Starting as soon as this fall, any American that fits into one of 12 fairly loose categories will be able to book a scheduled flight to Cuba on major carriers. Under the new rules, there will be more than 100 regularly scheduled flights to the country per day, many times more than the handful of charter flights that go there now. Major US carriers have already announced intentions to apply for the newly available routes to Cuba. For Americans that do make their way there, decades of Communist rule and neglected infrastructure present significant hurdles. Big airlines will have to find a way to operate even though no US credit cards can currently be used in the country, making it difficult to pay for checked bags, flight changes, or other amenities. There’s virtually no mobile Internet, and booking flights on the island is not for the faint of heart. <br/>
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Profits by US-based airlines have been rising, but so have complaints by air travellers. The number of complaints filed by air travellers with the US DoT jumped 30% in 2015 over the previous year, with complaints about airfares nearly doubling, according to data released Thursday by the federal agency. Air travellers filed 20,170 complaints in 2015, compared with 15,539 complaints in 2014, with the greatest number of complaints filed against American Airlines. Complaints over fares nearly doubled to 1,813 in 2015 from 916 in 2014. A4A noted that the number of lost or damaged bags dropped in 2015, and on-time arrival rates for airlines improved. As for passenger griping, a trade group spokesman said the rate of complaints remains relatively low, considering that the airlines carry more than 2m passengers a day. <br/>
Japan has agreed to add new landing and take-off slots at Tokyo's crowded Haneda airport on routes to the US, allowing daytime flights by both nations' carriers from Haneda to the US for the first time. Aviation officials from Washington and Tokyo agreed in talks in Japan to give Japanese and US carriers 5 new slots each between 06:00 and 23:00, and cut the number of slots between 22:00 and 07:00 from 4 to 1, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. The allocation of the new landing rights had been delayed because Delta Air Lines was worried that new slots at Haneda would bring greater benefits to United Airlines and American Airlines because they are in alliances that include Japanese carriers. Haneda is much closer to central Tokyo than the city's main international hub at Narita. <br/>
A fast-growing economy and an expanding middle class have made India the world's fastest growing air travel market. The number of passengers grew 20% last year and airlines are announcing flights to new destinations almost every week. And yet, Indian airlines are in distress. Experts say the explosion in air travel of the past decade has happened despite major hurdles in the form of high jet fuel prices, lack of aircraft maintenance infrastructure, choked airports working beyond their capacities and fierce fare wars that have many carriers in the red. Although the problems appear huge, the size and potential of the Indian market continues to draw new players. Out of a 1.2b population, only about 70m Indians fly on domestic routes in a year, just a quarter of the size of air travel in China which has a similar population. <br/>