Troubled Hong Kong Airlines has halted ticket sales to Auckland, casting doubt on another of its long-haul destinations as its bid to challenge Cathay Pacific Airways crumbles. In the first sign it may pull out of New Zealand, the carrier, backed by China’s debt-burdened HNA Group, stopped selling tickets for non-stop flights to the country’s biggest city in recent days. The airline declined to comment pending an announcement, understood to be planned for Thursday. Financial concerns, questions from authorities over its money problems, debt repayment fears – since overcome – an exodus of top management and directors and lawsuits linked to the company have placed the carrier under scrutiny for months. Early this week, the airline stopped ticket sales beyond May 22 until October 26, and then on Tuesday, it closed reservations from October 27 onwards, around the start of the new airline scheduling period, which runs until March 2020. Flight-schedule tracker Airlineroute said the carrier had closed reservations from November 1, which implied a route cancellation was imminent.<br/>
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WestJet Airlines’s new no-frills carrier Swoop said on Wednesday that most of its passengers are either new or infrequent flyers, helping the Canadian company’s two airlines avoid competing for the same passenger. Swoop President Steven Greenway said that more than 50% of its travellers had either never travelled by plane, or would not normally fly with WestJet or its domestic rival Air Canada. “Given our model we are not cannibalizing, we are creating a new market,” Greenway said. Swoop, launched in June 2018 as an ultra low cost carrier will grow from six to 10 aircraft in 2019 as it adds frequency. But the airline will add fewer routes compared with the 19 it launched last year, he said. WestJet said earlier this month it would take a prudent approach to adding capacity in 2019. WestJet is counting on Swoop to help drive higher revenues this year after a turbulent 2018. Greenway said about 20 percent to 30 percent of Swoop’s travellers to warm destinations such as Las Vegas or Mexico are “repatriated Canadians” who used to cross over the border to fly from US airports on low cost rivals like Allegiant Airlines and Spirit Airlines.<br/>
WestJet cancelled more than 100 flights across Canada after a snowstorm battered the country's central and eastern provinces, a spokeswoman for the carrier said Wednesday. The storm cancelled all flights in three eastern Canadian cities and continues to "impact our operations in southern Ontario and Quebec," a WestJet spokeswoman said. A major storm walloped Canada's eastern part on Tuesday with its impact spilling over to Wednesday.<br/>
LCC Norwegian will withdraw from the Caribbean market in March after concluding that its flights to the region are not financially viable. The airline provides seasonal services from New York JFK, Fort Lauderdale and Montreal to the French overseas territories of Guadeloupe and Martinique, as well as from Guadeloupe and Martinique to Cayenne in French Guyana. It will not return to the French Caribbean when the flights end for the season next month. “We will withdraw all routes serving the French Caribbean from March 31, 2019. As a cost-disciplined company, we’re currently optimizing our global network to ensure we focus on developing sustainable routes that best serve our customers,” a Norwegian spokesperson said. “Our strategic focus is transitioning from growth to profitability and, following a review of our French Caribbean services, we have decided to withdraw these operations as they were not financially sustainable." Norwegian said earlier this month that it will slash capacity and divest 13 additional aircraft this year in a bid to stem spiraling losses, which widened to NOK3b ($350m) in the fourth quarter of 2018.<br/>
India’s IndiGo Airlines, the country’s largest domestic carrier, said on Wednesday it would cut the number of flights it operates by 2% in February due to bad weather. The Interglobe Aviation-owned company will also reduce some flights in March as a “proactive measure”, it said. The airline told the country’s aviation regulator it had cancelled 49 flights on Wednesday. IndiGo, India’s largest airline by fleet size and number of passengers, cancelled the flights as a precautionary measure as it experienced bad weather, it said. “This resulted in extended duty times which then made it necessary to re-roster our crew,” IndiGo said. IndiGo said it has informed all its passengers about the move in advance, and that its operations would be normalized by March 31.<br/>