Recession Means More People Travel Locally, Take Shorter Trips
It’s not a surprise, but people are changing their travel habits in this economy. The numbers are sobering to see.

US-EU Open Skies Phase II Talks Begin
All eyes are on round two of the talks - this, the EU hopes, will result in cabotage rights within the US.

United, Continental Antitrust Application Slammed by DOJ
The DOT was in favor of the broad antitrust immunity application, but the DOJ isn’t so happy.

Frontier Makes Money in May, What’s Next?
Frontier is making money, and that’s great, but it’s what happens next that really determines how this airline will be doing going forward. Lots of changes could be underway.

Boeing Set to Buy Vought?
Boeing seems to be having seconds thoughts about outsourcing most of the 787 part production, and it now appears to be bringing one of its suppliers back in-house.

I’m going light on my post today since it’s officially a holiday here in the US. What better way to kick off the holiday weekend than with a little airplane porn?

This time, there actually is a person involved, but fortunately, he is fully clothed. Apparently, AirTran is really happy that Mark Malkoff made it through June without a hitch. This has been great publicity for the airline and its wifi efforts, and they’ve decided to commemorate the event with a giant picture of Mark, literally on AirTran.

That’s Mark’s wife, who appears to be rather happy to have her husband back despite the fact that he hasn’t seen a shower since May.

I hope everyone enjoys their 4th here in the US. (And for my British readers, I hope you aren’t still too bitter - it has, after all, been more than 230 years. You know we still love you.)

I don’t know how many of you brave souls actually booked a ticket on JetAmerica, but if you were planning on flying before August 14, it looks like you’re out of luck. I received an email from someone yesterday who was looking to book a flight at the end of the month on JetAmerica.com, but the flights weren’t for sale. After further review, it appears that all flights between the original launch of July 13 and August 14 are out of the system.

Could this actually be a glitch? I tried to call the reservations line, but I gave up after about 10 minutes or so. I have this picture in my mind of a phone ringing repeatedly at someone’s house, but they had fallen asleep so it just kept ringing. Anyway, Jaunted picked up the story last night, and they did get through. They were told by reservations that it was a server error. Yeah, right.

Anyone know what kind of server error just magically deletes a month of flights but otherwise functions perfectly? That’s what I thought. If the reservations system is to be believed (which I tend to think is more trustworthy than what we’ll get over the phone), August 14 will see the first flights from Newark to Toledo and Lansing as well as from Minneapolis to Toledo. (I wouldn’t bet on that Minneapolis date.) On the 15th, they’ll have their first flights from Melbourne to Lansing and Toledo. On the 16th, we’ll see their first flights from Newark to Melbourne and South Bend. I now have to wonder if anyone will be onboard.

Let’s all recall that this was originally Air Azul. That airline announced plans and then quickly imploded on itself. After John Weikle got involved, the airline became JetAmerica and the routes changed. People were probably already wary about booking after that happened, but they may have figured that with the brains behind Skybus working on this, it would at least get off the ground.

Now with service delayed again, would you even consider booking beyond that date? I know that I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t think about spending a penny until I see an airplane in the air on an actual flight with passengers. Something tells me that the chances of that actually happening has just dropped dramatically.

If you were booked on JetAmerica before August 14, I would call their reservations line right now and demand a refund. Of course, if they keep insisting that it’s a server error, well, you may have to wait. The good news about public charters is that the money is held in an account until you actually fly, so you should be able to get your money back.

[Original photo from penner42 via Flickr]

Update 7/2 @ 138p - “Server error” my ass. JetAmerica has now sent emails out to booked customers explaining that they can’t get slots in time (they sound very whiny) so everyone booked before Aug 14 will get a refund. I will post the full letter in the comments section soon.

There’s good news in Crankyville this week. No, it’s not a new writer. No, we’re not having a baby. I’m very happy to welcome a new sister-in-law into the family. While we left Jackson Hole on Sunday, my brother Quinn (aka Dr Cranky) and his girlfriend Jeanine stuck around a couple more days for a romantic getaway. He popped the question and they’re now happily engaged. To keep this aviation-related, here they are ready to board their Delta Connection flight yesterday from Jackson Hole to Salt Lake.

Wanting to do something nice for them on their flight home to Philly, I emailed my PR contact at Delta as well as a friend who used to work there to see if I could get a message to the crew to try to thoroughly embarrass Quinn and Jeanine over the PA or maybe even get them a celebratory drink. What resulted was far more than that. Check out the gift basket that was awaiting them onboard their flight from Salt Lake to Philly.

Now this can’t be normal, right? That’s a really nice gift basket (and it was definitely welcome as they waited out their 1.5 hour mechanical delay), but I can’t imagine Delta does this for everyone. Still, I do understand that they will usually offer champagne for some special occasions, and that’s a great policy to have. It can only engender loyalty during a very memorable and emotional time.

So thank you to Delta for such a nice gesture, and more importantly, welcome to the family, Jeanine!

Volaris brought its first flight into LAX yesterday, and I headed out to the airport for the airline’s press conference celebrating the event. I must admit that I liked a lot of what I heard about Volaris, but these are some incredibly uncertain times for the airline right now.

Volaris is now flying a single daily trip from LAX to Toluca (outside Mexico City) and another one to Guadalajara. They’ll be starting flights to those cities from Oakland as well, and at the press conference yesterday, Volaris Managing Director and CEO Enrique Beltranena (bottom left in the picture, though I’ll certainly understand if you’re distracted by those flight attendants) announced that they had just received approval to fly from Oakland to Tijuana as well. He also said that he expects Volaris to be flying to more than 10 cities in the US in the next two and a half years. So this is no small plan.

How the heck are they planning on being the first successful low cost carrier flying between the US and Mexico? A huge part of the plan is the Southwest codeshare that was announced earlier. In fact, it’s such a large part of the plan that Kyle O’Neil, Southwest’s Director of Alliances (the tall, white dude in the middle of the picture) was there at the podium today for the event.

Of course, the question on my mind was whether or not the codeshare was still proceeding as planned, especially considering that the WestJet deal had been delayed. So, I asked them to elaborate on details. Kyle said that Southwest was still planning to launch the codeshare in 2010, but he couldn’t announce a date. Original plans were for the codeshare to go on sale in early 2010, so this looks like there might be a little slippage in my mind. But Kyle reiterated that they were very committed to the partnership, something that was evident by his mere presence at the event.

For Volaris, I imagine the codeshare can’t start soon enough. They are coming off a disastrous traffic plunge in Mexico following the swine flu outbreak that began in April. Enrique admitted that Volaris has been suffering, but he said that he believes Volaris was the only airline in Mexico to be breakeven over the last six months. (Warning: He answered that question in Spanish, so I’m trusting that my Spanish skills haven’t failed me.)

In the end, Enrique presented a very nice plaque (at left) to LAX commemorating the start of their service. He said that they’ve presented this to each city they fly as a symbol that they intend to be there for a long time. I like the symbolism.

So Volaris is pushing ahead, and LAX is a huge part of their commitment to making flying in the US work. They will be flying out of Terminal 2 here at LAX (convenient since Northwest flights all moved to Delta’s terminal yesterday), and while it’s not going to provide connections behind security to Southwest, it will at least be right next door.

What might you expect to see onboard? If you’re looking for legroom, you won’t find much. I’m told their A319s are equipped with 144 seats while the A320s have 172. For comparison, JetBlue’s spacious configuration has only 150 seats on an A320, but I think Volaris’ configuration makes sense for the airline. They do have leather seats and overhead TV screens, so the product is still quite nice. (You can see a photo of the inside of their aircraft on airliners.net.)

Perhaps the most interesting thing offered by Volaris is unique in this industry. As Enrique said (to many laughs), “We guarantee on-time performance or your money back so I hope your airport delivers.” That’s right. If your flight is late by more than 30 minutes, you get your money back, regardless of the reason for the delay. As a marketing campaign, I love this idea. It will certainly stand out and it’s a huge differentiator. On the other hand, remember why Domino’s dropped their 30 minute guarantee? They had drivers getting in accidents because they were rushing to beat the deadline. I really hope we don’t see any pressure on pilots to beat the deadline here. That makes me a little nervous.

Overall, it was a good event at LAX. Enrique seems like a very smart man, and he’s already built an airline that not only has to be the frontrunner of the low cost carriers in Mexico, but is also a great place to work. In fact, the biggest smile I saw from him all day was the one he let out when he was introduced as leading an airline that has been recognized as one of the top places to work in Mexico.

Would I try them if I were heading down to Mexico? Absolutely. And the low fares that they’re trying to bring into the market should help them stimulate additional traffic, assuming the burdensome taxes don’t overwhelm their efforts. I tend to think this can work, but this is not exactly the ideal time to be trying it. Still, they pushing ahead at full speed.

So what’s next for Volaris? Well, there was some pressure from LA officials for the airline to start service to Ontario as well (which is operated by the same folks that run LAX), but Enrique responded that “there is nothing more we would like to do than start service to Ontario. So if we are able to, and you are able to reduce the cost of the airport . . . .” Ah, smart man. Keep an eye on these guys, and if you have the chance to fly them, let me know your impressions.