Southwest Eyes Cuba: Airline Pulse News and Notes for Feb. 24, 2016

by Josh Lew
Last updated: 9:30 AM ET, Wed February 24, 2016

Photo courtesy of Thinkstock

Southwest Wants to Fly to Cuba This Year
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly has said that his company is hoping to fly to Cuba as soon as possible: "We are very prepared to consider this opportunity and may very well be flying to Cuba in 2016."

Frontier Adds More Las Vegas Routes
After it begins a new service between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, Frontier Airlines will have a total of 17 flights per day at McCarran International, making it one of the fastest growing carriers at the Nevada hub.

JetBlue Gets a New Credit Card
JetBlue parted ways with American Express last year. The new JetBlue Rewards MasterCard, from Barclaycard, has all the same traits as the JetBlue Card from American Express, plus it offers a few new things, including $100 companion travel discount and no foreign transaction fee (the AmEx charged 2.7 percent for international purchases).

Piedmont Growing under American Airlines
Piedmont Airlines has announced that it is adding 300 jobs at Charlotte Douglas Airport. The carrier is now a subsidiary of American Airlines, but it was actually one of the original tenants at Douglas in the 1960s. Piedmont was an independent airline until being acquired by U.S. Airways and then, subsequently, by AA.

JUST THE LINKS

A TSA employee at Denver International Airport was taken into custody after he brought a gun to work. The gun was loaded and was found in the man's backpack. It is unclear what the employee's intentions were, but he has been suspended while the incident is under investigation.

A subsidiary of Ireland's state-owned airport operator, Dublin Airport Authority, has won a contract to run Saudi Arabia's first privatized airport terminal. The Irish firm will oversee operations at Terminal 5 of King Khaled International Airport of Riyadh.

Icelandic LCC WOW Air is heading south. It will fly a weekly service each Saturday between Reykjavik and Gran Canaria. WOW will be competing directly with Danish carrier Primera Air on the route.

easyJet is looking forward to a busy summer. The low cost carrier will add 12 weekly flights from London Luton to Amsterdam and Barcelona this summer.

United Airlines mechanics are planning to protest after rejecting a contract offer from their employer last week. The workers will picket United maintenance facilities in Orlando, Houston and San Francisco. 93 percent of the mechanics voted against the contract.