The Top Air Travel Stories From April

Southwest Airlines suffered another meltdown, albeit not nearly as catastrophic or lengthy as the one in December around the holidays.Is it time to start thinking about grounding Southwest until its technology catches up with the rest of the industry?

 

When is a loss not a loss?

When you beat Wall Street expectations, that’s when.

JetBlue lost more than $100 million in the first quarter and still came away happy. That’s because the airline beat Wall Street expectations for how it would do. And it bodes well for the summer. That’s how the game is played in the stock market, and many airlines, JetBlue included, have high expectations for summer travel.

In what some people are interpreting as a sign that it knows more than we do, Spirit Airlines – which announced a merger with JetBlue Airways last year, only to have a squash by the Department of Justice this year – has added more than a dozen flight this simmer out of Boston, Logan Airport, which is a strong foothold for JetBlue.

 

The low-budget airline continues to add flights. In addition to bringing aviation back to the state of Delaware, which was without a major carrier for almost a year, Avelo said it will now fly into California’s wine country. The Pinot Grigio is on us! It’s a good yes, you probably won’t find anything other than wines from Sonoma or Napa Valley on the flights.

 

Emirates airlines is giving away a free trip to Sri Lanka for tea next month. Well, it’s not exactly free or all expensive paid. You have to bid on the trip to the tea factory with your frequent flyer points. That could be one expensive cup of orange pekoe.

 

United Airlines suffered an unexpected problem this month on a flight when a cockpit window suddenly flew open. The window was unlatched. The pilot called for an emergency landing. And instead of completing his flight to Washington, DC, he turned right back and went to Connecticut again.

 

Delta Air Lines has a new place to relax. The airline has opened up a new Sky Miles lounge at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. It will be a good place to just sit and have a beverage before your next flight. 

 

A Major League Baseball player's pregnant wife and young family was flying home, and he took to Twitter after the game and the flight to complain that one of the flight attendants asked  her to clean up the popcorn mess on the floor. It ignited a national debate about responsibility for young children.

 

A Saudia Airlines flight came under fire at the Khartoum Airport in Sudan. No really. Gunshot fire. The crew were hailed as heroes. Sudan is in the middle of civil unrest, and the flight was literally caught between two warring factions. The conflict continues to this day, and several negotiated ceasefire agreements have fallen apart.

 

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has agreed to review the launch of several. Rockets after complaints that they interfered with commercial airline flights.

 

Despite the announcement by the Department of Justice that it would try to block the merger between JetBlue and Spirit, JetBlue continues to make payments to Spirit as part of its 3.8 billion deal. That includes another one made in April.

 

South Florida’s airports, especially Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, were underwater after a creek storm dumped Hit the South in what is supposed to be the dry season. Fort Lauderdale was literally underwater and planes could hardly get out of the gate area much less to the runways.

 

As part of a plan to overall security and usher airports into the new generation of artificial intelligence, the. TSA is spending more than $1 billion to provide airports with new CT scanners.

 

This is a hard lesson to learn about keeping things just lying around. About $15 million in gold was stolen from the airport in Toronto by thieves.