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.  And the ruling was not welcome news.

The DOT did approve the slot swap deal, but added their own unreasonable stipulations into the approval.  The deal was that Delta would give up a large number of their Washington Reagan National slots to DCA powerhouse US Airways, along with some random international slots, in exchange for US Airways giving up a bunch of their New York LaGuardia slots to Delta, further strengthening Delta’s presence in the NYC market. 

But the DOT did not understand all of the benefits that the airlines laid out in their proposal.  The DOT, while approving the swap in theory, decided to make the swap unacceptable to both carriers by forcing them to sell slots to competitors in order to have the deal go through.  The DOT wanted US Airways to be forced to sell about a third of the slots it would have gotten from Delta at DCA and Delta to sell about 15% of the slots in LGA that it would have gotten from US Airways. 

Not only is the break-down of the slots they need to sell unfair, but the thought that these two carriers would reduce their presence in key business markets only to have an airline like Southwest that is now entering markets like these buy these slots and force business fares into the toilet is ludicrous.  The airlines would be better of keeping what they have in those cities than to sell them off to a competitor. 

The response from Delta and US Airways is basically that they have no intention of selling slots to competitors, and will use the 30-day comment period with the DOT to voice their disagreement with the decision.  Let’s hope the DOT gets the picture in the next month and allows this creative and innovative deal to move forward unhindered!

OpenSkies, the all-premium class airline brainchild and subsidiary of British Airways operating business class only Boeing 757’s across the Atlantic, is planning to launch a new route on May 3 connecting Washington Dulles International Airport with Paris Orly Airport.

The airline will begin service offering five flights per week and plan to upgrade service frequencies in coming months.  OpenSkies currently offers 17 weekly flights between New York’s JFK airport and Paris Orly.

Jazz Air of Canada today announced a letter of intent with Bombardier to acquire 30 new Q400 NextGen turboprop aircraft.  The letter specifies a firm order of 15 Q400’s with another 15 on option. The Q400’s will have a passenger capacity of 74 seats.

Deliveries are expected beginning in May 2011.  The first 15 Q400’s will replace 15 currently operated 50-seat CRJ jets.  Jazz Air is the second largest airline in Canada in terms of fleet size.  Jazz Air is semi-regional operator for Air Canada.

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 maintenance facility in the Seattle area.  The FAA thinks that 44 planes flew more than 100,000 flights out of compliance due to work done at this facility.  The result could be grounding of aircraft and fines totaling tens of millions of dollars for Southwest.

The case remains open with the FAA and the outcome or resultant punishment to Southwest is still being considered in Washington DC.

Boeing today was pleased with the performance of their new Boeing member – the Boeing 747-8 Freighter.  The newest member of the 747 family has been delayed twice, but met this first flight milestone with a three-hour test flight.

The Boeing 747-8 is 18-feet longer than the 747-400 and shares some of the new technologies of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner making it more efficient.

There are currently 108 orders for the Boeing 747-8; 76 for the freighter and 32 for the passenger version.  The freighter can carry 16% more cargo and the passenger version 51 more passengers than the next largest 747 model.

The first delivery of the freighter version of the Boeing 747-8 is scheduled for late 2010.

United States airline January traffic statistics as released by each carrier.  The main statistics released on a monthly basis illustrate the carriers traffic illustrated here as a percentage increase or decrease from the same month one year earlier; carrier capacity illustrated here as a percentage increase of decrease from the same month one year earlier; and load factor or percentage of seats filled.  These statistics are based on actual data released by the airlines and is subject to change or revision by the airlines.

——————————-TRAFFIC—–CAPACITY—-LOAD FACTOR

• AirTran                        +6.8%              +8.6%               72.0%
• Alaska                          +9.5%              +1.0%               77.7%
• Allegiant                     +21.6%            +19.9%             90.3%
• American                    +0.4%              -2.7%               76.6%
• Continental                 +8.5%              +2.8%               78.2%
• Delta                              -5.0%             -5.6%                  76.6%
• Frontier/Midwest   +9.0%              +4.0%               70.0%
• Hawaiian                     +2.2%              -2.7%                 82.2%
• JetBlue                         +9.1%              +8.9%                74.1%
• Southwest                   +7.1%              -6.7%                 72.1%
• United                           +2.4%             -2.0%                 78.5%
• US Airways                 -1.4%                -0.4%                75.1%

Delta Airlines has announced new non-stop service to Grand Cayman of the Cayman Islands will commence on June 12.  The airline will offer once-weekly Saturday flights between the two cities on Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

This new service to the Cayman Islands compliments Delta Airlines current Cayman service out of their hub in Atlanta.

Reports from Japan are that the leadership of Japan Airlines has decided to stick with their One World Alliance instead of jumping ship and joining SkyTeam.  This is an enormous coup for American Airlines, a founding airline partner of One World.  However, it is a disappointment for SkyTeam member and world’s largest airline Delta Airlines.

Both Delta Airlines and American Airlines had been courting Japan Airlines over the last few months hoping to negotiate a key Japan air partnership.  They both offered substantial financial incentives to Japan Airlines, which just last month filed for bankruptcy.

An official announcement is expected from JAL this week.  The OneWorld incentive offer totalled more than $1.4 billion US and will allow JAL to stay its current course, avoiding the challenges of changing alliances and all of the costs associated with that.

Can you say KARMA?  The long awaited bankruptcy of Mesa Airlines appears to be here as Jonathan Ornstein’s airline has been forced into Chapter 11.  The filing this morning is reported to allow Mesa the ability to restructure debts as well as shed unused aircraft without financial obligations. 

Mesa says that the bankruptcy will not affect go! Mokulele nor its regional flying agreements.  However, that remains to be seen.  United Airlines recently cancelled a contract with Mesa leaving it with unused aircraft and Delta has been trying to get away from Mesa for some time now and is embroiled in a lawsuit to accomplish this goal. 

Mesa has been subject of much criticism within the industry particularly for the unethical business practices that Jonathan Ornstein uses to manage the airline.  So, this seems to be a little bit of Karma coming back to bite a jerk in the ass.

Allegiant Airlines, low-cost leisure airline, has agreed to purchase 18 used MD-80 aircraft from Scandanavian Airlines Systems.  Allegiant anticipates the cost of integrating these 18 MD-80’s into their fleet to be about $4 million.  The aircraft will be delivered during the first three quarters of 2010 and will all be in service by the end of 2011. 

Allegiant will use these MD-80’s to continue to expand their routes and capacity at levels they say would ensure continued profitability.  These 18 MD-80’s will take Allegiant’s fleet of 46 aircraft to 64 aircraft.  This is not the first time Allegiant has purchased used aircraft from Scandanavian and says they are a ’stellar’ business partner.