Greetings from Austin! After our first full week back at home after our amazing trip to Asia, I think we can finally declare victory over our jetlag. It has been an extremely busy week in aviation and travel related news with everything from mergers, multiple CEO resignations, and new lounge openings. You’ll find all of that and more in the April 12, 2025 weekly recap.
In this post:
- Republic and Mesa Merge to Form New Regional Powerhouse
- Delta Won’t Take Delivery of Any Aircraft Subject to Tariffs
- A Chase Sapphire Lounge is Coming to DFW Airport
- Act Fast, Chase is Offering its Best Ever Sign-Up Bonus on the Sapphire Preferred
- Longtime Airline CEOs Leave their Positions
- Review: Delta One Lounge New York-JFK
- Review: American Airlines Boeing 737-800 First Class (DFW-JFK)
- Summary
Republic and Mesa Merge to Form New Regional Powerhouse
The week started off with a bang as Republic Airways and Mesa Air Group announced an intention to merge. The combined carrier will operate roughly 310 aircraft and over 1,250 daily departures.
Service agreements with American, Delta, and United Airlines are expected to remain in place and the new company is expected to generate $1.9 billion in annual revenue. The merger is set to close by late Q3 or early Q4 of 2025, pending approvals.
Delta Won’t Take Delivery of Any Aircraft Subject to Tariffs
Delta held its Q1 2025 earnings call earlier this week amid the tariff chaos. CEO Ed Bastian made it abundantly clear that the Atlanta based carrier would not take delivery of any aircraft subject to tariffs.
Delta’s order book skews roughly 3:1 towards Airbus which could put significant pressure on the carrier’s long term fleet plans. Delta expects to take delivery of 10 aircraft in 2025, all from Airbus.
A Chase Sapphire Lounge is Coming to DFW Airport
A Chase Sapphire lounge is coming to DFW Airport. The new lounge will be located in Terminal D and span more than 18,000 square feet. An official announcement from Chase hasn’t been made but, construction is underway and the lounge is expected to open by early 2026.
Act Fast, Chase is Offering its Best Ever Sign-Up Bonus on the Sapphire Preferred
Chase is currently offering its best welcome bonus ever on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. With a $95 annual fee and the ability to earn 100,000 bonus points after spending $5,000 in the first three months of account opening, this is a card most frequent travelers should look at adding to their wallet.
Longtime Airline CEOs Leave their Positions
Earlier this week we saw two airline CEOs step down abruptly, though under vastly different circumstances. Spirit Airlines CEO Ted Christie stepped down abruptly with the ULCC being run by committee as the Board of Directors searches for a replacement. This led me to wonder if a merger with Frontier is imminent for the beleaguered carrier.
Across the Atlantic, airBaltic CEO Martin Gauss was ousted from the Latvian flag carrier. By all accounts, Gauss seemed like a competent leader and oversaw significant growth at the carrier though the government owned airline chose to go in a new direction as a potential IPO looms.
Review: Delta One Lounge New York-JFK
The Delta One Lounge JFK may be the best Business Class Lounge I’ve ever visited. It’s at the top of my list along with the Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge and, while both were amazing, this one felt warmer and friendlier.
If you have the chance, I can’t recommend a visit to this lounge enough and I look forward to many more visits over the coming years on my travels through New York-JFK.
Review: American Airlines Boeing 737-800 First Class (DFW-JFK)
I’ve flown countless flights in American Airlines First Class on the Boeing 737-800 and this flight fell into the bottom half of them. The seat was the standard American seat that has been around for years but the service was a miss. While it wasn’t bad, they didn’t do anything above the bare minimum. Fortunately, this was just the beginning of a fantastic trip with some exciting flights still to come!
Summary
We’ve been back from our epic trip to Asia for a little over a week and I’m churning out reviews as fast as I can. A busy week of travel news has put those reviews on the backburner this week but I hope you enjoyed the teaser of this trip with the American First Class and Delta One Lounge reviews in the weekly recap for April 12, 2025!
