Airlines

Santa arrived. Many other flyers didn’t.

No doubt about it.

For everyone except Santa and his reindeer, flying this holiday has been a mess.

There’s so much snow in upstate New York that Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) is staying closed until at least 11 a.m. on Wednesday, December 28.

And the airport’s award-winning snow removal team is so overwhelmed with snow that is has called on other airports to help them deal with this blizzard.

“Our crews are working around the clock and @PITairport will be sending additional snow plowing equipment to assist our team,” the airport shared in a Tweet.

Southwest Airlines Meltown

Thousands of flights have been canceled and all airlines are having a tough time getting passengers and their suitcases from here to there.

But Southwest Airlines operations seem to have broken down – or frozen up – completely.

At 1 am Tuesday morning, FlightAware.com was showing more than 2,600 cancellations within, into, or out of the United States, with most of those being on Southwest Airlines alone.

The airline cancelled more than 2900 flights on Monday and has already canceled 2460 flights for Tuesday.

The next few days may get even worse.

In a media release late Monday, Southwest said, “With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our Customers and Employees in a significant way that is unacceptable.”

The airline said “our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning.” But it added: “As we continue the work to recover our operation, we have made the decision to continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one third of our schedule for the next several days.”

But it may be more serious than that.

Tweets like this were shared Tuesday night from cities all over the country confirming that Southwest customers are being told no flights will be rebooked until after December 31.

As in “next year.”

That means that a lot of people whose flights have already been canceled are going to have to wait even longer to get on a plane.

The Department of Transportation has taken notice, calling Southwest’s rate of cancellations and delays and report of poor customer service “unacceptable” and saying it “will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”

2023 will be profitable for airlines, despite airports “gouging” airlines

Airline trade group IATA – the International Air Transport Association – is hosting a gathering of journalists in Geneva, Switzerland this week and laying out a wide variety of reports, predictions, and challenges.

IATA reports that in 2023, as air travel rebounds from COVID-19 restrictions, the global airline industry expects to post a small net profit of $4.7 billion, with more than 4 billion passengers taking to the skies. That’s a 0.6% net profit margin and the industry’s first profit since 2019.

In 2021 and 2022 airlines lost billions of dollars due to the pandemic.

The 2023 return to profit is a “great achievement considering the scale of the financial and economic damage caused by government-imposed pandemic restrictions,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh. But he warned that many airlines will continue to struggle next year and into the future.

And he lashed out at airports – and their charges to airlines – as adding to the struggle.

“It’s very important that everybody understands just how fragile the recovery is,” said Walsh. “But the margins we are operating with are very small and we cannot tolerate a situation where airports in particular attempt to gouge airlines and their passengers by significant increases in airport charges. Every single cent matters.”

The Airport Industry Responds

As you might imagine, Walsh’s comments about airports don’t sit well with the airport community.

And Luis Felipe de Oliveira, the World Director General of airport trade group Airports Council International (ACI) swiftly responded to Walsh’s comments about airports and airport charges.

“Attacking industry partners does not reflect the collaborative spirit the industry needs for the common goal of providing safe, reliable, and efficient air transport,” said de Oliveira.

“Like airlines and other areas of this ecosystem, airports are businesses too and affected by cost rises in the industry outside of their control. It is a reality we’re all facing—high costs of energy, inflation, and staff shortages.”

de Oliveira noted that airports had a 49% drop in aeronautical revenues during 2020-2021. Costs have gone up, he said, while revenues are not keeping pace.

“It is important to remember that airports are infrastructure-intensive businesses—meaning they have unavoidable high fixed costs. What’s more, significant investment will be needed going forward to meet demand and transition to sustainable energy sources,” said Oliveira. “Airlines have been able to increase their tariffs during the last year, which is different from the airports that need to follow regulatory frameworks.”

In the end, “aviation is one ecosystem,” said Oliveira. “We must focus on the benefits to passengers and communities. And for this, all parts of the ecosystem need to be healthy.”

Travel Tidbits from Airports Near You

Airlines Fined for Not Giving Refunds on Time

On Monday, the Transportation Department fined a half-dozen airlines more than $7 million for failing to provide timely refunds to customers.

The DOT said the six airlines have also now collectively paid more than half a billion dollars to people who were owed a refund due to a canceled or significantly changed flight.

Frontier Airlines is the only U.S. airline on the list. And it got the biggest fine: $2.2 million. According to the DOT, the airline has issued $222 million in refunds.

Here’s a list of the other airlines fined and the amount of refunds they are required to pay:

The fines assessed and the required refunds provided are: 

  • Air India – $121.5 million in required refunds paid and a $1.4 million penalty 
  • TAP Portugal – $126.5 million in required refunds paid and a $1.1 million penalty 
  • Aeromexico – $13.6 million in required refunds paid and a $900,000 penalty 
  • El Al – $61.9 million in required refunds paid and a $900,000 penalty 
  • Avianca – $76.8 million in required refunds paid and a $750,000 penalty 

You Can Now Take the Metro to Dulles International Airport

With the opening of the long-awaited Silver Line Metrorail station at Dulles International Airport (IAD) on Tuesday, travelers and airport employees can now take the train directly to Dulles from downtown Washington, D.C.

The new station at Dulles is connected to the main terminal by an indoor pedestrian tunnel with moving sidewalks. Transit time from Metro Center in downtown D.C. is estimated at 53 minutes. And, depending on when you ride and where you access Metrorail, the fare will be between $2 and $6. Trains will leave the Dulles Silver Line station about every 15 minutes.

Courtesy Mamava

Mamava Lactation Pod Doubles as Art Gallery

You’ve probably noticed Mamava lactation pods popping up at airports.

Now one of these pods has been installed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Located under the lobby escalators on the Museum’s ground floor, the free-to-use pod not only provides a private, comfortable space for parents to pump or breastfeed, this one doubles as a gallery space.

Courtesy Mamava

The interior of the pod features reproductions of artworks by noted artist Betye Saar, including Anticipation (1961), which depicts the artist pregnant with her third child, In the Sunflower Patch (1963), and Flight (1963), depicting the early years of her daughter’s life. There’s also a quote by Saar in the pod, in which she reflects on motherhood, birthing, and her printmaking practice. 

Great idea, right? Maybe airports will add art to their Mamava lactation pods too.

In addition to museums and airports, Mamava now has lactation pods in train stations, corporate offices, schools, hospitals, military bases, retail, universities, sports stadiums, and zoos. You can locate them with a free locator app.

JetBlue inks deal to buy Spirit Airlines

Big news in the airline world. JetBlue is buying Spirit Airlines. Price tag: $3.8 billion.

Read these stories to learn more.

Not loving the airlines right now? J.D. Power says you’re not alone

We may be flying again, but that doesn’t mean we’re happy with the service airlines are providing.

In fact, according to J.D. Power’s 2022 North America Airline Satisfaction Study, overall passenger satisfaction with airlines is down due to higher costs, pandemic-era restrictions, and a host of other factors.

“Customer satisfaction with North American airlines climbed to unprecedented highs for all of the wrong reasons during the past two years,” Michael Taylor, travel intelligence lead at J.D. Power said in the report’s release statement. “Fewer passengers meant more space on airplanes, less waiting in line, and more attention from flight attendants. But that business model was simply not sustainable.”

Now, Taylor says, volumes are surging, some pandemic-era constraints are still in place, and passenger satisfaction declined in all three study segments—first/business, premium economy, and economy/basic economy.

The charts below show how passengers ranked North American carriers by segment, using eight measurement factors: aircraft; baggage; boarding; check-in; cost and fees; flight crew; in-flight services; and reservation.

The overall score was 798 – on a 1,000-point scale – which is down more than 20 points from a year ago.

You’ll see that JetBlue and Alaska Airlines topped the rankings in the First/Business segment; JetBlue and Delta Air Lines finished first in the Premium Economy sector; and that Southwest and JetBlue led in the economy segment.