This week’s featured link
SWISS temporarily reduces its Geneva flight operations to an absolute minimum in view of further-tightened travel restrictions – SWISS Newsroom
Things are looking darker and darker on the world stage for the near term. With COVID variants spreading, countries are tightening their borders and squeezing out some of the remaining travel demand that exists on the international stage. SWISS will only operate 3 departures on peak days from Geneva. Everything else is point-to-point with a business focus (especially in the winter) and there is no demand for it. Airlines are forced to send everything through their primary hubs to try to support what’s left. It’s a bleak winter, and spring isn’t likely going to look as rosy as the industry might have hoped either.
Two for the road
Qantas Group Targets Domestic Growth With Alliance Airlines Capacity Deal – Qantas News Room
On paper this does make sense. Qantas has 737s with too much capacity for secondary routes right now, and it has 717s that don’t have the range needed for some of these markets. So, have your partially-owned partner Alliance fly Embraer 190s for you on those longer, thinner routes starting with Darwin to Adelaide at 1,623 miles. (Let’s forget that the 717 might actually be able to fly that.) That’ll make the crews angry, right? Not so much. International Qantas crews will have the ability to fly these airplanes while their fleet remains grounded. Pretty clever.
Boeing CEO hints ‘mid-market’ aircraft remains on the table – FlightGlobal
I’m so confused. I thought the so-called NMA or MoM aircraft that would slot between the 737 MAX and the 787 was dead. Apparently it’s not. Then again, who knows what Boeing is actually thinking?