while YUL to Dubrovnik will also fly during the summer only, 3x weekly on the Dreamliner.

JetBlue Receives Tentative Approval for LGA Slots

The feds are unlikely to block JetBlue’s $58.5 million purchase of Spirit’s 22 ghost slots at New York/LGA made in July.

The government published a notice in the Federal Register on Monday in which it said JetBlue’s slot purchase “ensures that scarce public airspace resources are returned to active commercial service under a proven low-fare business model.” What it didn’t say is that JetBlue’s proven low-fare business model only exists, because it can’t get people to pay more, but that isn’t the point. It matters, because the carrier needs an exemption from the FAA which currently prohibits the sale or purchase of LGA slots. Provided the deal goes through, JetBlue would be stuck with the slots and unable to move them until at least April 2028.

The slots would also remain subject to the FAA’s whims authority, including its ability to yank them from JetBlue when it determines that doing so is in the public interest. The government says interested parties have until September 21 to comment on the descision. Our only request is that you CC us on your comments sent to the FAA.

FlAAgship Suites Unveiled

American Airlines showed the world what its new premium-configured B777-300ER will look like for passengers as it transitions away from international first class and instead focuses on its premium business class offering on long-haul flights.

The updated B777-300ERs will feature a whopping 70 suites in business, along with 44 premium economy seats and another 30 extra legroom seats in Main Cabin Extra behind the curtain. The 70 suites will make this the largest business class cabin amongst U.S. carriers. This includes eight Flagship Suite Preferred seats which will be in the front row of both business class cabins. N718AN, the first retrofitted aircraft with the new cabin has now entered service and will fly on AA’s most premium routes which we assume to be DFW to El Paso, ORD to Moline, Miami to Tallahassee, and Phoenix to Tucson.

The carrier will stop selling first class on these aircraft in November as the retrofit continues. This is despite knowing it’ll take more than a year to complete the full retrofit, meaning some will receive the first class seating at Business Class pricing. The people of Tucson and Moline better get moving on this before the seats are gone.

United Increases App Functionality

United’s app is generally considered to be the best amongst U.S. carriers, and it widened its lead this week, rolling out new features to give customers more options during irregular operations. When disrupted travel plans occur, passengers now have the option to standby for as many as three earlier flights at a time increasing the odds to get where it is they’re going (or at least figure out a path to get out of Newark). The new functionality will then text you if and when a seat comes up on one of the standby flights giving the option to take the new flight or to keep confirmed seats on the original flight.

The only real loser here (assuming it works as advertised) will be non-rev travelers (and others that play the standby game) who will now have more competition for standby seats with customers who can now list themselves on up to three flights at a time. The earlier flights must be eligible United flights to the same destination. Partner flights and co-terminals will still need to be selected via a United agent either online, on the phone, or at the airport.

Other app updates include making inbound aircraft information on the main flight status page, making real-time information about where your plane is more accessible. It’ll also now provide TSA wait times at its hubs, integrate Apple’s “Find My” technology in the app to help you find the luggage the airline lost, and giving all customers who are in a premium cabin a link to the Instagram account of everyone booked in Basic Economy to allow for digital shaming in addition to in-person.

• Air China is adding flights to both Europe and North America.
• AirAsia announced its first codeshare agreement and as we predicted in this space — no, no need to double check that — it’s with Pegasus Airlines.
• airBaltic secured €257 million of interim financing.
• Alaska is adding 2x weekly flights from San Diego to Loreto. This will mark its 50th nonstop destination from SAN.
• ANA is adding eight more E190-E2s.
• Condor is teaming with Qantas.
• Delta withdrew from the opportunity to partner on a new national airline for Ghana. because it got an email from someone in Nigeria who really needed that money more.
• Emirates has a fancy new premium economy seat.
• FLY91 placed an order for 40 ATR 72-600s which is 51 less than we were expecting.
• Jazeera Airways is doing surprisingly well.
• Qantas is adding Maybach terminal transfers for a lucky few in Sydney.
• Qatar is beefing up service to Saudi Arabia.
• SAS completed Starlink installation on its entire fleet of 81 A320neo aircraft.
• Saudia is adding 3x weekly service to Muscat.
• Singapore will unveil its new suites on November 7.
• Southwest has added a LOT of new partners recently and added to that list this week.
• SpiceJet is suspending B737-8 ops for an undetermined amount of thyme.
• TAP took it on the chin in the first half of 2026.
• Virgin Australia is speeding up the elimination of the B737-800 from its fleet.

A gorilla goes into a bar and orders a martini.

This totally amazes the bartender, but he thinks, “What the heck, I guess I might as well make the drink.” So he mixes the martini. He then walks back over to the give it to the gorilla, and the animal is holding out a $50 bill. Well, now the bartender is just at a loss for words. He can’t believe that a gorilla walked into his bar, ordered a martini, and then actually had cash to pay for it.

So, in amazement, he takes the $50 and walks to the cash register to make the change. While he’s standing in front of the cash register he stops for a second and thinks to himself, “Let me try something here and see if the gorilla notices anything.”

So he walks back over to the gorilla and hands him just $1 change. The gorilla doesn’t say anything, he just sits there sipping the martini.

After a few minutes the bartender just can’t take it anymore. “You know,” he says to the gorilla, “we don’t get too many gorillas in here.”

And the gorilla says, “At $49 a drink I’m surprised you get any customers at all.”