AV8OR posted a comment to our last post, and I’m pretty sure it is his entry in the Virgin “Name That Plane” competition.

Yes, the airline has named its first aircraft Jefferson Airplane. (Just in case that point was missed with our last post.)

Now you too can suggest names for the rest of the airline’s still-grounded Airbus fleet by visiting the airline’s website.

One of our PBB subscribers just sent me another suggestion — (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

I think Virgin CEO Fred Reid would find that one most appropriate.

San Francisco-based Virgin America unveils its new livery tomorrow. Unfortunately as we all know, they still don’t have authority to fly the new Airbirds.

But that’s just a small niggly thing.

What’s really important is that The Govinator is going to be there.

Cool invite. Bill Graham would be so proud.

The good news? This morning Delta Air Lines announced that it was going with full-flat personal sleeper suites in its BusinessElite class. The seats are made by Contour Premium Aircraft Seating — the same guys who make Virgin Atlantic and Air Canada’s lie-flat seats.

The best part of these new seats? Not only are they truly flat, but they allow for each passenger to have free and unfettered access to aisle.

The bad news? Like too many Delta news tidbits of upgrades to service, this one comes more than a year before implementation, as the new seats are not expected to be installed until “early 2008.”

We’ve already seen what American has trotted out for its “C” class customers — and we were not that impressed.

United — it’s your move.

From the airline’s release,

“Delta Air Lines invites international customers to stretch out and lie flat, as the first U.S. airline to announce fully-horizontal personal sleeper suites in BusinessElite. Delta will introduce seats by Contour Premium Aircraft Seating in early 2008, when the airline takes delivery of two new Boeing 777 Long Range (LR) aircraft. The sleeper suites will also feature Delta’s industry-leading entertainment system offering on-demand, digital video and music at every suite.”

Would that be like a tree falling in the forest when no one was around to hear it?

Monday Northwest Airlines and AMFA, which represents the still-striking mechanics at the bankrupt airline, announced they had come to another tentative agreement.

If the deal is accepted by the mechanics, workers who struck the airline will be able to resign or go to furlough status. Northwest will also stop fighting union member’s efforts to get unemployment benefits in Minnesota.

According to the Associated Press, the company offered up to 10 weeks of severance pay for those who leave, or up to five weeks for those who switch to layoff status.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, that does mean that at some point those AMFA members who crossed the picket line and went to work for Northwest could be working alongside an AMFA member who struck the airline.

As I have said in the past, AMFA leadership did a horrible disservice to its members with this debacle. It was clear that Northwest had the plans and the resources to weather a potential strike — but AMFA national refused to acknowledge the obvious. AMFA’S past history with other unions also hurt them here — as no other organized labor group at Northwest joined in the AMFA strike against the airline.

You can click here for a copy of the strike settlement agreement.

Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines Inc., said Monday it will impose wage cuts and changes in work rules for the regional airline’s 970 flight attendants beginning Nov. 15.

The action comes more than two months after a federal bankruptcy judge gave Comair permission to throw out its contract with the flight attendants. Comair was seeking concessions of $7.9 million a year as part of a package of cuts from its flight attendants, pilots and mechanics.

The flight attendants have threatened to go on strike if Comair imposed concessions, and the company said Monday that it will seek an order to prevent the union from engaging in any type of work action, such as a strike or a work slowdown.

Full story here.

When I used to work in New York I never could figure out why bond traders got Columbus Day off but the stock market didn’t.

Anyone know the reason why?

Well – anyway, if you’re a bond trader, happy holiday.

For the rest of us, unless you’re out shopping the Columbus Day sales, it’s a normal day at the office.

Today we’re in Phoenix, having had an opportunity to go down and visit with friends in Tucson this past weekend. For those of you familiar with this part of the world, I have to say I was amazed at how green everything was in Tucson. Even along side the Interstate, everything is green. Not brown. Should make for some spectacular cactus blooms next spring.

On the airline front this week, a look at the headlines this morning tells us that Asian airline customers are not happy with the situation at Airbus — as they “review” their options.

Shame too for Singapore, which unrolled one of the best interactive online promotions for its A380 service we’d seen last month. It promoted the growth of a contest through the use of “get a friend to join” ploy. Meanwhile you answered a series of questions concerning the aircraft and Singapore Airlines for a chance for various goodies, including tickets on the first A380 Singapore put into service.

Unfortunately — that date is now in another galaxy — far, far, away.

In other Airbus-related good news as a result of the additional delivery delays announced last week for the A380, Christian Streiff, the CEO of Airbus is now in the unemployment line. This brings to an end an extended tenure of only 3 months.

Streiff resigned both his CEO spot, and his position on the EADS Executive Committee.

Replacing Streiff will be Louis Gallois. He is also co-CEO of EADS, the parent company of Airbus.