Just a few months ago there appeared to be a large number of newspaper articles discussing how brilliant Southwest was for hedging fuel prices and then suggesting (at least hinting) that every other airline were fools for not hedging their fuel prices.  Well, it turns out we now know why other carriers didn’t hedge:  because [...]

(Via USA Today Blog)
A Northwest Airlines statement said that they will compete with Southwest “on price and service” when Southwest begins Minneapolis service next year.  Wait, so does that mean Northwest will eliminate all of their fees on flights to Chicago?  And is this the first time in 35 years that an airline says they [...]

If you live in Minneapolis (and chances are you don’t) you’ve probably wondered at some point why Southwest doesn’t fly there (if I remember correctly, they blamed the winter weather).  Well, wonder no longer:  the airline announced it will start a small (or very small) operation there in March.  Flights (at least for now) will [...]

Cranky does a full overview of the changes United is now implmenting in its service, but here are the low…er…highlights:
- No more free food in coach on trans-Atlantic flights.
- Raised prices on buy-on-board meals.
- Removing pretzels and biscotti on flights up to 1149 miles.
- Basically eliminating business class on aircraft configured as 3-classes in the [...]

Southwest’s profitability has been well-publicized, and they’ve had another fine quarter due to them running a fantastic operation, and their oft-discussed fuel hedges.  Well done.
Allegiant, which I speak of frequently, also turned a tidy profit and got almost no credit for it.  Their management team has built an impressive operation around a tight strategy:  fly [...]

Joining the ranks of just about everyone else, Continental has rolled out a few new changes for their OnePass program and you can probably guess that they won’t involve making it easier and cheaper to fly for free.
In short:
- No more holding reservations – you reserve, you purchase.  On a plus note, you have 24 [...]

We’re in airline earnings season, and we’ve seen the first few airlines post what most newspapers are reporting as giant losses.  But look beyond those headlines of billions of dollars of red ink and you’ll see that most of those losses are one-time non-cash charges, and that Delta actually posted a nice little $137 million [...]

You can stop wondering whether Southwest will fly to Canada (ok, you probably weren’t wondering that):  The airline announced an agreement with Canadian low-cost juggernaut WestJet to codeshare on cross-border flights beginning in late 2009 (remember when you read about this later today – this won’t start for another year and a half).  This will [...]

FlyYeti, an Air Arabia-run airline in Nepal, will shut down in mid-July after less than a year in business.  Incredibly, neither fuel prices nor Southwest Airlines were to blame – the unstable government has made leasing aircraft basically impossible.  Operations may resume some time in the future, but don’t hold your breath.

You’ll read about this elsewhere, but United just raised their ticket change fee on domestic flights to $150 from $100.  Expect other majors to follow.  Remember that JetBlue only charges $40 for a change, and Southwest doesn’t charge anything.