EasyJet pilots have overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action in a dispute over fatigue. Brian Strutton, general secretary of pilots' union BALPA, said there was still hope the issue could be resolved. He said: "BALPA has received a last-minute offer from EasyJet to resolve the dispute and we will consider this carefully in meetings [Thursday] before taking any further decisions. "For clarity, that means there are no plans for pilots taking industrial action in EasyJet at this stage. Strutton said 96% of union members who voted had backed taking action, on a turnout of 88%. The airline has 2,000 UK-based pilots. Talks between the union and the airline had been running for more than a year before breaking down in August. Any strike would be a first in Britain for the carrier. <br/>
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Hawaiian Airlines is waiting to see whether 6 A330neo jetliners ordered from Airbus will enable it to begin service to Europe. The carrier also is looking at adding more routes to China and the eastern US, and examining whether it should consider acquiring the A380 superjumbo, according to its CE. Flights to London are a goal but may be at the limit of what’s attainable after the carrier swapped its order for Airbus A350-800 jets to the shorter-range A330neo in 2014, Hawaiian Holdings CE Mark Dunkerley said Wednesday. “We certainly hope the answer is yes but we don’t have all the information we need,” he said. “It’s going to depend on what our final seating configuration is and therefore the weight of the Neo and its exact performance and statistics when it’s actually built.” <br/>
Jet2 will station 6 new Boeing737-800 jetliners at London Stansted, taking on Ryanair in its own backyard. Jet2 will serve 21 European destinations from Stansted, its first base outside the northern UK, putting it on a par with EasyJet as the leisure hub’s second-biggest operator. The first flights will commence March 30, the carrier said Wednesday. Stansted becomes the ninth base for Jet2, which has previously operated from locations such as Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne. Ryanair, for which Stansted is its biggest hub, has said it will deploy 50 jets due for delivery this year to markets outside the U.K. in light of an anticipated travel slump following Britain’s vote to quit the EU. "We haven’t seen a significant downturn in demand," Jet2 CE Steve Heapy said. <br/>
Virgin Australia will reinstate direct flights from Melbourne to Los Angeles next year, 3 years after it abandoned the popular route. Starting in April 2017, Virgin will fly Boeing 777-300ERs between Melbourne and LA 5 days a week, the airline announced Tuesday. The flight path from Melbourne to LA is currently dominated by Qantas and United Airlines, which each fly daily, after Virgin axed the route in 2014. "The US is a key market for Virgin Australia and this enables us to service Los Angeles from the three biggest gateways in Australia – Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney," Virgin CE John Borghetti said. Borghetti said it was the only trans-Pacific service to offer business class flat-beds with direct aisle access on all services. <br/>
Virgin America's inflight teammates have rejected a tentative agreement that their fledgling union reached with the airline even as it's being taken over by Alaska Air Group. The rejection leaves flight attendants at both Virgin America and Alaska in limbo regarding their status and seniority, and frustration is brewing. Virgin's teammates voted 490 to 415 to reject the tentative agreement their union negotiators reached with the airline in August, the Transport Workers Union told members Monday. Had it been ratified, the new contract was to take effect the day the Alaska takeover closes, which could come as early as next month. Alaska union leaders said that the Virgin America union's rejection vote "raises questions about what happens next," but they did not elaborate. <br/>
Ukraine International Airlines plans to add 8 Boeing aircraft to its fleet in 2017 to support its growth strategy, president and CE Yuri Miroshnikov said. The decision comes following the delivery of 8 B737-800 this year, with another aircraft of the same type to join the fleet by the end of 2016. The carrier is now considering entering the Canadian market in 2018, a year ahead of initial plans. However, Miroshnikov concedes that in order to offset the route’s high seasonality, the airline must resume flights to east-bound markets such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Iran and has appealed to Ukrainian regulators to make this possible. Growth on this front is being hampered by Russia’s decision last year to block off its airspace to all Ukrainian carriers in a tit-for-tat move. <br/>