Alaska Airlines is investigating a sexual harassment claim by Randi Zuckerberg, a Silicon Valley executive and sister of Facebook CE Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg wrote on social media late on Wednesday that she boarded the first-class cabin on a flight from Los Angeles to Mazatlan, Mexico, when a passenger in a seat near her began making lewd and explicit sexual remarks to her. "Feeling furious, disgusted and degraded," Zuckerberg wrote in a post detailing her experience. She said her complaints were dismissed by flight attendants. "The safety and well-being of our guests on Alaska Airlines is our number one priority," Alaska said. "We’re fully investigating this situation and will take appropriate steps, as needed."<br/>
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Venezuela's Avior Airlines has been banned from EU skies after a commission determined it no longer meets international safety standards, another blow to troubled nation's already beleaguered flight industry. The EC announced Thursday that Avior had been added to a list of international airlines prohibited from flying within the union because the European Aviation Safety Agency detected "unaddressed safety deficiencies." No further details were provided. The Venezuelan airline is one of a handful still offering international flight destinations as major carriers like United and Delta halt operations in the crisis-ridden nation. Air carriers have cited financial and safety concerns as reasons for suspending service. An Avior flight made an emergency landing in Ecuador earlier this month after passengers described seeing fire and smelling smoke. Videos posted on social media showed nervous passengers wearing deployed oxygen masks. "We thought it was our final moments," one passenger said. Avior operates flights within Venezuela, throughout Latin America and to Miami, Florida, and lists an office location in Madrid on its website.<br/>
What corporate France lacks in cost-cutting potential, it makes up for in style. That at least appears to be the recipe at Joon, the latest aviation brainchild of Air France-KLM Group, which starts operating this week. The pitch goes like this: tech-savvy and fashion-conscious flight attendants serve de rigueur staples from baobab juice to organic quinoa salad as millennials jet from Paris to Barcelona and Brazil at discount rates, streaming videos above the clouds. The reality, of course, is slightly less glamorous: the hipster pitch simply sugars the pill. Scratch beneath the surface and Joon, a riff on “jeune,” French for young, is the result of some hard-headed thinking at Europe’s biggest airline, designed to boost earnings by cutting costs more steeply than fares. At stake is Air France’s ability to defend European routes against further incursions from no-frills specialists led by Ryanair, while combating an emerging discount challenge in lucrative long-haul markets. Joon represents the group’s second recent bid to slash costs after the first was dropped amid protests that saw managers attacked by staff. Analysts say the company must get the new attempt right before oil prices rebound -- or put at risk a resurgence in its business that led operating profit to jump 44% in the first nine months and the share price to double as French visitor numbers recover from a spate of terrorist attacks. “Air France needs to improve its cost performance relative to competitors in order to thrive in an environment that may not be as benign as the one we have today,” said Andrew Lobbenberg, an aviation analyst at HSBC Holdings Plc in London. “That’s what Joon is about.” The new unit, Air France’s fourth brand alongside the mainline carrier, short-haul unit Transavia and regional arm Hop!, will be based at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and is set to commence flights on Friday.<br/>
Spirit Airlines announced plans for 11 new non-stop routes that will launch this spring. The new service comes as Spirit looks to fill out its network, connecting more of the cities it already serves with new non-stop options. Many of the new routes will compete with major rivals at some of their busiest hubs. Seattle is the biggest winner in the latest Spirit announcement, landing seasonal service to four new destinations. Detroit (seasonal), Las Vegas and Tampa were among Spirit destinations getting two new non-stop options. Baltimore/Washington (BWI) also landed two new destinations, including new international service to Jamaica. That would become Spirit’s second international route from BWI, an addition to the carrier's existing service to Cancun, Mexico.<br/>
Investigators believe the Starbow Airlines ATR 72-500 runway excursion at Ghana's Kotoka airport was preceded by an unexpected slip of the captain's unsecured cockpit seat. The aircraft – which had only been delivered to Starbow a couple of days before the 25 November accident – had been travelling at around 70kt during its take-off roll. Preliminary information from the Ghanaian investigation authority, cited by French counterpart BEA, states that the captain's seat "suddenly moved [fully] backwards, violently, and shifted to the left". The captain had been controlling the aircraft's direction with the nose-wheel steering tiller. As the seat suddenly moved, the captain turned the tiller to the left, inadvertently steering the turboprop off the left side of the runway. "The captain could not gain control of the aircraft until it came to a stop close to the perimeter fence, after efforts by the [first officer] to retard the power levers," says BEA. Five occupants were injured during the accident. <br/>