Sky Talk

An airplane built with thread and glue

Check out the Star-Telegram story today on the Boeing 787 and the role of Vought Aircraft Industries in designing, developing and building the next generation, high tech airliner largely using carbon fiber composites. See the cool graphics and flash presentation by our graphics and online folks.

-- Bob Cox

AA-pilot talks still stalled

Despite being taken over by a mediator, it looks like contract negotiations between American Airlines and its pilots union are still moving at a snail's pace. According to the union, the groups haven't sat down since June 12. That's because the mediator apparently hasn't been available since then.

The next meetings for the two sides are scheduled for July 30, July 1 and 2. We'll see if things speed up at all.

- Trebor Banstetter

More fare hikes

American and Continental have joined in the latest round of fare increases, according to FareCompare.com, both adding $20 to $40 round-trip. U.S. Airways and Northwest are still on the fence.

- Trebor Banstetter

Airlines roll out 20th fare increase of 2008

Airlines raised fares for the 20th time this year Thursday, and it was a rare move in that it was led by Southwest Airlines. The discounter raised round-trip prices $10 to $20 based on the distance of the route, on trips starting Nov. 8, says FareCompare.com.

United and Delta also raised fares later in the day, with United hiking round-trip prices $20 to $40 and Delta increasing fares $20 to $30.

"Savvy travelers should start shopping now for holiday travel and lock in prices," said Rick Seaney, FareCompare's CEO. "Airline ticket prices are not likely to come down much except for travel on off peak days of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday."

Seaney pointed out that Southwest's fare hike coincided with capacity cuts that have been announced by most major airlines. He suspects that the reduction will make the higher prices easier to sustain.

- Trebor Banstetter

AA, attendant talks break down

Contract talks between American Airlines and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants ended late Thursday without inking a hoped-for short-term deal. The union had been hoping that it could forge an interim agreement that would have provided some financial relief to attendants, but without the time and years of effort that goes into a complete contract overhaul.

Keep reading for the union's message to members.

- Trebor Banstetter

Will AA cuts ease NYC traffic?

American Airlines is hopeful that its capacity cuts at LaGuardia Airport will ease the notoriously congested air traffic over New York City. The airline also says that it wants the FAA to reduce the hourly operations at the airport.

Industry analyst Robert Mann told Business Travel News that American essentially is hoping that FAA will clamp down so that other airlines can't jump into slots as American scales back.

"If American is going to make a unilateral change, they don't want people to backfill where they've essentially abandoned slots," he told BTN. "It's kind of ironic in a sense that these are the same folks who have been fighting the thing all along. The further irony might be that FAA says, 'These are slots we were looking for. Let's go sell them.'"

- Trebor Banstetter

AA cutting management, support staff

American is informing employees today that they're expecting an 8 percent cut in management and support staff. We've got a story on the cuts here, and keep reading this post for a copy of the letter sent from Jeff Brundage, AA's senior vice president of human resources.

- Trebor Banstetter

Southwest tweaking schedule, growing network

Bucking the industry trend of shrinking capacity, Southwest Airlines said today that it will add 9 flights in November amid an overhaul of its schedule. The carrier is cutting 31 less-profitable flights and adding 40 flights in key markets like Denver and Fort Lauderdale.

We have a story with all the details at Star-Telegram.com.

In a post on the airline's blog, Bill Owen, the airline's schedule development lead planner, lays out some of the details of the model that was used for the update. He writes:

"The November 2008 schedule marks the debut of a new schedule optimizer, the new 'Global optimizer'—one that takes all of our schedule rules and preferences and actually picks the one schedule that scores the absolute highest based on the input parameters we supply.  Thousands of criteria are considered.  For example, the Global optimizer actually looks to see what time passengers actually want to travel in every nonstop market we're in--folks want to leave Vegas for L.A. in the later afternoon, while they want to leave Baltimore/Washington for Orlando in the morning.  All 800+ nonstop markets have their own, unique demand curves.  This new algorigthm lets us match our schedule to exactly what you, our Customers, want!"

Owen's full post can be found here.

- Trebor Banstetter

Crandall sees every airline in bankruptcy

Former American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall tells the Christian Science Monitor that ""Unless something is done to move toward some kind of fix, we're going to see every one of our major airlines in bankruptcy ... If that isn't enough of a crisis to alert everybody, then I don't know what it will take."

Meanwhile, the Business Travel Coalition is forecasting that 150 airports nationwide are at risk of losing air service entirely due to cutbacks, and has launched a new site, SaveMyAirport. Keep reading for the full report from that group.

- Trebor Banstetter

AA details schedule reductions

American Airlines announced cutbacks in its fall schedule today, including 42 flights at its hub at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. The airline also said it is cutting back in Chicago, St. Louis, New York and other cities.

We have full coverage here at Star-Telegram.com.

Keep reading for the full press release from American.

- Trebor Banstetter