A federal court granted Spirit Airlines a temporary restraining order Tuesday, compelling the pilots’ union to return to status quo after what the airlines says has been “a pervasive illegal work slowdown” that caused hundreds of flight cancellations and disrupted travel for more than 20,000 passengers in the past week. The ruling comes a day after anger and confusion boiled over at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Monday night as nine Spirit flights were canceled, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. What followed was chaos as frustrated passengers clashed with Spirit employees, and law enforcement officers tried to maintain order. <br/>
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Southwest began operating all of its flights under its Amadeus reservation system May 9. The carrier has already done most of the heavy lifting to move to the new system, but the cutover marks a major milestone in its multiyear effort to update and simplify its booking technology. The airline will move to a single reservation system for the first time since its merger with AirTran in 2011. Southwest rolled out the Amadeus system in 2014 for its international sales and operations, and also retired AirTran’s legacy system in November of that year. However, it continued to use a legacy system for its domestic bookings. It had not seen any major issues involving the change by the afternoon of May 9. <br/>
Low-cost carrier Norwegian has secured board approval on plans to launch Latin American startup Norwegian Air Argentina. With the approval, Norwegian will immediately begin to hire administrative staff in Argentina. Recruitment of crew will commence in late summer. Pending govt approval, the first new routes will be announced and available for sale by year-end 2017, Norwegian said. Norwegian operates 450 routes to 140 destinations in Europe, the US and Asia, carrying almost 30m passengers in 2016. <br/>
El Al will begin flying from Miami in November with three flights a week to its main base in Tel Aviv. The service resumes a route that El Al discontinued in 2008. For El Al, Miami will become its fifth US destination once the city rejoins the carrier's route map. El Al’s other US destinations are Boston, Los Angeles, New York JFK and Newark Liberty. The return of El Al also continues a run of international success for the Miami, which has already landed several new routes to foreign destinations in 2017. Currently, Miami has service on 106 different airlines, which the airport clams is the most of any US airport. <br/>
India’s IndiGo has placed a conditional order for 50 ATR 72-600s, signaling the low-fare carrier’s intention to launch regional operations by the end of the year and take delivery of as many as 20 of the Franco-Italian turboprops by the end of 2018. The value of the commitment, if completely fulfilled, would total $1.3b based on list prices. IndiGo’s plan coincides with the launch of the Indian govt’s Regional Connectivity Scheme, also known as UDAN, established to boost economic development, employment and tourism by better connecting small and remote cities. <br/>
Air Arabia reported a net profit of AED103m for Q1, down 10% from AED114m last year. In the same period, the airline posted a turnover of AED810m, down 14%. The financial results were recorded amidst the continuous drop in the yield margins that the industry witnessed in the quarter. More than 2.1m passengers flew with Air Arabia in the quarter, in line with the record number of passengers carried in Q1 of last year. Average seat load factor stood at 81%. The carrier took delivery of one new aircraft in the quarter and currently operates a fleet of 47 Airbus A320 to 126 routes across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. <br/>
An apparently mentally unstable man caused panic among passengers on a airliner heading for Cairo from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia Tuesday when he threatened to blow up the aircraft. The 61-year-old man, a retired textile worker from Egypt, was subdued by security staff on the plane, operated by Saudi airline Flynas, and arrested when it landed in the Egyptian capital. No weapons or explosives were found with him. Air security is a sensitive topic in Egypt. An Egyptair plane crashed in the Mediterranean last year, killing all 66 people on board in so far unexplained circumstances, while a Russian plane came down over Sinai in 2015, killing 224 in an attack claimed by Islamic State. <br/>
The operator of Frankfurt airport is expecting rapid growth from new customer Ryanair over the next couple of years, helping it to return to growth in passenger numbers this year. A Fraport officer said Tuesday that Ryanair was planning to base 12 aircraft at Frankfurt from 2018, up from an initial 2 this summer and then 7 planes from this September. The Irish airline could therefore serve around 3m passengers from Frankfurt next year after an expected 1m this year. He said with growth from Ryanair and other low cost carriers, it will therefore likely hit capacity at its current two terminals in 2019 and so it is planning to construct a simple one-floor pier to be used by low cost carriers. <br/>
Asia Aviation, owner of Thai AirAsia, posted a 43% drop in Q1 net profit, rocked by dearer global oil prices and a hefty rise in excise tax on jet fuel. Thailand's largest low-cost carrier made THB570m in net profit from January to March, down from 1b posted in the same period last year. Rising world oil prices and the Jan 25 rise in the country's excise tax on jet fuel were to blame. World oil prices were 30% higher in the quarter year-on-year, and are expected to rise gradually over the next 2-3 years. Analysts said the oil price factor is expected to affect the financial results of other Thai airlines including Bangkok Airways and Nok Air when they release their filings in the next several days. <br/>