Delta Airlines has received two doses of bad news in the last couple of days. First, Japan Airlines decided to stick with an alliance with American rather than switch to one with Delta on Monday, and then just yesterday, the Department of Transportation made a ruling on the Delta proposed slot-swap deal with US Airways. [...]
The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed that there is a safety investigation once again at Southwest Airlines. The investigation is related to a previous issue found at the airline concerning the way safety directives are handled. Last year Southwest suffered embarrassment as 82 aircraft were found to have unapproved parts.
The current investigation centers around a [...]
Delta Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, was granted permission yesterday by the Federal Aviation Administration to operate the two carriers – Delta Airlines and acquired Northwest Airlines – as one, single airline. This involved the FAA granting Delta Airlines a single operating certificate to use for both carriers.
Delta plans to make some of the internal [...]
A four hour computer network failure was resolved earlier this morning, but not after creating a long list of delayed and cancelled flights through out the United States and even affecting International flights.
The Federal Aviation Administration said that a software configuration problem with a network router was to blame for the outage of the flight [...]
September 2009 proved to be a good month for the nation’s airlines posting the best on-time rate in six years. Combined, the airlines achieved a 86.2 percent on-time rate with that percentage of flight arriving at their destination within 15 minutes of their scheduled time. The ratings and airline rankings are provided by the United [...]
Delta Airlines has suspended a group of Pilots for two incidents in two days that occurred near the end of their respective flights.
The first incident was with a Delta Airlines Boeing 767 arriving in Atlanta from Rio de Janeiro in the pre-dawn hours. The pilots were cleared for a normal landing on the usual 27R [...]
American Airlines is under more pressure from FAA investigators who continue to look into fuselage issues with the large fleet of AA’s MD-80 series aircraft.
Newspapers reported an incident in which an American Airlines MD-80 was found to be in such poor condition that it was not permitted to fly its scheduled flight and was ferried [...]
The Depart of Transportation has released the August 2009 on-time report for U.S. airlines. The rankings are as follows:
Hawaiian – 94.7%
Alaska – 85.8%
SkyWest – 84.4%
Frontier – 83.8%
ExpressJet – 83.4%
Southwest – 82.8%
Continental – 82.4%
US Airways 81.4%
United – 80.1%
American Eagle – 79.6%
Mesa – 79.2%
Pinnacle – 79.2%
Delta – 78.6%
American – 77.2%
JetBlue – 76.0%
Northwest – 74.4%
AirTran – 74.2%
Atlantic Southeast [...]
Spirit Airlines has been fined $375,000 by the Transportation Department for consumer complaints they received about overbooked flights, lost baggage and incorrect advertised fares. Spirit has agreed to pay $215,000 of the fine. It is the largest fine ever brought on an airline for consumer complaints.
Although Spirit claims they are the most consumer-friendly airline, it [...]
July’s on-time rankings from the best to the worst as reported to the Department of Transportation. All airlines averaged together a 77.6% on-time rate for July 2009.
Hawaiian – 93.6%
Alaska – 87.2%
SkyWest – 83.6%
Southwest – 80.7%
US Airways – 80.6%
United – 79.6%
ExpressJet – 79.6%
Mesa – 78.6%
Pinnacle – 78.6%
Continental – 78.5%
American Eagle – 77.7%
Northwest – 76.4%
Delta – 75.5%
Frontier [...]
American Airlines continues to be investigated by the FAA over potential improper maintenance of their fleet of 244 MD-80 aircraft that makes up nearly 50% of American’s fleet. You probably remember this going on for some time with very damaging groundings of MD-80’s for American and other airlines late last year.
American is also being investigated [...]
Southwest Airlines received the ‘OK’ from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) yesterday to take until the end of this year to complete the replacement of unauthorized parts on a portion of their Boeing 737 fleet. The parts were discovered last week in a routine FAA inspection and were deemed acceptable for safety by the FAA, [...]
JetBlue and Lufthansa of Germany today announced their intention to form a code-sharing agreement focusing on the JetBlue hub of New York JFK Airport. The application to the Department of Transportation calls for unlimited code-sharing between the two carriers on all of their flights.
This agreement would open up Europe and beyond to JetBlue customers offering [...]
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating Southwest Airlines over the alleged use of unapproved parts on more than 40 of its Boeing 737 aircraft. The parts will have to be replaced but the agency does not see a threat to safety by the parts, so the aircraft are permitted to fly at least until next [...]
AirTran Airways looks to get into the Caribbean low-cost carrier market with Spirit Airlines and JetBlue. As both these carriers continue to expand in the region, AirTran is filing with the US Department of Transportation to fly to Nassau in The Bahamas; Montego Bay in Jamaica; and the island of Aruba.
If their request is approved, [...]
Delta Connection carrier Mesaba was blamed by the Department of Transportation initial findings as the airline to blame for ExpressJet’s Continental Express flight that suffered a 6-hour tarmac delay last week in Rochester, MN.
The report stated that the ExpressJet captain made repeated efforts to obtain assistance from the Mesaba ground personnel that refused to service [...]
Alaska Airlines has renewed its request for an open Department of Transportation review of the ownership of Virgin America. Alaska Airlines believes that Virgin America is in violation of foreign ownership laws of US airlines although the DOT has been investigating the issue for some time and have worked with Virgin America to ensure that [...]
