Ryanair is facing pilot strikes in its Irish home market next week, in what may become the most significant confrontation between the carrier and organised labour to date. A poll of Ryanair cockpit crew produced a 94 to 1 vote in favour of industrial action including strikes, a spokesman for the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association said Tuesday, with the walkout set for July 12. The announcement comes as the Dublin-based airline’s busy summer season approaches its peak. The Irish ballot is the latest in a series of labour battles flaring across Europe as Ryanair thrashes out new deals after agreeing in December to recognise unions for the first time in its 32-year history. Germany’s Vereinigung Cockpit is balloting members who fly with the airline in a dispute over pay and working conditions with the outcome due later this month. <br/>
unaligned
AirAsia X needs to ensure the price, performance, engines and payment terms for the Airbus A330neo are right before it will "finally confirm" its order for 66 of the jets, its co-group CE said Tuesday. AirAsia X, the long-haul arm of AirAsia Group, is the largest customer for the A330neo, which is struggling for sales relative to the rival Boeing 787. AirAsia X has a firm order for the fuel-efficient A330neo widebody jets to replace its older first-generation A330s but it has been pushing back the delivery dates. It has been talking to Boeing about buying the 787-10 jet as an alternative and is likely to make a decision later this year. The airline's co-group CE, Tony Fernandes, said Tuesday that he was visiting Airbus at its Toulouse headquarters to discuss the A330neo and the smaller A321neo. <br/>
JetBlue Airways' top technology executive, Eash Sundaram, is betting that start-ups will help the airline take advantage of cutting-edge technology that it likely wouldn’t develop in-house or that traditional tech vendors might not offer. To that end, Sundaram is overseeing the company’s corporate venture capital arm, which has invested in start-ups including one that could help the airline personalise its travel offerings using machine learning and another that could speed up transaction processes using blockchain. Many disruptive ideas emerge from start-ups rather than legacy companies, said Sundaram. “We find innovation happening at a much faster pace than ever. Being part of the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem is very important for us,” he said. <br/>
Cyprus Airways has successfully passed the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) that took place in April 2018, one of the highest standards in the world for airline operational safety. “We are very proud that Cyprus Airways achieved IOSA Registration after one year of operations. Safety has always been and will continue to be our top priority. Our achievement reflects Cyprus Airways’ continuous commitment in adopting industry leading safety practices,” said COO George Mavrocostas. Cyprus Airways launched flights in June 2017 and connects Cyprus with 10 destinations in Europe, Russia and the Middle East. In July 2016, Charlie Airlines, a Cyprus registered company, won a tender competition for the right to use the trademark Cyprus Airways for a decade. <br/>
Los Angeles will get 2 extra connections to Chinese secondary cities in December, if plans by Hainan Airlines and China Southern Airlines both go ahead. Air China also opened a link, Wednesday, between the California city and Chengdu, in southwestern China. Hainan Airlines has applied to begin flying twice a week between Los Angeles and the north-western Chinese city Xi’an in December, using Boeing 787s, the CAAC said. The agency routinely grants service rights where no other Chinese airline is flying a route, as in this case. The Hainan Airlines application comes a few days after an agreement in late June between China Southern and the govt of Shenyang to open a route between that north-eastern city and Los Angeles Dec 28. <br/>
In the busy summer travel period in Cuba, a long line of people wait for hours in the sweltering heat outside the Havana office of state-owned airline Cubana, many of them eager to visit families in the provinces. But they are not waiting to book flights. Instead, they hope to get their money back on plane tickets or exchange them for bus tickets across the island. Cubana, which has a virtual monopoly on domestic flights, has suspended nearly all of them due to a lack of working aircraft, plunging travel on the Caribbean's largest island into chaos and highlighting problems at what was once a vanguard of Latin American aviation. The flight suspensions were made a month after a Cubana flight crashed after take-off from Havana airport in May, killing 112 people. <br/>