Virgin Atlantic and Wizz Air are eyeing one of Thomas Cook’s most valuable assets — its take-off and landing slots at London Gatwick, which could be worth tens of millions of pounds. CE Jozsef Varadi of Wizz said it was looking closely at the UK travel operator’s slots. “We are not interested in the airline. We are not interested in other assets but we have an interest . . . in the airport slots of Thomas Cook at Gatwick,” he said. Virgin Atlantic has also signalled its interest in Thomas Cook’s position at Gatwick, particularly its night slots. Wizz has been growing quickly in the UK. It accounts for more than 40% of capacity at Luton after opening its base in 2017. Varadi said it was looking for alternative ways to grow its business in London. <br/>
unaligned
Thomas Cook Group's dramatic collapse appears to have jolted the UK govt into rethinking the way airline failures are handled. The inability to use Thomas Cook's dormant aircraft for the 'Operation Matterhorn' repatriation programme seems to have spurred the govt to act on measures recommended in an airline insolvency review conducted after the Monarch Airlines failure in Oct 2017. That review, published in May this year, highlights particular difficulties in the UK with using fleets from a carrier in administration to repatriate customers, and recommends development of a special administration regime which would support such a measure. "There seems to be a very strong desire across [parliament] to do something with [the insolvency review]," said transport secretary Grant Shapps. <br/>
A year after it first launched flights to Hawaii, Southwest Airlines is expanding its service to the islands, offering new routes between 3 West Coast cities and various destinations in the state beginning in March 2020, the airline Wednesday. The airline will add new daily service from Sacramento to Kahului, Maui as well as daily service from Oakland and San Jose to both Lihue, Kauai and Kona, on the Big Island. These are in addition to daily service between Sacramento and Honolulu, announced earlier this year, which is due to begin Nov 10. Southwest is also adding a new intra-island flight between Honolulu and Kauai, also to begin in November, bringing its total to 34 intra-island flights in a small but expanding network. <br/>