EasyJet is set to win unconditional EU antitrust approval to buy parts of failed Air Berlin, people familiar with the matter said Monday. EasyJet will take on some of Air Berlin's operations at Tegel airport in the German capital for around E40m. It will also take on leases for up to 25 A320 aircraft, and about 1,000 of Air Berlin's pilots and cabin crew. The move will allow easyJet to further bolster its position in Berlin, pulling far ahead of Ireland's Ryanair and Lufthansa Group in the German capital. The EC, which is scheduled to decide on the deal by Dec. 12, declined to comment. Air Berlin was the largest carrier in Berlin before its insolvency, followed by the combined Lufthansa Group airlines, Ryanair and easyJet. Lufthansa has traditionally not focused on Berlin, instead doing most of its flying out of hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. Lufthansa's budget unit Eurowings plans to expand rapidly should Lufthansa's plans to buy Air Berlin units Niki and LGW receive antitrust approval. Should the deals be approved, easyJet will become the largest carrier in Berlin with 16m seats, ahead of 10.7m for the Lufthansa Group (including Eurowings, plus the LGW and Niki seats) and Ryanair on 5.9m, according to easyJet.<br/>
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Fresh details have emerged of how Ryanair cabin crew are put under pressure to boost in-flight sales, including the posting of league tables of staff performances at the airline’s bases. Photographs and documents show how staff at Ryanair’s Barcelona base, one of its key European airports, are judged against strict sales targets and are named if they do not meet them. Tactics include displaying league tables of staff who have racked up the highest sales, targets for how much passengers should be spending on specific flights and figures showing how far below that target crew have fallen. Cabin crew said that if they failed to hit targets they were threatened with disciplinary measures or arbitrary changes to less convenient shift patterns.<br/>Ryanair told the Guardian last month that its recruitment agency WorkForce, which provides cabin crew to the airline, did not set targets for staff deemed to be failing in their sales skills. But internal documents, coupled with testimony from staff, suggest sales targets are at the heart of cabin crew duties. One document shows “actual spend targets” alongside the sales that the crew member achieved, together with a blank section inviting staff to explain any occasion when they “failed to reach E50 in revenue”. <br/>
Vijay Mallya dishonestly used bank loans to fund his Formula One racing team and a private jet, a lawyer for Indian prosecutors said while urging a London court to extradite the Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. founder to face fraud and money-laundering charges. India wants the booze and motor-racing tycoon for a trial for allegedly defaulting on a series of loans from the state-owned IDBI Bank Ltd. for his failing airline that were obtained under false pretenses. The 61-year-old deliberately provided worthless collateral for the loans and used the proceeds to prop up his Force India motor-racing team as well as pay for the lease of his private jet, Mark Summers, a lawyer for Indian prosecutors, said Monday in court papers at the start of a two-week extradition hearing. “The court is invited to disregard the defendant’s grandiose narrative,” Summers said. “Pruned of rhetoric and hyperbole, there is, despite the obviously high-profile nature of this case in India, nothing strange or remarkable about the government’s intention to prosecute.” Mallya, who is free on GBP650,000 bail, was arrested in London in April after a consortium of 17 banks accused him of willfully defaulting on more than 91b rupees in debt accumulated by the airline that he founded in 2005 and shut down seven years later. The prosecution argues that he overstated the value of securities including Kingfisher’s brand value, the rights to aircraft and the company’s revenue. The executive, wearing a navy pin-striped suit with his trademark long, gray hair, told reporters during an unexpected court evacuation before the hearing Monday that “the allegations are baseless, unfounded.”<br/>
Hawaiian Airlines has advanced its Airbus A321neo entry-into-service date to 19 December, when it plans to first deploy the aircraft type on three inter-islands routes, Hawaiian confirms. The Honolulu-based airline previously said its new A321neos would enter service on 8 January 2018, but says the addition of December flights will allow for "crew familiarisation". On 19 December, Hawaiian will deploy A321neos on the Honolulu-Maui, Honolulu-Kona and Honolulu-Lihue routes. The airline will deploy the type once daily on those routes through 21 December, and then deploy them again on the same routes between 26 December and the end of the year. <br/>