News and notes from around the interweb:
- Mexico’s President says the U.S. FAA will upgrade his country to category 1 next week, allowing its airlines to start new routes to the U.S. This comes after a Mexican government decision to delay reducing airline slots at the main Mexico City airport (in hopes of supporting the new airport).
So maybe Mexico’s safety rating wasn’t just about safety, after all. Playing politics with safety issues to benefit major U.S. airlines wouldn’t be new, even this summer.
The new Mexico City airport is a pet project of the country’s President, and they’re even starting a military-run national airline to fly out of that airport and giving it the name of defunct Star Alliance and oneworld carrier Mexicana.
- Air France KLM Flying Blue adds first class partner redemptions
- Brazil’s information on UFOs isn’t classified (WaPo)
- Sri Lanka is working to privatize its oneworld member national airline, and is in talks with Emirates, with the owner of Air India, and with the embattled Adani Group.
- An argument against getting PreCheck.
- Hook ’em, Horns, amiright?
This @SouthwestAir crew knew their audience! Landing in Birmingham. #HookEm #BeatBama @TexasFootball @TexasLonghorns pic.twitter.com/cOKZnKjcGl
— Jenifer Sarver (@utsarver) September 8, 2023
- How Qantas fell to earth
- United will move – and get a new club lounge – in Seattle.
.@united will move to Concourse B from A at @flySEA, board docs show. The move, which includes a new United Club on B, is not likely to happen until Q3 2025. pic.twitter.com/37xnCAvjzb
— Edward Russell (@ByERussell) September 8, 2023
Hook ’em Horns!
I still remember when W was president he did the Longhorns finger thing and the Muslim world was aghast because he was cheerfully using the sign for Satan.
@ Gary — It is such a shame that MEX is so horrible. We took 12 flights to/from MEX over the past 2 weeks, and AM was such a pleasure to fly, except their absolutely horrific hub. I wish AM would start a focus city or hub at TIJ instead of routing all of their flights from TIJ to MEX. TIJ is a great airport, and CBX is a genius peice of infrastructure.
I just want to be able to fly to a Mexican resort town after work from the western US. But there are almost no such flights available.
@ Aric — There are many such flights from TIJ on Volaris and Viva Aerobus. TIJ is very busy at night.
@Gene If you define ‘fly to a Mexican resort town after work’ to mean ‘Leave after 4pm and arrive in Cancun, Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, or Cabo San Lucas before 6am the next morning”, there are two such flights out of Tijuana on the random date in the near future (Friday, 1/12/24) that I checked.
There are lots more flights out of TIJ, but they are to Mexico City, or are very late (~11pm) and don’t arrive until 7-10am the next morning.
With that same criteria, there are no such flights from any airport in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, or Salt Lake. There are two from Dallas and one from Houston.
I’ve recently gotten into a situation where I’d like to make this kind of flight regularly, and I’ve been surprised at how sparse the availability is.
I’m not too familiar with SEA. The A gates seemed pretty nice when I was there years ago. Will UA’s move to B be to an older part of the airport, or are they all pretty nice and renovated?
There were no shortage of safety issues in Mexico that caused the move; some people just can’t understand that Mexico has played politics with Mexico City airports for a long time and it is Mexican airlines that have the ability to add flights from both airports if that is what it takes. Cutting capacity at MEX will hurt airlines like AA and UA more than AM/DL.
The plan has long been for UA to get booted off the A concourse at SEA so that DL could use the whole concourse to the new customs and immigration facility. Because DL plays the long game, they will succeed at building transpacific hubs at LAX and SEA at both ends of the west coast to the great consternation of United.
Wonder if with Mexico getting to category 1 will Aeromexico start flying to SNA? They wanted spots last year but couldn’t because of the category 2.
This is great news because I’ve got that itch to fly Viva Aerobus!
Horns Down! Texas has to leave the Big 12 to have a chance at winning! Go Cats! Big 12 Champs!