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In route information, Southwest will open up extra Oakland routes in March and can add two extra California airports to its community; Mineta San Jose introduces COVID testing; Alaska units a date for SFO-Anchorage flights; Hawaiian stops blocking center seats; a COVID passenger dies on a United flight; United groups up with XpresSpa for airport testing and launches a contact tracing effort; JetBlue will add Miami to its route map and presents new TrueBlue perks; Frontier expands at Miami and Las Vegas; Singapore rolls out a brand new program to get enterprise vacationers into the nation; Delta and JetBlue add South America service; and monetary woes get deeper for Mexico’s Interjet.
Southwest Airways will add one other new Oakland route beginning March 11, introducing each day flights to Tucson – its second vacation spot in Arizona after Phoenix. In the identical month, Southwest mentioned, it’s going to resume service out of OAK on three transcontinental routes which were suspended for a number of months because of the pandemic – Atlanta, Orlando and Baltimore/Washington.
In the meantime, Southwest Airways’ route map will quickly be placing pins into two more California airports because the service continues to broaden within the state. The airline already has an intensive presence in northern and southern California, and now it’s going to fill within the hole between these areas by including service to Santa Barbara and Fresno Yosemite Worldwide Airport through the second quarter of 2021, Southwest mentioned this week. As with its different latest new airport bulletins, Southwest hasn’t but mentioned the place it’s going to fly from these cities. Final month, Southwest began flying out of Palm Springs, with service to Oakland, Phoenix and Denver, and earlier this month it unveiled plans so as to add new routes in March at Lengthy Seashore Airport, together with Houston, Chicago, St. Louis, Reno and Dallas.
Nevertheless, the pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on airline revenues, together with Southwest’s, and the airline said in a letter to California’s Employment Improvement Division this week that it may need to slash lots of of jobs at Bay Space airports by March until one thing adjustments. That might embody 573 jobs at Oakland Airport, 275 at Mineta San Jose and 158 at San Francisco Worldwide.
Mineta San Jose Worldwide has opened up on-site drive-through COVID testing for Hawaii-bound passengers on Alaska Airways and Hawaiian Airways and can make the service obtainable to all vacationers beginning subsequent week. Advance appointments between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. are required for the testing services, situated on the airport’s taxi staging space at 2470 Airport Blvd. in San Jose. Testing for Alaska passengers, priced at $170, is dealt with by Carbon Well being, whereas Hawaiian Airways vacationers pays $90 for testing by WorkSite Labs. Each suppliers are licensed by the State of Hawaii, which requires guests to be examined not more than 72 hours earlier than departure from the mainland. Listed below are the appointment scheduling hyperlinks for Alaska and for Hawaiian, and listed below are more details on the SJC program.
The Bay Space will get one other new route in June 2021, when Alaska Airways plans to introduce the San Francisco-Anchorage service that was supposed to start final April however was delayed by the pandemic. The service mentioned it’s going to supply each day seasonal flights between SFO-Anchorage from June 17 by Aug. 16. That route is an element of a bigger Anchorage enlargement by Alaska Airways, which may also embody new flights from Anchorage to Las Vegas, Denver and Phoenix.
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Airways’ follow of blocking center seats from their bookable stock to offer a little bit of social distancing for passengers continues to fade away. This week, Hawaiian Airways grew to become the newest service to discontinue the practice, a change that it had introduced final month. Different airways that also block seats embody Alaska, which is able to proceed to take action till Jan. 6; and Delta, which stays dedicated to an empty-middle-seat coverage by the top of March.
COVID-19 continues to dominate airline information today. On the unfavourable information aspect, a passenger on a United flight this week from Orlando to Los Angeles died en route after the flight diverted to New Orleans – and, unknown to United when he boarded, that passenger reportedly had the coronavirus. After the passenger was faraway from the aircraft and brought to a hospital, the United flight continued on to LAX with the identical plane, in line with the View from the Wing weblog that first reported the incident. “With all the trouble airways are placing into sanitizing planes, not doing so after a passenger with the virus died on board is stunning,” the positioning commented – though it conceded that it’s unclear at what level United discovered concerning the man’s COVID prognosis.
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On the constructive aspect, United simply introduced a brand new partnership with XpresSpa Group to offer COVID testing at that firm’s XpresCheck airport services, beginning with its areas at Newark Liberty and Denver Worldwide Airport. The partnership begins Dec. 21. “Our partnership with United Airways will begin with choose flights to Hawaii in two main hub airports and broaden to further cities as our plans proceed to develop,” mentioned XpresSpa Group’s CEO Doug Satzman. The settlement supplies for speedy molecular testing on the airports. “Passengers who’re discovered to check constructive from a speedy take a look at are knowledgeable that they have to exit the airport and self-isolate per CDC tips, together with anybody whom they’re touring with,” XpresSpa Group mentioned. (The XpresSpa at SFO’s Terminal 2 stays closed for now.)
In the meantime, United additionally mentioned this week that it has began working with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention to collect passenger contact data. “Throughout the check-in course of, United clients can be prompted to voluntarily opt-in and supply contact data comparable to an e-mail deal with, telephone numbers and an deal with of the place they are going to be as soon as they attain their vacation spot, particulars that have been beforehand tough for the CDC to acquire in real-time,” the airline mentioned. The trouble began this week with worldwide arriving passengers and can be expanded within the coming weeks to cowl home and worldwide outbound vacationers. Passengers can opt-in and take part by way of the airline’s cell app, its web site, or on the airport.
What’s the busiest airport within the U.S. not at present served by JetBlue? It’s Miami Worldwide. However that can change on Feb. 11, when JetBlue will start flying to MIA from Los Angeles Worldwide, New York JFK, Boston and Newark. The airline’s LAX-MIA flights will function as much as twice a day and can function JetBlue’s premium-cabin Mint service. Airline service between the northeast and south Florida is already closely aggressive, so JetBlue will function as much as 4 flights a day in every of these three markets. JetBlue already serves Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Seashore, and on Feb. 11 it’s going to additionally add new service to Key West from JFK and Boston, with 4 weekly flights on each routes. On June 17, the airline plans to start new each day service from its rising Los Angeles focus metropolis to San Jose del Cabo.
In different information, JetBlue this week unveiled some big changes coming to its TrueBlue loyalty program in 2021. Members who’ve achieved Mosaic elite standing will be capable to deliver a companion alongside without spending a dime on flights booked by their Buyer Assist hotline and flown from Jan. 1 to Might 20 – with no restrict on the variety of free companion flights. In the meantime, Mosaics may also be capable to request a same-day improve to an “Even Extra House” seat (i.e., JetBlue’s extra-legroom seating) once they request it by the Mosaic desk, ticket counter or gate. “Requests can be honored within the order they’re obtained, pending availability,” JetBlue mentioned. The airline can be extending all through 2021 its lowered qualification thresholds for Mosaic standing, that are half what they have been earlier than the pandemic – e.g., 7,500 qualifying factors vs. the earlier 15,000, or 6,000 factors/15 segments vs. the previous 12,000/30. You possibly can see the main points right here. The airline can be extending by Jan. 31, 2021 a suggestion of 100,000 bonus factors to members who join a JetBlue Plus Card.
Miami is attracting numerous consideration from airways today. Along with the brand new JetBlue service talked about above, Southwest Airways added MIA to its community final month with preliminary service to Tampa, Baltimore/Washington, Houston and Chicago. And now Frontier Airlines is announcing new flights from MIA to 6 locations, each home and worldwide. In February, Frontier will begin each day service between MIA and Orlando adopted by 4 flights every week to Ontario, Calif., starting in April. This week, Frontier launched three weekly flights from MIA to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to be adopted by 4 weekly flights to Cancun beginning in March and repair to Guatemala Metropolis, Guatemala and San Salvador, El Salvador in April.
Frontier can be rising at Las Vegas, with plans to start service twice every week on March 11 to El Paso, Little Rock, Oklahoma Metropolis and Wichita, together with twice-weekly flights to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos beginning March 25 and 26.
In worldwide information, Singapore will introduce a new program subsequent month to expedite arrivals for choose pre-approved vacationers from all nations who intend to remain not than 14 days. The brand new Join@Singapore program can be obtainable to “a restricted variety of enterprise, official, and excessive financial worth vacationers,” a authorities official mentioned, with purposes opening up in mid-January. Contributors should receive a unfavourable COVID PCR take a look at outcome earlier than leaving house, get one other take a look at upon arrival, keep at an accredited facility throughout their go to, and obey all related well being security guidelines. They’ll additionally should bear a collection of Antigen Fast Checks over the course of their keep. Contributors will be capable to meet with their native and worldwide colleagues throughout their keep, however they’ll have to make use of personalized assembly rooms with air-tight glass panels. The federal government is creating particular lodging/assembly services at its conference heart to host the collaborating guests. (SFO-Singapore nonstop flights resumed final week.)
South America is getting extra service from U.S. carriers. Delta this week resumed service from its Atlanta hub to Santiago, Chile; Quito, Ecuador; and Buenos Aires, Argentina, all with 767 plane. With these locations, Delta mentioned, it now flies to 35 locations within the Latin America/Caribbean area. And JetBlue has launched service between New York JFK and Georgetown, Guyana, with 4 A321neo flights every week.
Mexico’s financially troubled Interjet, which briefly stopped flying in early November, doesn’t appear to be getting any more healthy. The low-cost airline (which as soon as served SFO with flights to Mexico Metropolis and Cancun) has now grounded its plane for the third time in three months and reportedly doesn’t count on to renew service before the first of the year. The service’s largest downside appears to be an absence of funds to pay for gas, though it has additionally had hassle paying its workers through the ongoing disaster and reportedly owes the federal government greater than $300 million in unpaid taxes. It acquired to the purpose the place the Mexican authorities’s client safety company warned the general public to assume twice earlier than reserving a visit on Interjet, and now the Worldwide Air Transport Assn. has suspended the service’s participation in its Billing and Settlement Plan, which coordinates funds from IATA-appointed journey companies to member airways.
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Chris McGinnis is SFGATE’s senior journey correspondent. You possibly can attain him via email or comply with him on Twitter or Facebook. Do not miss a shred of necessary journey information by signing up for his FREE weekly email updates!
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