Emirates just placed a huge order with Boeing to build up a big part of its business that’s not passenger jet travel. United Airlines presented earnings numbers that should leave its shareholders feeling good but its competitors feeling nervous. Plus, workers at Boeing and United are both setting the stage for possible strikes later this year.
Take a moment to catch up on what’s been happening in the world of airlines.
A long-in-the-works Boeing aircraft might have just cleared a key regulatory hurdle. After the Air Current reported Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration has begun taking key certification flights on the company’s 777x plane, Deutsche Bank thinks a revenue bump could be coming soon for the embattled planemaker.
A Southwest Airlines plane took off from a runway it wasn’t supposed to take off from last month.
Airbus is caught in an awkward place between its short-term and long-term futures. The French planemaker is taking immediate steps to quell costs, but is also poised to benefit from missteps made by its main competitor, Boeing.
Another airline is in hot water for its treatment of a passenger. Terrell Davis, a former Denver Broncos NFL player who was the MVP of Super Bowl XXXII and a 2017 inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was detained in front his family by the FBI after he says he asked a United Airlines flight attendant for a cup of ice on a flight from Denver to Orange County, California.
Another airline’s flight attendants are shifting to strike footing. The ones working at United Airlines announced Tuesday that they were calling a vote to approve a mass work stoppage as negotiations over a new contract prepare to enter their fourth year.
Emirates just placed a big order with Boeing — and not for passenger jets. The Dubai-based aviation group’s SkyCargo division announced Tuesday that it had put itself down for five new 777 Freighters. That’s $1 billion worth of planes on top of another five that Emirates is already expecting.
American Express announced Tuesday that it will be bringing one of its high-end Centurion airport lounges to a new location. The credit card company is opening a new edition of the franchise at Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday.
One of Boeing’s most important unions is calling a strike sanction vote as contract negotiations heat up. District 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents more than 30,000 of the planemaker’s Washington state-based employees, is holding a rally today at T-Mobile Park baseball stadium in Seattle, Washington. There, it will take the temperature on a mass work stoppage before its current collective bargaining agreement runs out at the end of the summer.
Deciding the quality of an airport can be a qualitative judgement, but the travel website Association of Passenger Rights Advocates makes a go of formalizing the process. Once a year it puts out a ranking of airports worldwide. Though Bloomberg reports that in this year’s edition only one American airport made the top 10 globally, there were 10 U.S. airports among the top 50. They were assigned a score out of 10 that was determined by a combination of how often their flights were on-time, what the people who fly through them thought of them, and how good their shops and restaurants are.
United Airlines posted earnings Wednesday after markets closed. The company told investors that revenue was $15 billion for the most recent quarter, up 5.7% from the same time last year. Net income was $1.3 billion, up 23% from the same time last year. But those positive developments were overshadowed by some gloomy notes about sagging demand elsewhere in the release.
A key group of Boeing workers said they’d be willing to walk off the job if union negotiations don’t go their way. Members of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751, which represents Washington state employees for the troubled planemaker, nearly unanimously approved a vote that could set up a strike later this year. The ballot passed 99.9%.
Alaska Airlines reported earnings Wednesday. Net income was down slightly to $220 million in the most recent quarter, coming out of $2.9 billion in revenue. The big merger with Hawaiian Airlines continues apace. But alongside those numbers came an announcement that the company is looking to seriously expand its higher-end offerings. Read More
Business class is back in session. In a report released this week, the consulting firm Deloitte said that American business travel could soon exceed where it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, a sign that frequent-flyer “road warriors” are continuing their return to the skies. Of those surveyed, 73% expect to be traveling more this year, a 15-point jump from 2023.
