News and notes from around the interweb:
- In Shenzhen and Guangzhou, foreigners cannot pass Covid health checks. So about Guangzhou-based China Southern in discussions to join oneworld…
The situation is so bad someone has created a website where users can fake these QR codes: https://t.co/v2ngnb9uxr
— Christian Petersen-Clausen (@chris__pc) November 24, 2022
- British Airways says they can’t fix broken A380 business class seats, because supply chain these are the old, miserable business seats not new Club Suites.
- Today I learned.
- Notice that the adult sitting next to this child just sits there ignoring it.
Toddler from hell. pic.twitter.com/8XCzjQISZ0
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) November 24, 2022
- I didn’t have Geneva on my JetBlue transatlantic route bingo card. Still may not happen, and timing contingent on when Airbus delivers A321XLRs. I don’t see how they make Geneva work in any case, to be honest. Swiss business class awards are generally pretty available on Geneva transatlantics, and American couldn’t make JFK – Zurich work (the corporate deals go to Star).
Given how AA/DL could not make GVA work for them from JFK, it'll be interesting to see why JetBlue think it'll be different https://t.co/Pugujcb7xJ
— Keith Van (@mrkeithvan) November 24, 2022
- The weirdest things hotel housekeepers have seen
Maybe GVA is a typo? How about GLA?
It would seem that JetBlue has a strategic plan with these trans-Atlantic routes. Given a Spirit acquisition and these trans-Atlantic routes, one might ask, “Where does the alliance with AA fit into all of this?” Never mind the DOJ legal action. There might come a time when JetBlue finds itself not needing AA and AA finds itself up poop creek without JetBlue’s domestic network. You heard it here first.
There probably is truth to B6′ rumor of wanting to start GVA since DL has announced it is restarting JFK-GVA after years out of the market. The Star JV owns the US-Switzerland market which means fares are high and there is undoubtedly a segment of the market that is looking for some price competition.
DL has apparently been doing well enough on JFK-ZRH to keep that route as its only Switzerland route; they might restart ATL-ZRH but apparently won a number of corporate contracts after AA’s product and reliability on the 767 soured customers.
As for the AA and B6 relationship, it seemed that AA was the one that needed B6 from a network standpoint and to keep AA JFK slots from being seized while B6 needed AA to bail B6 customers out of B6′ perpetually bad operation. It might be well into 2023 before a ruling is rendered in the NEA case but the chances are very high that AA will have to figure out how to either convert the relationship with B6 to a simple codeshare as it has with AS but with significant carveouts or walk away from the relationship. B6 is committed to growing its transatlantic network and will increasingly step on AA’s toes. That’s not too far fetched for anyone to believe and plenty of other people have suggested it, Lee. AA and B6 both had no other options and it made sense to give it a try as long as they could. For AA, the bigger issue is what AA does in the NE where it has gone back and forth between a focus on PHL and JFK.
btw, Gary. thanks for a number of good articles over the last few days. 🙂
JFK-GVA has full of rich passengers. Just look at when a Swissair MD-11 crashed in 1998. All rich people. If they can snag a few on Mint, they will be successful.
Delta once served GVA and recently announced it would relaunch it, presumably to break the *A stranglehold in the NY Area to Geneva market that is held by LX (JFK) and UA (EWR). AA served GVA very briefly, never nonstop from JFK, and pulled it in the very early 1990s because it needed 767s to fulfill the needs of the then created MIA hub.
B6 has slim to no chances of making Geneva work. JetBlue is a leisure focused airline, plagued with operational issues, and doesn’t command a corporate travel premium. It has the right plane to make the route work on paper, but has zero brand recognition on the Swiss/French end, even with the quite considerable geography GVA airport services. Add in the messy Spirit merger that is on the horizon and you’re looking at a basket case of an airline for years to come.
Swiss (or the old Swiss) used to fly Bos-gva also. I feel like the travel boom could help jetblue succeed somehow?
A monkey throwing darts at a wall with airport codes could do better route planning than B6 currently.
As an afterthought, I fondly remember JFK-ZRH on Pan Am. Those were the days.
By the way, anyone remember Pan Am’s toll-free phone number?
Everyone, from what I see the Geneva listing is the site’s misreading of Gy, the country domain for Guyana. There is a town called Gy in the canton of Geneva, but it’s as far as you can get from the airport in the canton. The site had posted a similar job for JetBlue in Gy, France, a small town not near an airport.