Aviation Industry Updates: Oct 17, 2023

Travel Boom Not Enough To Drive Profits At US Budget Airlines Frontier, Spirit

KEY POINTS:

• Travel boom has delivered bumper earnings for U.S. carriers, but no-frills airlines such as Frontier (ULCC.O) and Spirit (SAVE.N) are struggling to return to sustainable profitability.
• That has made some of them weigh premium-price offerings, including first-class seats, customer lounges and branded foods even as they expect fares to remain the primary driver for bookings.
  Ultra low-cost carriers offer a no-frills experience at rock-bottom fares and charge heavily for ancillary services.
• They were tipped to be the big winners after the pandemic, but persistent operational constraints have exacerbated their cost pressures, making it imperative to find new high-margin revenue streams.
• With consumers more willing to splurge on travel, demand for premium cabins has gone up. This together with soaring bookings for flights to Europe and Asia have allowed the legacy airlines - Delta (DAL.N), United (UAL.O) and American (AAL.O) - to mitigate inflationary pressures.

We Just Got A Pilot With FOUR 121 Checkride Failures Hired At A Legacy

I don’t know why you haven’t gotten an interview yet… But, if you book a call, we’ve got the resources to figure it out and help you get one ASAP.

Mesa Airlines Introduces Unique "Pay-As-You-Go" Pilot Training Scheme

KEY POINTS:

• Mesa Airlines, a U.S. regional airline based in Phoenix, unveiled its Independent Pilot Development program on October 9, a unique "pay-as-you-go" pilot training initiative. Centered around the airline’s recently procured Pipistrel Alpha 2 light aircraft, the program seeks to expedite cadets' journey to achieving the 1,500 hours of flight time stipulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for commercial pilots.
• "Our focus isn’t merely on building flight hours but molding a holistic career development pathway that readies pilots for both the intricacies and rewards of serving in an airline capacity," Mesa's CEO, Jonathan Ornstein, expressed.
• To participate, cadets need to buy a minimum of 50-hour blocks at an hourly rate of $60 and ensure a monthly flight duration of at least 25 hours. Mesa’s acquisition plan, announced in September 2022, highlighted the procurement of 29 Pipistrel Alpha 2 planes, coupled with an option to buy 75 more, underpinning this ambitious training project.
• Mesa sheds light on the distinct features of the Alpha 2, which include dual flight controls, a cutting-edge Garmin instrument panel, the Rotax 912 80hp engine, a spacious and quiet cockpit, an advanced autopilot system, and a state-of-the-art ballistic parachute rescue mechanism.

Airline Watcher

We Just Got A Pilot With A Gear Up Landing Hired At A Major

I don’t know why you haven’t gotten an interview yet… But, if you book a call, we’ve got the resources to figure it out and help you get one ASAP.

Stuck at the Regionals: The Downside to Flow Agreements

KEY POINTS:

• I’ve been trading texts with a good friend of mine—an airline pilot we’ll call “Scott”— regarding the flying career of his 27-year-old daughter, “Karla.” Ever since she decided to start flying in her late teens, Karla has had the goal of eventually working for Scott’s airline and would ideally like to fly a trip with him before he retires in a few years.
• To this end, she attended a university with a popular collegiate aviation program that has an official relationship with said airline and whose alumni are well represented in its ranks. While in school, she took a semester to do a flight operations internship with Scott’s airline. And after instructing for a few years to build her flight time, Karla was hired at her dream airline’s wholly owned regional airline, which has a flow-through agreement in place by which its r pilots advance to the mainline carrier in seniority order, albeit at a metered rate.
• By all appearances, Karla would seem to have done everything right, and in normal times I think her 
  career moves would have made sense given her goals. But the past two years have not been normal times. Karla has been at her regional airline for 13 months now and is becoming increasingly frustrated by the perception that she’s stuck there with no way to advance. She’s still a ways from upgrading to captain and will need to be in the left seat for two years before she is eligible to flow to mainline.
• Meanwhile, Scott’s airline has been hiring historically huge numbers of pilots—2,500 per year—many of whom have similar qualifications to Karla. They are not, however, hiring from her regional outside of the restrictions of the flow. By going to her dream airline’s associated regional, Karla has unwittingly put herself at a huge disadvantage. Now she is watching in frustration as the mainline ranks fill up with young, ever-senior pilots. She fears the music will stop on this hiring cycle before she has a seat.

Airline Geeks

Boeing Says It’s Investigating 737 MAX Quality Issues; Shares Drop

KEY POINTS:

• Boeing said it’s continuing to investigate quality issues affecting its 737 MAX aircraft, after a report on new inspections tied to a recent production flaw sent the shares lower on Friday.
• Inspections of some MAX 8 models will now include hand-drilled holes on a component that helps maintain aircraft cabin pressure, The Air Current reported earlier. A quality probe tied to the production flaw is ongoing, Boeing said in an email.
• The U.S. plane-maker fell the most intraday in seven weeks after the outlet reported on the expanded scope of the work. Spirit AeroSystems, which supplies the faulty assemblies, dropped the most in almost a month. 
• The widening checks and potential rework suggest it will take longer than expected to correct the issue — raising new uncertainties around Boeing’s fourth quarter deliveries and financial prospects ahead of its earnings report this month. Ryanair, a major 737 MAX customer, told Bloomberg on Thursday that MAX delivery delays have worsened.
• “The new issue will cause additional disruption to BA’s 737 deliveries, which likely will result in further delays for a month or so,” TD Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr said in a research note. 
  This “could jeopardize” Boeing’s delivery target of at least 400 737s this year, and hurt fourth quarter cash flow, von Rumohr said, “However, it shouldn’t jeopardize BA’s planned ramp in 737 production,” he said, referring to Boeing’s stock ticker.

Seattle Times

We Just Got A Pilot With 1526 Hours Hired At A Legacy

I don’t know why you haven’t gotten an interview yet… But, if you book a call, we’ve got the resources to figure it out and help you get one ASAP.