Unions for Ryanair's 1,800 cabin crew in Spain threatened Friday to strike in January unless the airline agrees to improve work and pay conditions. It was just the latest setback for the airline, which has faced a wave of strikes in several European countries in recent months. The two unions representing the staff, USO and Sitcpla, called for 24-hour strikes Jan 8, 10, and 13 because Ryanair had failed to reach an agreement with them during mediation. The unions are demanding local contracts under local law rather than the Irish contracts Ryanair uses widely. It was "disgusting" that Ryanair "continues to refuse to accept national law with all its consequences", a USO representative said. Spain is Ryanair's third biggest market. The airline has 13 of its 89 bases in the country. <br/>
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Ryanair has been named the worst airline for disruptive passengers closely followed by Thomas Cook Airlines, Tui Airways and EasyJet, in a Which? Travel survey. Nearly 1 in 6 Ryanair passengers, 17%, said they had been on a flight with a disruptive passenger. Thomas Cook was ranked second for poor passenger behaviour by 15% of respondents while Tui came third at 14%, and EasyJet fourth at 13%. Overall, 1 in 10 passengers reported they had experienced a flight affected by shouting, drunkenness, verbal abuse or other unruly behaviour, according to the survey. Which? Travel editor Rory Boland urged airlines to take more responsibility for unruly passenger behaviour, blaming the approach of some carriers for the problems by incentivising crew to sell alcohol on board. <br/>
Lawyers for the family of the co-pilot killed in the crash of the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 have filed a lawsuit against Boeing alleging the aircraft was “unreasonably dangerous” and that the manufacturer failed to provide proper instruction on how to handle the new narrowbody’s anti-stall system. Lion Air disclosing the lawsuit on behalf of the family of co-pilot Harvino, who is described as an experienced pilot with over 5,000 flight hours. The accident investigation has focused on the MAX’s automatic stall-protection system and why the aircraft was permitted to operate when flight-control issues were not fixed during maintenance. Pilots reported a series of technical faults with the 3-month-old aircraft during 4 flights over 3 days before the accident flight. <br/>
A "partial equipment failure" involving a jet bridge at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) in Maryland Saturday left 6 people injured. The airport said that the 6 people were taken to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries. The jet bridge was at Gate E-10 for Southwest Airlines Flight 822, according to the airline. Southwest said the flight arrived from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with a request for paramedics to meet it to check out a passenger's "on-board medical situation." While medics were helping the passenger outside the aircraft, the airline said the jet bridge "experienced a failure." The remaining passengers got off the plane using stairs. <br/>
IndiGo has become the first domestic airline to have longer range Airbus A321neo plane in its fleet with the first aircraft arriving Saturday morning in New Delhi from the Airbus' Hamburg facility in Germany, an airline source said. The new aircraft has joined the fleet after a delay of 1 month. It was to join the fleet Nov 29 as per the earlier schedule, he said. The induction of the first A321neo, of the 150 on order, will help IndiGo spread its wings to medium-haul international destinations. The longer range A321neo plane has been delivered to the airline at a time when it is struggling with the frequent glitches in the Pratt & Whitney engines, powering these planes, and taking these aircraft out of operations on a regular basis. <br/>
The fight against plastic has taken flight, as airlines are taking stock of their consumption of single use items. Plastic abounds throughout airplane foodservice, as straws, cutlery, drink stir sticks and other items offered to passengers are typically designed for individual and temporary use. Portuguese airline Hi Fly recently sent its first plastic-free flights airborne in December. The trial involved 4 return flights using an Airbus A340 from Lisbon to Natal, Brazil, and according to the airline, the 700 passengers on these flights would have resulted in the use of 350 kg of single use plastic. The airline aims to be plastic-free by the end of 2019 — a goal announced earlier in 2018. Hi Fly president Paulo Mirpuri said: “We can no longer ignore the impact plastic contamination has on ecosystems, as well as on human health." <br/>
Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) has refuted claims by the troubled Fastjet Tanzania that it denied the airline permits to bring in another aircraft until it first settled its debts. The airline was planning to bring in a leased plane from South Africa last Saturday as part of its recovery strategy, but failed to do so for lack of permits. TCAA DG Hamza Johari said that it was not true that they denied the airline the permit but that the applications were submitted late and were yet to be processed because of holidays. The TCAA boss also refuted allegations that it was favouring Air Tanzania Limited Company so that it would have the monopoly over the local market, adding that the claims were unfounded as the sector was already competitive. <br/>