The Paris commercial court has ordered online travel agent lastminute.com to stop selling Ryanair tickets without the consent of the airline, slamming the practice as "parasitism". "By using Ryanair's database" lastminute.com and Lmnext FR, the British company's French operation, "have committed an act of parasitism," the court said in a judgement dated March 20. Ryanair welcomed the ruling for putting a halt to the "free ride" of its website without consent. The case was brought after Ryanair introduced restrictions on the use of its website. These restrictions include banning travel agencies from buying Ryanair flight tickets from its online site. The court ordered the two lastminute companies to pay Ryanair E50,000 for the offence, with a further E1,000 per day payable if the "parasitism" doesn't stop. <br/>
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Norwegian will suspend flights from Cork and Shannon airports to Boston-Providence for the winter months “due to lower demand”. The carrier, which operates transatlantic services from Ireland through Dublin-based subsidiary Norwegian Air International, announced that it will suspend the services at the end of October. The airline has also decided to axe winter flights from Edinburgh to Providence. “The services will continue through October and we will continue to assess our transatlantic route performance as we confirm the route schedule for next summer,” a spokesman said. Shannon Airport MD Andrew Murphy said the suspension of the route to Providence was “disappointing but is in line with other Irish and international airports which have seen similar reductions”. <br/>
Embraer and Norwegian regional airline Wideroe Wednesday celebrated delivery of the first production E2 series E-Jet, a 114-seat E190-E2 scheduled to enter service on a route between Bergen and Tromso, Norway, April 24. The first E2, a high-density example configured with a 29-inch seat pitch, 2 days earlier had finished a roughly 2-hour acceptance flight with Wideroe crew. Wideroe, which holds a firm order for 3 E190-E2s and options on another 12 E2s of any variety, chose the Embraer jets over the Bombardier C Series despite its long relationship with the Canadian manufacturer vis a vis a fleet consisting solely of Q Series and Dash 8 turboprops. Wideroe CE Stein Nilsen explained that the airline’s potential requirement for smaller jets such as the E175-E2 played a large part in influencing its decision-making. <br/>
Aer Lingus grew passenger revenues by 13% last month, according to figures published by IAG. IAG’s figures show that the number of passengers carried by its 4 airlines in March grew 9.5% to 8.7m from 7.9m during the same month last year. Aer Lingus grew revenue passenger kilometres by 13% in March and by 9.2% in the first 3 months of the year. The carrier sold more seats on its aircraft, filling 80.5% of them in March compared with 77.3% during the same month last year. Aer Lingus began flying from Dublin to Philadelphia, its latest US destination, March 25th and will increase the service to once a-day from 4 times weekly in May. The carrier will launch a direct Dublin-Seattle service in May. <br/>
Alaska Airlines will add a new non-stop route between California and New York and bolster its existing New York service from its biggest hub in Seattle. The new route will connect San Jose and New York JFK. Flights begin July 6, with Alaska Airlines offering 1 daily round-trip flight on Airbus A320 aircraft. From Seattle, Alaska is adding a third daily round-trip flight to JFK. The carrier says the early-morning flight will give customers “convenient access to a combined 10 daily flights to top global destinations across Europe" via Alaska’s partner airlines. The extra Seattle round-trip also starts July 6 and will be on A320 aircraft. Alaska Airlines freed up the slots at capacity-controlled JFK by trimming frequencies on its existing routes between JFK and both Los Angeles and San Francisco. <br/>
Regional carrier Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group, this week received its first new jet since last year’s crisis over a shortage of pilots prompted it to reduce flights and suspend deliveries of Embraer E175 planes. The new E175 will be integrated into the carrier’s schedule later this month. Four more are to arrive before the end of May, and Horizon expects to take a total of 13 this year, bringing its E175 fleet to 23 aircraft. The E175 deliveries were originally supposed to begin last year, but in September Horizon was forced to defer the first 6 because the airline didn’t have enough pilots to fly the planes. This past summer and into the fall, Horizon had to cancel hundreds of flights, and Alaska Air announced that to avoid further disruption it would hand over some of Horizon’s routes to rival SkyWest. <br/>
Portuguese long-haul wet-lease specialist Hi Fly is to become the latest operator of the Airbus A380, with plans to take delivery of the type around the middle of this year. Hi Fly had previously signalled that it was holding talks to introduce a pair of A380s. The first Rolls-Royce Trent 900-powered aircraft will arrive in mid-2018 and will be operated "worldwide", with a 471-seat configuration. This includes 399 seats on the main deck with 60 business-class and 12 first-class seats on the upper deck – the configuration used by SIA, which started withdrawing its older A380s last year. Hi Fly states that it will operate the A380 with a "truly luxurious" interior, with a Panasonic CX2 in-flight entertainment system. "This acquisition has been part of our company's plans for a while," says Hi Fly president Paulo Mirpuri. <br/>
A decision by Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to shut the holiday hotspot of Boracay, which he has called a "cesspool", prompted airlines to cut flights Thursday, as hotels prepared for cancellations and businesses appeared resigned to a move the govt said was non-negotiable. Duterte late Wednesday ordered the closure of Boracay for 6 months from April 26 in a bid to rescue from ruin a once idyllic island that drew 2m tourists and generated over a billion dollars in revenue last year. Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines and AirAsia Philippines said they would scale down services to the 2 airports from April 26 to Oct 25, and add more to other popular beach and dive destinations. Cebu Pacific, the dominant domestic carrier, said it cancelled 14 daily round-trip flights and anticipated a loss of US$3 to $5m over the 6 months. <br/>
JetBlue Airways said Thursday it has awarded Pratt & Whitney a contract to supply engines for its total fleet of 85 Airbus A320neo aircraft, more than doubling the carrier's previous contract with the engine maker. The new agreement adds 45 aircraft to an earlier arrangement under which Pratt agreed to supply JetBlue with engines for 40 twin-engine jets. The deal also includes 13 spare engines and maintenance of the products. Pratt beat out rival General Electric for the order, in a boost to the manufacturer after earlier issues with the engine. "There have been some teething issues with the engines that have been well-publicised, but the one thing I will say: the trust that we have with Pratt is fantastic. They have been incredibly transparent about what those issues have been," JetBlue CFO Steve Priest said. <br/>