Alaska Airlines, the carrier that has tested solar-powered passenger ramps and fingerprint identification devices for passengers, is continuing to experiment. The airline has begun testing an electronic, reusable luggage tag that is linked to a passenger’s Alaska Airlines mobile app. The goal of the tag and previous Alaska experiments is to make air travel more expedient, said Loesje Degroen, Alaska’s customer research and development manager. Alaska began testing the electronic tag with 60 employees last summer and is now trying the technology with about 50 passengers. Later this year, Degroen said, the carrier plans to expand the test to about 500 passengers. <br/>
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Meridiana is targeting breakeven this year after several years of heavy losses. The airline, which was taken private by its owners and de-listed from the Italian stock exchange last year, made an EBIT loss of E43m (US$48m) in 2015, a considerable improvement on the 2014 deficit of E145m. It is restructuring, optimising its route network, increasing frequencies on profitable ones, and is in negotiations with trade unions over shedding staff. A March 23 deadline to reach agreement on the number of jobs to be lost passed without a settlement being signed. A new deadline of April 11 has now been set. Meridiana Fly’s operations are heavily seasonal and many of its 1,600 staff, only work for part of the year. However, due to a quirk of Italian labour law part-time staff can claim salaries year-round. <br/>
El Al Airlines posted a US$106.5m net profit for 2015, reversing a 2014 net loss of $28m as passenger numbers increased 7.6% over the year. In 2014, El Al saw its profits tumble by over $55m year-over-year (YOY) following disruptions caused by Israel’s military operations against Palestinian forces in Gaza that summer. Inbound tourism to the region dropped 20% in the latter half of 2014. During 2015, the carrier transported 4.9m passengers, up from 4.6m passengers in 2014. Traffic grew 4% YOY to 19.74b RPKs and capacity increased 3.7% YOY to 23.88b ASKs, producing a passenger load factor of 82.6%, up 0.1 point YOY. For the full-year, the number of Israelis heading abroad rose 15.2% YOY to 5.4m; the number of tourists arriving in Israel during the year was down 0.8% YOY to 2.5m. <br/>