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San Francisco International resumed the opening of Harvey Milk Terminal 1's second phase. The lettering in the terminal sign is not painted-- instead it is baked into the layers of the glass fronting the roadway.
lessPhoto: Chris McGinnisSan Francisco International resumed the opening of Harvey Milk Terminal 1's second phase. The lettering in the terminal sign is not painted-- instead it is baked into the layers of the glass fronting the
... more
San Francisco International resumed the opening of Harvey Milk Terminal 1's second phase. The lettering in the terminal sign is not painted-- instead it is baked into the layers of the glass fronting the roadway.
lessSan Francisco International resumed the opening of Harvey Milk Terminal 1's second phase. The lettering in the terminal sign is not painted-- instead it is baked into the layers of the glass fronting the
... moreIn route news this week, San Francisco International opens up more of the Harvey Milk Terminal 1; Mineta San Jose moves ahead with its big expansion plan; TSA screening numbers increase; major airlines will require face masks on all passengers; closure of Global Entry enrollment centers is extended; Hawaii pushes back the expiration of its traveler quarantine order; Argentina shuts down air service through the summer; United tests touchless kiosks; Paine Field installs thermal cameras to check traveler temperatures; and the latest schedule news from United, American and JetBlue.
In a hopeful sign that the falloff in air travel might have bottomed out, recent figures from the Transportation Security Administration show an upward trend in passenger screenings at the nation’s airports. During the first week of April, the number of travelers screened dropped below 100,000 a day for the first time, reaching a low point of 87,534 on April 14. But then numbers started moving upward, staying above 100,000 a day since April 23 and reaching 154,695 on April 30. But let’s keep things in perspective; in April of 2019, screening numbers generally stayed well above 2 million a day. (You can track the daily TSA passenger counts, and compare them to the prior year here.)
In March, San Francisco International said it was postponing the opening of the second phase of Harvey Milk Terminal 1 due to the coronavirus crisis, but now that opening is back on track. This week, both JetBlue and Southwest moved to new ticket counter and baggage claim locations in the Harvey Milk Terminal 1. There’s still no word on when American Airlines (and its Admirals Club) might move from Terminal 2 into the phase two section of the Milk terminal; that was originally slated for March 24. The first phase of the new Terminal 1 opened in July of last year.
Meanwhile, Mineta San Jose Airport will move ahead with plans for a long-term major expansion even though passenger numbers plummeted 97 percent in April vs. the same month a year ago. After giving the project a tentative OK in January, the city council has now bestowed its final approval on the expansion master plan. City officials said they are taking the long view, noting that even if the airport takes many months to recover from the current massive downturn in traffic, the city remains confident in its projection of a 50 percent increase in annual passenger numbers by 2037, to 22.5 million. The project would replace the eight interim gates opened last year with new ones incorporated into a new Terminal C, boosting the airport’s overall gate count from 36 to 42. The plan also calls for a 330-room on-site hotel near the new terminal and the addition of 11,000 new parking spaces.
The required use of face masks for air travel is quickly expanding from flight crew members to passengers. JetBlue was the first carrier to act, stating on April 27 that all customers will have to wear a face covering starting May 4 “throughout their journey, including during check-in, boarding, while in flight and deplaning.” Delta issued a similar demand later in the week, also effective May 4, telling passengers to mask up when they are in the airport (including Delta SkyClubs) and on the aircraft (except when they are eating). A similar policy was issued by United, Alaska, American (effective May 11), Frontier (starting May 8) and Southwest (effective May 11). The policy changes come after flight attendants — who have suffered hundreds of coronavirus cases and some deaths — started pressuring the government to issue a federal regulation requiring passengers to cover up, and after some in-flight videos started circulating on social media showing a majority of passengers with uncovered faces.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection in March temporarily closed down its Trusted Traveler program enrollment centers — which handle applications for Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI and FAST — and now it has extended those closures at least through June 1. “Global Entry mobile enrollment events are also paused until further notice,” CBP said. The agency is advising conditionally approved applicants who need an enrollment center interview to reschedule it for after June 1. However, “CBP’s Enrollment on Arrival program will remain operational,” the agency said. “Conditionally-approved Global Entry applicants will be able to complete the enrollment process when arriving on an international flight at any of the 60 airports that offer this program.” Not that anyone's going to be doing much international travel in the near term...
Despite the dramatic slowdown in the airline industry, Mineta San Jose International is moving forward with expansion plans
Hawaii’s order mandating a 14-day self-quarantine for all arriving travelers – including visitors as well as state residents -- was supposed to end on May 20, although that was always subject to revision. And this week the state’s governor did revise it, now keeping the rule in effect at least through May 31. The order also requires 14-day self-quarantine for inter-island travelers. The order has “the force and effect of law,” and carries a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and/or a year in prison. Think you can bend the rules and sneak out to the beach? State officials are reportedly considering a plan to require arriving travelers to wear tracking devices to make sure they stayed in their designated hotel or other place of lodging.
Most U.S. carriers have pared down their Hawaii schedules to a few flights to Honolulu, although Southwest Airlines said earlier this month that it was going to resume daily Oakland-Maui flights on May 21, the day after the order was expected to expire. When we checked this week, the airline’s reservations system was still taking bookings for Oakland-Maui flights before May 31. Southwest has also said it would revive San Jose-Honolulu and Sacramento-Honolulu service on June 7, and it planned to start a new San Diego -Honolulu route on the same date. Meanwhile, Hawaiian Airlines has just resumed daily Seattle-Honolulu flights, although it is apparently doing so mostly to increase cargo revenues.
As we reported earlier this week, Southwest just reported a first quarter loss of $94 million, its first quarterly red ink in almost a decade. Airline officials said they are seeing April and May load factors of 5 to 10 percent, and “no material improvement” for the full second quarter. CEO Gary Kelly said Southwest could emerge from the current crisis as a “drastically smaller airline.” And while Southwest hasn’t slashed capacity as much as competitors like United and American, officials warned that customers could see more short-notice flight cancellations from now through June – up to 10 percent of its remaining scheduled flights – if they have insufficient bookings. Southwest could be in the toughest spot since it competes with car travel more than other major airlines, and road trips are likely to experience a resurgence this year.
Planning a trip to Argentina? You’ll have to wait until the fall at the earliest. The country’s National Civil Aviation Administration this week said it will ban all international and domestic passenger flights until September 1 — one of the strictest and longest aviation restrictions we’ve seen yet. It’s part of Argentina’s effort to curtail the spread of Covid-19; the nation imposed national lockdown in March and has also closed its land borders. Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines said it has now suspended all flights until May 28.
Airlines and airports continue to look for new technology that can protect travelers from coronavirus infection. For example, United said that during May, in an effort to reduce “touchpoints” for customers at the airport, it will begin testing “touchless kiosks” for printing bag tags and checking bags. United didn’t say where it would conduct the tests. And Washington State’s Paine Field, north of Seattle, said this week it has deployed thermal cameras just outside the TSA checkpoint to look for passengers with elevated body temperatures. “Passengers flagged as having a temperature will be offered secondary screening and if a fever is confirmed, the passenger and the airline will determine their ability to travel,” said Propeller Airports, the operator of the facility.
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Airlines continue to tweak their skeletal schedules frequently as they watch for changes in current bookings and cancellations. United — which this week reported a first quarter net loss of $1.7 billion — has now canceled the San Francisco-Amsterdam resumption that had been planned for July 1 and pushed back San Francisco-Paris service to October 24. According to Routesonline.com, United has now suspended a total of 35 international routes for the summer. You can see the full list here.
United also plans a slight expansion of domestic service out of the New York area in May, including the resumption of flights from LaGuardia to Chicago O’Hare, Houston and Washington Dulles, but only with one or two E175 flights a day in each market. The airline’s May 4-June 3 schedule also shows continuing service from Newark to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Houston, Chicago and Washington Dulles.
American Airlines this week reported a first quarter net loss of $2.2 billion and said its schedule reductions of 80 percent in April and May will be adjusted to a 70 percent overall reduction in June. That easing of service cuts means AA currently plans to resume some international service after May ends. The company’s latest schedule update calls for the resumption of service to London Heathrow from Chicago O’Hare on June 4, from New York JFK on June 7, and from LAX, Philadelphia and Raleigh/Durham on July 7. To Latin America, AA is now looking at a revival of JFK-Sao Paulo flights on July 7 and Miami to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile on June 4. (Note: All airline schedule announcements these days are subject to sudden change.) We see that American’s international schedule adjustments, announced on Thursday (April 30), also included plans to resume Buenos Aires.
All these capacity cutbacks have led airlines to accelerate the retirement of older aircraft types from their fleets. For example, American said this week it is speeding up the elimination of 20 E190s, 34 757s, 17 767s and nine A33-300s, as well as several older regional aircraft. “These changes remove operating complexity and bring forward cost savings and efficiencies associated with operating fewer aircraft types,” American said. And Delta announced this week that by June, it will get rid of all remaining MD-88s and MD-90s in its fleet; before the big capacity cuts started in March, Delta had 47 MD-88s and 29 MD-90s in operation.
Airlines seeking government financial assistance are facing rules that they keep operating to most of the cities they previously served, and to meet those requirements, carriers are turning to more “tag-on sectors” – i.e., routes that used to be non-stop are being converted to one-stop triangular routings. For example, JetBlue’s latest schedule update for May shows it operating just one weekly San Francisco-JFK flight, but three weekly JFK-San Francisco-Sacramento flights. JetBlue is also giving the tag-on treatment to other markets, e.g. twice-weekly JFK-Las Vegas-San Diego flights, twice-weekly JFK-Palm Springs-Long Beach service, and three flights a week routed JFK-Seattle-Portland.
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Chris McGinnis is SFGATE's senior travel correspondent. You can reach him via email or follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Don't miss a shred of important travel news by signing up for his FREE biweekly email updates!
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