Pilot reads the riot act to airline customers

In this week’s travel news, an American Airlines pilot goes viral with his warning to customers about in-flight behavior; Alaska Airlines’ upcoming winter schedule cutbacks in the Bay Area are detailed; major fires in the western part of Maui are forcing many travelers to rebook or cancel their flights there in the days ahead as airlines institute policy waivers to accommodate them; the FAA is continuing its crackdown on unruly passengers, and has referred dozens of new cases to the FBI for criminal prosecution; American reenters a key business market in the northeast; Southwest Airlines is offering a new perk as it discontinues its Early Bird check-in for all flights; United and Delta plan capacity increases to sun destinations; there’s more international route news from Vietnam Airlines, Kenya Airways, American, and Azores Airlines; Mongolia makes progress in its effort to begin nonstop flights to the U.S.; JetBlue introduces NBC Peacock streaming in-flight entertainment; Frontier offers loyalty members big mileage bonuses for spending in the weeks ahead; and Capitol One reportedly plans to open two new airport lounges as soon as next month.

An American Airlines captain went viral on Instagram in recent days after a passenger recorded his pre-departure speech in which he advised travelers in no uncertain terms how he expected them to behave during the flight. The pilot told passengers to obey flight attendants because “they represent my will in the cockpit, or in the cabin — and my will is what matters.” He told passengers to “be nice to each other, be respectful to each other. … You people should treat people the way you want to be treated. I have to say it every single flight, because people don’t, and they’re selfish and rude. And we won’t have it.” For example, he continued, “Don’t lean on other people, don’t fall asleep on other people, don’t pass out on other people or drool on them.” And he warned passengers not to play or stream videos on their personal devices unless they use headphones or earbuds. “Nobody wants to hear your video,” he said, “so keep it to yourself.” The Instagram post reportedly received more than 5 million views.

We mentioned last week that Alaska Airlines is planning some significant cutbacks in its domestic schedules this fall and winter, but we didn’t have much detail. Now we do. Aeroroutes.com this week published a comprehensive list of the dates and routes for Alaska’s flight reductions, and its impact includes Bay Area airports. At San Francisco International, Alaska will suspend service to Spokane and to Washington Dulles from Jan. 8 to March 13. From Jan. 8 to Feb. 14, the airline will reduce frequencies on 10 San Francisco routes, e.g. cutting SFO-Chicago O’Hare and SFO-Honolulu service from two daily flights to one; reducing SFO-New York JFK from four daily flights to two; SFO-Los Angeles from 11 a day to seven; and SFO-Tampa from seven weekly flights to three.  

At San Jose Mineta, Alaska’s latest schedule for Jan. 8 through Feb. 14 shows a reduction of Kahului, Maui, flights from six a week to one; SJC-Kona from seven a week to four; and SJC-Lihue, Kauai, from four a week to one. Aeroroutes also notes that Alaska’s previously planned Nov. 23 resumption of service between San Jose and Palm Springs has been removed from its schedule. San Jose-Seattle service is slated to be cut from seven daily flights to five Jan. 8 through Feb. 14, and Oakland-Seattle is scheduled to shrink from four daily round-trips to two. During those same dates, Alaska’s Santa Rosa-Los Angeles schedule goes from two daily flights to one. Other upcoming service suspensions include San Jose-Boise from Nov. 17 through March 13; Los Angeles-Washington Dulles from Jan. 8 through Feb. 14; Portland-San Luis Obispo from Jan. 8 to March 13; and Seattle-Monterey from Jan. 8 to Feb. 14.

Travelers planning to fly to Maui in the coming days are facing likely disruption of their plans due to the devastating fires in the western part of the island. The Hawaii Tourism Authority has asked tourists to leave the island and said “non-essential travel to Maui is strongly discouraged at this time. … Visitors who have travel plans to West Maui in the coming weeks are encouraged to consider rescheduling their travel plans for a later time.” It added that visitors with plans to stay in other parts of Maui and in the Mauna Kea Resort area of the Big Island should contact their hotels for information on how their plans might be affected. Maui’s Kahului Airport remains open, but many inbound flights have been canceled as airlines concentrate on evacuating travelers already on the island to Oahu or the mainland. The tourism authority noted that travel to Oahu, Kauai, Lanai, Molokai and most parts of the Big Island isn’t currently affected. 

The Federal Aviation Administration this week served notice on the flying public that even though there aren’t as many headlines these days about unruly passengers, they remain a significant problem — and the agency is continuing to crack down on them. FAA said that during the second quarter, it referred 22 new cases of passenger misbehavior to the FBI for criminal prosecution, for a total of 39 such referrals so far this year. The notice included a brief summation of the sorts of behavior that were forwarded to the FBI, including physical assaults on other passengers, sexual assault of female passengers, refusal to remain seated, attempts to enter the cockpit, “airdropped a bomb threat to other passengers,” and “yelled, threw objects at passengers and had to be restrained in cuffs.”

Since late 2021, when similar in-flight incidents peaked during the pandemic, the FAA said it has referred more than 270 “of the most serious cases” to the FBI as part of an agency partnership “aimed at ensuring unruly airline passengers face criminal prosecution when warranted.” The agency noted that the number of such incidents has dropped by more than 80% since 2021 but said “unacceptable behavior continues to occur.” According to the FAA’s Unruly Passenger Statistics web page, the number of incidents jumped from 1,009 in 2020 to 5,973 in 2021, then fell to 2,455 during 2022. There have been 1,177 incidents so far in 2023, but the monthly totals have been gradually increasing during the first six months of the year.     

Purchasers of Southwest Airlines’ lowest fares will soon get a new perk. “Coming soon,” the airline said on social media this week, will be “free same-day standby with all fares,” and “free in-flight Internet” (normally $8) for buyers of its higher-priced Business Select fares. The only Southwest fares that don’t currently offer free same-day standby — i.e., the opportunity to stand by for a seat on a departure other than the one originally booked — are its Wanna Get Away fares, the lowest price the airline offers. (Wanna Get Away travelers can already switch to another flight to their destination on the day of departure, but they have to pay any applicable difference in fares; this change would end that requirement.) Customers will be able to get on the standby list by approaching a gate agent or through Southwest’s app. USA Today said it was told by a Southwest official that the change should take effect “by the end of the month.” 

Meanwhile, View from the Wing said it got ahold of an internal Southwest memo that says effective Aug. 15, the airline will no longer offer Early Bird check-in on all flights. (With Early Bird check-in, customers can pay a small fee to get a preferred position in Southwest’s boarding line.) “If the Early Bird Check-In standalone product is unavailable, customers still have an opportunity to purchase Business Select or Upgraded Boarding, both of which also are subject to availability. Customers who purchase Anytime fares will still receive Early Bird Check-In as part of the benefits of that fare,” Southwest’s memo said.

As usual, major airlines are beefing up their schedules to sun destinations for the winter season. United’s latest update shows an increase in service between San Francisco International and Los Cabos, Mexico, from eight flights a week to 14 effective Oct. 29, and a doubling of service from SFO to Puerto Vallarta, to two daily flights, beginning Jan. 9. At Los Angeles International, United will add a second daily departure to San Jose, Costa Rica, as of Oct. 29, and will increase LAX-Guatemala City service from three weekly flights to seven and LAX-San Salvador, El Salvador, from four a week to seven, both effective Dec. 15. We recently mentioned that United will upgrade the aircraft to 364-seat 777-200s aircraft on its daily flights to Cancun from its Chicago, Houston and Denver hubs during November, but now those large planes are due to remain on the three Cancun routes into March. 

In other international route news, Aeroroutes reports that Vietnam Airlines plans to boost its San Francisco-Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) schedule from three flights a week to four from Oct. 29 through March 30. The airline uses an Airbus A350-900 on the route. Delta and Kenya Airways, both members of the SkyTeam global alliance, have expanded their strategic alliance, with Delta’s code now going onto the African carrier’s daily New York JFK-Nairobi flights with connecting flights available to multiple African destinations. American Airlines is making a change in its nonstop service to Doha, Qatar, this fall — a route that it launched last year as part of its partnership with Oneworld alliance member Qatar Airways. Starting Oct. 29, American will operate the Doha flight out of Philadelphia International instead of New York JFK. AA currently uses a 777-300ER for the daily JFK-Doha flights. Azores Airlines, which flies to the U.S. from the Azores — a Portuguese territory in the Atlantic Ocean — plans to begin new nonstop transatlantic service from mainland Portugal to North America next year. According to Aeroroutes, the Azores carrier will begin once-a-week A321neo flights from Porto, Portugal, to Toronto on June 1, to New York JFK June 3, and to Boston June 4.  

We reported earlier this year on efforts by the government of Mongolia to negotiate an air services agreement with the U.S. and to gain rights for its national carrier MIAT to fly here — even though there may not be much commercial demand for nonstop flights linking the two nations. But two developments this month are giving some hope to that effort. First, the U.S. Transportation Department announced that DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Mongolia’s transport minister have signed an Open Skies Agreement for flights between the countries. “DOT has already issued authority to MIAT Mongolian Airlines to serve the United States on the basis of the new agreement,” DOT said. And second, MIAT was due to take delivery this week of its first Boeing 787, with another due in the first quarter of next year. MIAT will use the aircraft to fly from Ulaanbaatar (Ulan Bator) to Frankfurt, Seoul and Istanbul, and follow that up with service to the U.S. — most likely to San Francisco. However, Simple Flying notes that there’s still one big obstacle: “It is contingent on Mongolia securing U.S. FAA Category 1 status — a very challenging task — which will delay any launch.”

Last December, JetBlue and NBC Universal’s streaming service Peacock announced plans for an exclusive in-fight entertainment partnership that was supposed to begin in spring of this year. It didn’t start then, but this week it finally did. The deal gives JetBlue passengers access to more than 100 Peacock programs, and they can be viewed either on the airline’s own seatback screens or by logging into the airline’s free Fly-Fi Wi-Fi service using passengers’ own devices. Passengers can expect to see plenty of marketing that promotes the new service, and the airline’s True Blue loyalty members can earn bonus points and up to 12 months of free Peacock when they sign up as subscribers to the streaming network.  

Frontier Airlines has come out with a limited-time bonus promotion for members of its Frontier Miles loyalty program, offering substantial mileage multipliers to those who spend money on the airline — not just for airfares, but for any ancillary fees like checked baggage and seat selection (but not for mandatory government taxes and fees). The promotion applies for flights booked from now through Sept. 5, for travel through Sept. 30. Regular Frontier Miles members and Discount Den members will get 20 times bonus miles per dollar spent, while holders of the Frontier World Mastercard and the airline’s GoWild! All-You-Can Fly passes will get 30 times bonus miles per dollar spent. The bonus miles do not apply toward elite status in the program. 

Exclusive airport lounges for credit card holders continue to proliferate. According to the View from the Wing blog, Capitol One is planning to open its second and third airport lounges for customers as soon as next month, at Denver International and Washington Dulles. The first one, at Dallas/Fort Worth’s Terminal D, opened a year and a half ago. The report said the 11,200-square-foot Denver lounge will be on the mezzanine of the airport’s Concourse A, while the 9,100-square-foot Dulles facility will be located just beneath the airport’s historic control tower. Capitol One Venture X cardholders get unlimited access to the lounges, while Venture and Spark Miles members get two free visits per year. Other travelers can gain access for $65 per visit.