Aviation Industry Updates: December 14, 2021

American Pilots Say Late-Night Training Violates Contract

• The union for American Airlines Group Inc. pilots said the carrier will violate its contract by scheduling “graveyard shift” flight simulator training sessions as it works to ready 440 pilots being added this year.

• American detailed plans for the sessions, which would begin after midnight, in a message to pilots, saying the temporary measure starting in January will allow it to step up training for newly hired aviators and those doing “qualification training” to move to a new aircraft type.

• “Our new hires are on probation, so they are taking advantage of that unrepresented class of pilot, and that’s a horridly challenging time to try to train, even for our pilots going through qualification training,” Dennis Tajer, an Allied Pilots Association spokesman, said Wednesday.

• The E sessions will account for about 5% of overall pilot simulator training, American said in the Dec. 3 note from Lori Cline, managing director of flight training and standards.

• The union told members in a message that it doesn’t believe such training complies with its contract, but in any case it “is not a good idea.” A supplement to the pilots’ agreement specifies simulator training can’t be scheduled between 12:45 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. except for a specific type, and then is only allowed when no other four-hour period outside of those hours is available, the union said.

Bloomberg

Southwest CEO : I Think Our Last Losing Quarter Is Behind Us

American Trims 2022 International Flights

KEY POINTS:

• American Airlines on Thursday said it will scale back its international flying next summer because of lengthy delivery delays of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners and that the manufacturer plans to compensate the carrier.

• Deliveries of Boeing’s wide-body Dreamliners to customers have been paused for much of the past year as the manufacturer and federal regulators review a series of production flaws and needed fixes.

• The delays come just as big Dreamliner customers like American and rival United Airlines gear up for what they expect to be a big summer for international travel after a two-year pandemic slump.

• American planned to bring back 89% of its 2019 international long-haul flying next summer, but has trimmed that back to about 80%.

• American won’t serve Edinburgh, Scotland or Shannon, Ireland. Soft demand in Asia led it to discontinue Hong Kong service, it said.

• American also won’t bring back flights to Prague and Dubrovnik, Croatia. The airline will temporarily reduce frequencies to Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney. Aviation executives expect trans-Pacific travel demand to be the slowest to return after the pandemic. American also plans to add nonstop service between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Doha in June.

• “We deeply regret the impact to our customers as we work through the process to resume deliveries of new 787s,” Boeing said in a statement. “We will take the time needed to ensure conformance to our exacting specifications. While this has near-term impacts, we are confident this is the right approach to drive stability and first-time quality across our operations and position the program for the long term.

CNBC

‘We are hopeful’ | Spirit Exec Dishes On NYC Growth

KEY POINTS:

• Spirit Airlines is serious about competing in one of the most hotly contested aviation markets in the country.

• In the New York City area, each of the Big 3 U.S. airlines, along with JetBlue, operate hubs at one (or more) of the region’s three major airports — LaGuardia, JFK and Newark — and they each compete fiercely for the massive market of leisure and business travelers passing through the region each day.

• They also need to compete with Spirit Airlines, one of the nation’s largest budget airlines, which operates flights to both LaGuardia and Newark.

• JetBlue leaving the MAT paves the way for Spirit to move in. To date, the airline has already set up shop there, funneling all its flights to Florida through the Marine Air Terminal. (All other Spirit flights continue to be operated from a leased gate in Terminal C.)

• According to Kirby, “because of the extra RONs we picked up, we’re now flying 13 flights a day from LaGuardia, because we’re taking advantage of the ends of the day that aren’t slotted.” Peak departures at LaGuardia are slot-controlled by the Federal Aviation Administration to minimize congestion at the airport.

• “We’d love to expand at LaGuardia if we were able to get more slots,” Kirby added.

• And now that Frontier has officially pulled out of the Newark market, Kirby is hopeful that Spirit will be the frontrunner for those slots. In addition to Spirit, Alaska, Allegiant, JetBlue and Sun Country are all vying for these precious slots.

The Points Guy

Weekly TSA Numbers

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