Cranky Weekly Review Presented by San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport: Delta Strikes a Profit, United Spans the Globe

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Crowdstrike Causes Famine, Housing Crisis, Rise in Crime, and Delta to Miss Earnings Goals

Delta Air Lines’s Q3 Earnings were released Thursday, and the carrier posted an operating income of $1.4 billion on $15.7 billion gross revenue, an impressive performance but lower than the company record $3.5 trillion in the quarter it would have earned had it not been for the dastardly Crowdstrike and its lack of quality control being the exclusive reason for the carrier’s operational meltdown in July.

The airline ended up earning $1.50 per share, down slightly from the $1.52 that was expected. Delta CEO Ed Bastian continued to blame Crowdstrike for, well, everything, telling CNBC, “The havoc that was created deserves, in my opinion, to be fully compensated for, this matter is now in the hands of our attorneys.” Good luck, buddy.

Despite all that conspired against it, Delta still managed a 1% increase in revenue from last year. It expects its full-year adjusted earnings to come in between $6 and $7 per share excluding losses from the July meltdown, which is kinda like saying you expect to finish the year with $25k in the bank except for the $20k you blew at the at the horse track.

The carrier ended the third quarter with $1.3 billion in cash. It declined to say how much of its cash was tied up in Biscoff futures nor how much in Biscoff reserves it had hidden in its secret Biscoff tunnel in Atlanta between Concourses B & C. This was due to Delta security denying access for its accounting team to the tunnel to take inventory as there are still currently several Crowdstrike employees and their families being held hostage there.

Greenland, Mongolia, Taiwan, and More — United’s Worldwide Expansion

What do Nuuk, Ulaanbaatar, and Kaohsiung, have in common? Besides having five sets of back-to-back vowels amongst them, they also have destinations on the map where darts ended up following the UA network team’s dart-throwing contest.

United Airlines laughs at your favorite airline’s new service to the same-old destinations in France and Italy and instead is adding flights all over. Beginning next summer, United will begin flying:

From Newark:

• Bilbao, Spain (BIO) — 3x weekly, summer seasonal
• Faro, Portugal (FAO) — 4x weekly, summer seasonal
• Madeira, Portugal (FNC) — 3x weekly, summer seasonal
• Nuuk, Greenland (GOH) — 2x weekly, summer seasonal
• Palermo, Italy (PMO) — 3x weekly, summer seasonal

From Tokyo/Narita:

• Kaohsiung, Taiwan (KHH) — daily, year-round
• Koror, Palau (ROR) — year-round
• Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (UBN) — 3x weekly, summer seasonal

From Washington/Dulles:

• Dakar, Senegal (DSS) — 3x weekly, year-round

The carrier is also adding service to previously served destinations include daily, seasonal service from Washington/Dulles to Venice, and 4x weekly seasonal flights from IAD to Nice. For more on United’s ambitious summer expansion, please visit yesterday’s post on crankyflier.com.

Air Canada Pilots Ratify New Agreement

Air Canada’s pilots will not being going on strike after 67% of its union voted to approve the most recent offer from the airline, a deal that will be in place through at least 2027.

Air Canada’s 5,200 pilots had been threatening to strike after contract talks stalled last month, and the consequences of a labor action would have affected tens of Canadians from coast to coast. Pilots will receive a raise of about 42% over the next four years (that’s only 34% when the exchange rate is factored in), with the pay raise being retroactive to September 30 of last year.

Etihad Plans Massive Expansion

Etihad Airways plans to announce 30 new destinations by early next year, as it needs a few months to find a map large enough to put up on the big wall in its headquarters to then identify 30 cities it doesn’t currently fly to.

It’ll announce the first batch of destinations as soon as next month, with the bulk to come out sometime next year. The carrier currently flies to 78 destinations, meaning that this will add almost 40% to that total. Etihad Chief Revenue and Commercial Officer Arik De said many of the cities would be secondary cities in Europe and Asia — which is great, because who doesn’t sit around planning a vacation saying “You know what would be great? Let’s go to a secondary city. You know, like the famous cities, but not as good.”

De also said it will add at least one new U.S. destination, and if it keeps with the theme of secondary cities — well, the possibilities are endless. Except for Newark — that place is about four levels short of secondary. Etihad currently serves Boston, Chicago/ORD, New York/JFK, and Washington/IAD in the U.S., having ended service to Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in the recent past. What does that leave? Fingers crossed for Tucson.

Delta Receives FAA Greenlight for Drone Inspections

Delta Air Lines will use drones to inspect its aircraft after the FAA gave initial clearance for the carrier to use the technology to inspect planes following potential lightning strikes, with the potential to expand the scope in the future.

The drones can photograph an entire narrowbody aircraft in about 90 minutes and a widebody in about two hours — compared to the roughly 16 labor hours it takes now. Delta cited the lack of injury risk as a main reason for wanting to make the change, as it surely had nothing to do with taking 16 hours of labor off its books.

For now, the drones will do their thing at Delta’s maintenance facilities in Atlanta, Detroit, and Minneapolis/St Paul. As the program expands, it’s expected that the carrier will use it to follow Basic Economy passengers on their journey to and from the airport, looking for additional ways to shame the cheapskates.

• Aer Lingus will debut A321XLR ops when it begins Nashville service in April.
• Aero is adding limited scheduled service on the underserved corridor between Los Angeles and Las Vegas
• Aeromexico had a good September.
• Air Arabia is expected to begin flying with A321XLRs in 2027. Check back with us then for an update.
• AirAsia X is adding service to Nairobi.
• American had a bed bug infestation on a flight earlier this week — although in this context, shouldn’t it be called a plane bug? American apologized to the affected passenger saying that it typically fumigates its airplanes in first class and that the only passengers that should experience any sort of bug infestation are those who book Basic Economy.
• Arajet joined ALTA. This one, not this one.
• Azul is looking to add some blue green.
• Bonza got busted. Allegedly.
• Delta is adding service from Minneapolis/St Paul to Copenhagen and bringing back Los Angeles to Shanghai.
• Gulf Air is looking to add service to the United States.
• Icelandair had a good September also.
• KLM turned 105.
• Korean is expanding its pre-order meal service program.
• LIAT 2020 made a winner out of everyone who had St. Vincent in the pool for what airport would be named as its new southern Caribbean hub.
• Norse Atlantic posted a load factor of 89% for September. Most of those 89% were named Bjørn.
• PLAY made the easy decision to add a new interline partner.
• Riyadh Air is expecting an AOC by the end of the year. This one, not this one.
• Ryanair is reducing its footprint in Germany.
• Southwest‘s $10.8 million tax refund is being challenged by the state of California.
• SpiceJet is sprinkling more aircraft into its cupboard.
• ZIPAIR will zip four times per week to Houston/IAH beginning in March.