Qantas eyes more U.S. nonstop destinations.
In the latest air travel developments, Google researchers pored over five years of pricing data and came up with recommendations for ways to book the lowest airfares, including Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year’s trips; the TSA reports that Labor Day passenger numbers finally exceeded pre-pandemic 2019 holiday weekend levels for the first time; United warns that it might put an end to its San Francisco-New York JFK and LAX-JFK routes next month; United puts money into a second manufacturer of electric-powered air taxis and orders hundreds more; low-cost Breeze Airways adds several new Las Vegas routes; Southwest and Frontier plan new San Diego service; Alaska Airlines ends home-printed baggage tags; Qantas eyes more U.S. nonstop destinations for its new long-range A350-1000s; JetBlue and Emirates end their partnership; Lufthansa comes to term with its pilots, preventing a two-day walkout; and Fresno’s airport starts major renovation and expansion projects.
Now that Labor Day is behind us, leisure travelers are getting a breather until they firm up their plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year’s trips. And some new research from Google Flights could help them find the lowest fares for those holiday journeys. The company said in a blog post that its researchers took an exhaustive look at airfare data from the past five years, noting that since April of this year, Google has been deluged with consumer searches asking about how to find the cheapest airfares.
Let’s begin by looking at their advice for booking upcoming holiday trips: According to Google Flights, historical data suggests that the cheapest domestic fares for Thanksgiving travel are booked 52 days in advance, or around Monday, Oct. 3, although it said low prices could more generally be found 36 to 74 days in advance of travel. For Christmas, the lowest average fares are found 22 days in advance, or around Dec. 3 — “although that may be cutting it close,” Google said. “Prices have tended to drop anywhere between 20 and 88 days before departure.”
Looking at non-holiday travel, prices for domestic fights “have usually been their lowest 21-60 days out, with average prices bottoming out 44 days before departure,” Google said. “But keep in mind that these patterns may not hold true for your specific route, so planning and booking early is usually a good idea.”
The research also laid to rest a common notion expressed in numerous magazine and newspaper articles over the years: that searching fares and booking a flight on a Tuesday will generally find the lowest price. “If you shop for flights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays instead of Saturdays or Sundays, prices have only been 1.9% cheaper on average over the past five years,” Google Flights said. A more important consideration is which day of the week you will fly. “On average, flights that depart on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday have been 12% cheaper than weekend departures. If you exclude international destinations, the potential savings jump even higher to 20%.” If you don’t mind including a stopover on the way to your final destination, the company said, you could save an average of 20% from the cost of a nonstop flight.
TSA reports that Labor Day passenger numbers finally exceeded pre-pandemic 2019 holiday weekend levels.
The Labor Day weekend marked a significant milestone for airline travel, according to the Transportation Security Administration, as passenger numbers finally rose beyond pre-pandemic levels. TSA said that the number of travelers screened at airports from Friday (Sept. 2) through Monday (Sept. 5) reached 8.76 million, or 2% more than Labor Day weekend three years ago — “the first time that a holiday weekend passenger screening volume exceeds that of 2019.” The agency noted that most TSA PreCheck members had an average wait of less than five minutes to get through screening, while the vast majority of those in the regular security lines waited less than 15 minutes. Guns in carry-ons continue to be a problem, TSA said, with its officers catching 67 of them over the weekend before they got onto the aircraft. At the current rate of seizures, “TSA anticipates that firearm catches at checkpoints will eclipse the current full-year record of 5,972 firearms intercepted at the nation’s checkpoints in 2021,” the agency said.
United Airlines, which revived transcontinental service from San Francisco and Los Angeles to New York’s JFK Airport early last year, is now planning to drop those routes in late October if it can’t secure more takeoff and landing slots at the congested East Coast airport. That’s according to a report from Reuters this week that cited an internal United email outlining the plan. The email from United management said that if the airline cannot get “additional (slot) allocations for multiple seasons, we will need to suspend service at JFK, effective at the end of October.”
United stopped flying out of JFK in 2015 when it made a strategic decision to consolidate all its New York-area operations into its Newark hub. Over time, United’s management realized that by flying all its transcon routes out of Newark, it was losing out on a big piece of the metro New York market in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island that can get to and from JFK much more easily than Newark. Without increasing capacity on the SFO and LAX routes, United said, “We can’t serve JFK effectively compared to the larger schedules and more attractive schedules flown by our competitors.” For example, United currently operates just two daily nonstops between SFO-JFK vs. four for American, five for Delta, and five for Alaska Airlines. The same disparity is true in the LAX-JFK market.
United warns that it might put an end to its San Francisco-New York JFK route.
In other United news, the company is doubling down on its commitment to electric-powered air taxis. Last month, United made a $10 million deposit on its order for 100 eVTOL aircraft from Archer Aviation, a deal that it agreed to last year. (The “e” is for electric-powered and the VTOL stands for vertical takeoff and landing.) And this week, the company announced a $15 million investment in another manufacturer — Eve Air Mobility — along with a tentative order for 200 four-seat eVTOLs and an option for 200 more. United sees the small eVTOL aircraft as a fast and sustainable way to carry passengers to and from its hub airports. Next week, Eve will begin a three-week “Urban Air Mobility (UAM) simulation” in United’s hometown of Chicago, using helicopters instead of eVTOLs, to figure out how a future air taxi network might develop and operate. “Following the simulation, the city of Chicago will gain knowledge about the infrastructure and ecosystem needed to enable the launch and expected long-term growth of UAM in the area,” Eve said.
As the post-pandemic travel era continues to evolve, hard-hit Las Vegas is gaining more new airline capacity. Low-cost Breeze Airways this week introduced twice-weekly flights from LAS to Charleston, South Carolina; Hartford, Connecticut; and Jacksonville, Florida. And Breeze just announced new Las Vegas service from eight more cities beginning in late October or early November, including Richmond, Virginia; Syracuse, New York; Fort Myers, Florida; Westchester County, New York (from Sept. 20 to Oct. 2 only); Huntsville, Alabama; Norfolk, Virginia; Akron-Canton, Ohio; and Provo, Utah. The routes are currently scheduled to continue through Feb. 14. Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines said this week that starting in March of next year, it will offer “its largest-ever schedule from Las Vegas,” operating up to 243 daily departures there.
In other domestic route news, Southwest said it will start new seasonal service on March 11 between San Diego and Eugene, Oregon, and Frontier Airlines said it will operate daily flights from San Diego to Orlando from Nov. 5 through Jan. 3. Frontier also announced new seasonal service from Phoenix to Detroit and Cincinnati and from Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale, all beginning Nov. 5; and from St. Louis to Tampa starting Nov. 16.
Alaska Airlines passengers will no longer be able to print checked baggage tags at home.
Effective Sept. 12, Alaska Airlines passengers will no longer be able to print checked baggage tags at home. They can still check in for their flight online and print a boarding pass, but not the bag tags, according to The Points Guy. The airline has offered the print-at-home option for several years, at dozens of airports, but according to a statement from Alaska to The Points Guy confirming the change, “Usage of guests who print bag tags at home is low and oftentimes required them to still see an agent at the airport. At-home bag tag printing is being retired so that we can focus on the new Electronic Bag Tags coming later this fall as well as other enhancements to the lobby experience that will allow guests to quickly generate their bag tags.”
As it receives new ultra-long-range A350-1000 aircraft from Airbus in the coming years, Qantas is planning to expand the scope of its so-called Project Sunrise to include more long-haul nonstops from Sydney and Melbourne to the U.S. and Europe. That’s what Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told The Times of London in an interview this week. The Australian carrier is due to revive one-stop Sydney-New York flights next year with a 787, replacing the previous Los Angeles stop with one in Auckland, New Zealand. But the A350-1000 will make even longer nonstops possible, and Project Sunrise is due to begin in 2025 with nonstop, 21-hour flights from Sydney to London, followed by Melbourne-London, followed by service from both Sydney and Melbourne to New York, Miami, and Chicago as well as Paris, Frankfurt, Cape Town and Sao Paulo, Joyce said. He noted that the A350-1000s are being specially adapted for the long hours in the air, offering free satellite Wi-Fi, a small stretching and exercise area, more humidity in the cabin air and hydration stations. He said the airline will also try to discourage alcohol consumption during the long flights.
With United and Emirates expected to announce a new partnership on Sept. 14, the existing code-sharing and loyalty program pact between JetBlue and Emirates will end next month. According to JetBlue’s website, “Effective October 30, 2022, TrueBlue members will no longer be able to earn points for Emirates-operated flights. Bookings made prior to October 29 for travel on or prior to October 29 will continue to earn points. Bookings made for travel on or after October 30 will not accrue points.”
Lufthansa comes to term with its pilots.
Lufthansa pilots staged a one-day strike on Sept. 3 as their union contract talks with management stalled, forcing the airline to cancel hundreds of flights that day, and they had planned another two-day walkout on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. But at the last minute, the pilots reached a tentative agreement with Lufthansa on pay increases, so the carrier was able to maintain its full schedule. The agreement should give nervous passengers confidence in Lufthansa’s schedule in the coming days.
After opening a new 900-space parking garage last fall, California’s Fresno Yosemite International Airport is moving ahead with an ambitious program of improvements and expansion, according to the Fresno Bee. By next spring, work should be finished on a $10 million extension of the tarmac east of the terminal building, to be followed by a $120 million passenger terminal expansion that will continue through 2024. The terminal work will include enlarging the TSA security checkpoint, updating the checked luggage system and baggage screening technology, adding an upper-level concourse with new jet bridge gates, and expanding the arrival and customs inspection area for international travelers. New food and beverage outlets and retail concessions are also part of the plan. Airport officials said passenger volume at the airport is expected to reach 1.2 million this year, beating the pre-pandemic record of 965,000 in 2019, and to increase to 1.4 million by 2030.
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