unaligned

German prosecutors said Thursday they had charged five employees of a British recruitment agency working with Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair over millions of euros in allegedly unpaid social security payments for its pilots. No Ryanair staff were among the accused but "investigations against employees of Ryanair over incitement to the alleged activities continue," said the prosecution service in the western city of Koblenz. The five employees of two British-based recruitment agencies allegedly withheld a total of about E6m in social security contributions for 277 pilots flying Germany routes for Ryanair. News of the indictments came as the no-frills carrier faces the threat of more labour unrest in Germany and other European countries where pilots have vowed to fight for better pay and conditions. No trial date has been set yet for the five unnamed accused, who are aged 35 to 62 and who could face up to five years' jail or fines if found guilty, said the prosecutors. The accused allegedly withheld social security payments in 920 cases between January 2007 and June 2016. The charges were filed in September but only now publicised after the accused had been informed, said the prosecutors. <br/>

JetBlue has little to show for its efforts to improve on-time performance. This year through October, the airline’s on-time arrival rate of 70% trails the industry average of 79%, according to the US DoT. That puts the carrier on track for its worst showing since 2007. Flight delays threaten two of JetBlue’s most important initiatives. Tardiness adds costs, undermining a corporate push to trim $300 million in expenses by 2020. Chronically late flights also weaken the airline’s efforts to woo more of the most-lucrative passengers, including those for its premium Mint offering. “Even the first-class suites arrive late when the airplane is late,” said Bob Mann, president of aviation consulting firm R.W. Mann & Co. “I think some high-value customers have figured out that Delta is doing a better job.” Delta is typically near the top of the pack. Delays cost US carriers $62.55 a minute on average in direct operating expenses last year, according to the trade group Airlines for America. Multiplied by JetBlue’s 4.95m minutes of delays for the first 10 months of this year, the latest period for which information is available, that works out to $310m. JetBlue said it’s more vulnerable to delays than its competitors because about 70% of its flights stop at airports in the Northeast, which are especially prone to congestion and bad weather. More than 35% of its flights are at its base, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The carrier cited repair and renovation work that temporarily shut major runways at Kennedy and Boston’s Logan International Airport this year. JetBlue also said that it puts less extra time, or “padding,” in its schedule than rivals do, giving its flights less wiggle room to arrive when promised.<br/>

Officials say a SkyWest flight headed to Minneapolis returned to Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco, Washington, for an emergency landing. A SkyWest Airlines spokeswoman said that Skywest flight 4475, operating as Delta Connection, returned due to a mechanical indication. Airport director Buck Taft says the plane landed safely about 90 minutes after taking of Friday and was able to taxi to the terminal. Taft says he believes a landing gear steering indicator light came on. All passengers left the plane and the airline was working to help them resume their travels.<br/>

A small passenger plane crashed in Costa Rica on Sunday, killing all 12 people on board, most of whom were foreign tourists, a spokesman for the public security ministry said. The aircraft, a single-propeller Cessna 208 Caravan belonging to the Nature Air domestic airline, came down in a mountainous area near the Pacific coastal beach town of Punta Islita in the country’s Guanacaste peninsula, the spokesman, Carlos Hidalgo, said on his Facebook page. “It is a private plane with 10 foreign passengers and two local crew members,” a separate security ministry statement said. Hidalgo published images of the crash site, showing flaming wreckage strewn across the terrain. All the bodies were burned, Hidalgo told national television station Channel 7. “I have the deaths of the 12 occupants confirmed,” the head of Costa Rica’s civil aviation agency, Enio Cubillo, told La Nacion newspaper. The daily gave a list of passenger names, including five who shared the same last name, suggesting they were all related. It reported that the plane had apparently taken off from a small sealed airstrip in Punta Islita at 10.30am and crashed shortly afterwards for reasons yet to be determined.<br/>

Wizz Air has given more details of its share of the 430-strong order for A320neo-family aircraft that was firmed on Dec. 28 by US private equity company Indigo Partners. Budapest-based Wizz will receive 72 A320neos and 74 A321neos between 2021-26. The aircraft will be used to renew its existing A320-family fleet and provide capacity for further growth. Under the terms of the agreement, the company must select the engines to be installed on the new aircraft by June 30, 2019. The CFM LEAP and Pratt & Whitney GTF are neo engine options. The size of the order means that it requires Wizz Air shareholder approval. Wizz said a general meeting will be called at a date yet to be determined. At list prices, the aircraft are valued in excess of $17.2b, although Wizz said that Airbus granted it “significant discounts.” The airline will retain flexibility in determining the most favorable method of financing the aircraft. Before this tranche of aircraft, the fast-expanding airline held commitments for 135 aircraft from Airbus, comprising eight A320ceo, 17 A321ceo and 110 A321neo models. The ceo aircraft are scheduled to be delivered by 2019 and all the A321neo under this earlier order by the end of 2024.<br/>