Ryanair Holdings, which doesn’t recognise trade unions, lurched further toward collective bargaining after pilots in its home market of Ireland founded a new body and demanded negotiations with the discount operator. Management should engage exclusively on national matters with the “Ryanair Company Council,” the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association said in a letter to Michael O’Leary, the carrier’s CEO. Six captains and one first officer on permanent Ryanair contracts have been appointed to its ranks. The move extends efforts among Ryanair pilots to organize after a scheduling lapse over crew leave led to the cancellation of more than 20,000 flights, putting them in a unique position of leverage. The push by pilots in the Dublin-based carrier’s own backyard follows similar developments backed by unions in Sweden, Germany and Portugal over the past week. “For more than two months pilots employed by Ryanair have clearly indicated to you that they wish to enter direct negotiations with the company,” IALPA President Evan Cullen said in the letter to O’Leary. “This is the most desirable approach for all parties to resolve the many problems that are facing the passengers, the air crew and Ryanair in general.” The recent moves could also set the stage for legal industrial action, which requires the establishment of such national bodies, according to a letter to pilots from the European Employee Representative Council, another new organisation backed by IALPA and formed to undertake companywide negotiations with Europe’s biggest low-cost carrier.<br/>
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Wizz Air said Monday it would offer new routes from London’s Luton airport to Cyprus, Slovakia, Estonia, Ukraine and Albania. Budapest-based Wizz Air set up a base in Luton in June - its first in Western Europe - and in October it applied for a UK Air Operator’s Certificate, to guard against the uncertainty over a Brexit aviation deal. The airline’s exposure to central and eastern Europe has shielded it from the fiercest competition on Mediterranean and Western European routes, which contributed to the demise of the likes of Monarch and Air Berlin. As well as offering new routes from Luton, Wizz said on Monday that it would increase its frequency on routes from Luton to Israel, Romania and Kosovo, which are seeing strong demand, and would allocate four more planes to its fleet at Luton by June 2018. “Part of our rationale for the UK base, the UK airline, is a Brexit contingency, but equally it’s a commercial opportunity,” Chief Corporate Officer Owain Jones said, saying Britain would remain vital to Wizz after Brexit.<br/>
Booking an economy seat on a Singapore Airlines flight may be harder in future, as the premium carrier takes a back seat for Scoot, its budget arm, to climb higher. In just five years, Scoot, which operates medium-and long-haul flights, has not only overtaken the group's regional arm, SilkAir, but is also already about a third as big as SIA in the market for economy flights, in terms of the number of seats offered. According to industry consultancy OAG, Scoot will this year offer close to 7.5m seats - more than three times the seats it offered in 2014 - while SilkAir will grow by about 25% to just over six million seats. SIA, on the other hand, will see its inventory shrink by about 3% from 2014, to 21.3m seats this year. The capacity adjustments are part of SIA's overall strategy to deal with intensifying competition on all fronts. Scoot, with its much lower cost base, for example, is better suited than SIA to take on rivals in the economy and low-cost market. This does not mean, however, that the premium carrier is not competing in the economy segment, SIA's CEO Goh Choon Phong has said repeatedly.<br/>
A Turkish man who said a hallucination about a butterfly caused him to disrupt a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu won't receive additional jail time under terms of his sentence handed down Monday. Anil Uskanli was sentenced to the six months that he has spent locked up since the incident that triggered bomb-threat procedures and officials to scramble fighter jets to escort the plane to Honolulu. He was also ordered to pay American Airlines more than $8,500. Uskanli's behaviuor on the May flight was concerning, including when he walked to the front of the plane with a blanket wrapped around his head and carrying a laptop crew members feared contained explosives, prosecutors have said. After Uskanli returned to his seat and with an off-duty officer sitting with him, the laptop remained on a drink cart, which prompted the captain to initiate bomb-threat procedures. The Hawaii National Guard scrambled two fighter jets to escort the plane to Honolulu. The secretary of Homeland Security was briefed. Last month when he pleaded guilty to interfering with a flight crew, he blamed his behaviour on the hallucination. Uskanli raised other red flags while still at Los Angeles International Airport, but experts said a lack of communication and an airline's hesitancy to be caught on video booting a passenger played a role in allowing him to fly. <br/>
Spirit Airlines has reported some of the biggest profit margins of any airline in the country because of its practice of charging passengers fees for a long list of basic services. But the airline also has had the highest rate of complaints by passengers for problems such as canceled flights, delayed departures and poor customer service. The airline acknowledges that it needs to address its damaged reputation and has turned to a subsidiary of the Walt Disney for help. In a message to employees, Spirit Airlines President and CEO Bob Fornaro said the airline has partnered with the Disney Institute to “create a common purpose and a fresh set of service standards.” The Disney Institute is a Florida-based company that offers business courses to improve leadership, employee culture and customer service. Fornaro said the airline’s flight crews have been through training with the Disney Institute, and the carrier plans to do the same with its airport staff. In his note to employees, Fornaro said guest satisfaction scores at the airline already have “reached an all-time record high.” But the most recent data from the Department of Transportation shows that Spirit in September continued to receive the highest rate of customer complaints — 6.41 for every 100,000 passengers — more than twice the rate of any other carrier.<br/>