Thirteen thousand air passengers are currently stranded overseas after French airline Aigle Azur filed for bankruptcy last week. The vast majority — 11,000 people — are stuck in Algeria, according to Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, France's secretary of state for transport. The airline, which carried around 1.9m passengers last year, filed for bankruptcy last week and on Friday night canceled all of its flights. Djebbari confirmed that the airline's failure has not only affected its 1,150 employees, including 500 crew members, but thousands of travellers too. He said: "There are 13,000 passengers who bought their tickets and will need to be repatriated. Among them, 11,000 are in Algeria, six in Mali, then in Lebanon, in Moscow and in Senegal." Efforts to rescue those stranded passengers could take weeks, according to Djebbari. "On Friday night, I had a meeting with all French airlines and I asked them to play their part in the repatriation. I especially would like to thank Air France for chartering additional flights to Algeria," he said. "We think that over the course of three weeks we will have dealt with most of the passenger flow." Aigle Azur specialized in flying between France and Algeria, before pursuing an unsuccessful expansion "to the whole Maghreb," according to Djebbari. The airline has received 14 takeover bids, the French Directorate General of Civil Aviation confirmed Tuesday.<br/>
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A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit by Spirit Airlines passengers who said the low-cost carrier blindsided them by imposing unexpected carry-on bag fees on tickets bought through Cheapoair, Expedia, Priceline and Travelocity. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said 22 passengers could sue for breach of contract because there was no evidence that Spirit promptly notified them about the fees, and there were "ambiguities" in the prices they would pay. Spirit and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Compared with many carriers, Spirit relies more on ancillary fees to offset the financial drag from lower base fares. The plaintiffs accused the Miramar, Florida-based carrier of knowing that its online travel agents hid the "gotcha" bag fees they would have to pay at the airport. They said these fees often exceeded the cost of their tickets, and totaled millions of dollars a year. Spirit countered that federal law precluded the lawsuit, and that its "contract of carriage" specifically provided that a passenger could take one carry-on bag into the cabin, for a fee. The appeals court returned the case to US District Judge William Kuntz in Brooklyn, who had dismissed it last November. "This is a great victory for air travellers nationwide," the plaintiffs' lawyer John Hermina said in an interview. He said his clients will pursue their case in the district court.<br/>
Budget airline Norwegian Air has proposed amending terms of its two unsecured bonds in relation to its request for extending maturities, the company said on Tuesday. The company asked bondholders on Sept. 2 for up to two more years to pay back $380m of outstanding debt, in the loss-making airline’s latest attempt to shore up its finances. Norwegian Air said Tuesday it would propose to change the premium payable in connection with voluntary repayment, or call, for NAS07 and NAS08 bonds. The company said it would increase the call price to 105% throughout the remainder of the tenor, keeping the redemption price at 105% at maturity. The company’s bonds, which mature in December 2019 and August 2020, will be extended to November 2021 and February 2022 if bondholders accept the revised terms. A bondholders’ meeting will take place on Sept. 16. (<br/>
Jetstar Japan posted a 4.1% decline in net profit to Y914m ($8.5m) for the year ended 30 June as rising fuel costs and natural disasters offset stronger revenue. Operating revenue gained 6.2% to Y60.5b, on the back of 3% growth passenger volumes, but operating profit declined by the same magnitude to Y1.06b. At the end of the period, Jetstar Japan had 25 aircraft in its fleet as it took delivery of three Airbus A320s. It plans to introduce three A321LRs from the middle of next year, and targets to have 35 aircraft in its fleet by 2023. This will be contingent upon market conditions and the airline’s operational resource capabilities. Summing up the year’s activities, Jetstar Japan says the introduction of new aircraft and route network expansion have proceeded smoothly. It now operates up to 132 flights a day, with plans to launch five new domestic routes: Narita-Nagasaki, Kansai-Kumamoto, Narita-Kochi, Kansai-Kochi, and Narita-Shimoshima.<br/>
Defunct Thai carrier One-Two-Go's former chief executive has been sentenced in absentia to a prison term of four years and a hefty fine by French authorities, more than a decade after a fatal Boeing MD-80 crash. Investigators determined that the MD-82's crew failed to execute a go-around properly as the aircraft approached Phuket in September 2007. It lost altitude and crashed adjacent to the runway, with 90 fatalities. French citizens were among the casualties and victims' association FENVAC says that a court has ruled that the former chief, Udom Tantiprasongchai, should be imprisoned for allowing crews to exceed maximum duty times. "The exhausted pilots could not adopt the appropriate maneuvers in the face of the critical weather situation they faced in the cockpit," claims the association. It says the airline chief stood accused of aggravated manslaughter and gross negligence. The airline is no longer operational. FENVAC says an international arrest warrant is still active.<br/>