Delta Air Lines and its pilots want a federal mediator to step in after 8 months of negotiations have failed to produce a contract agreement between the airline and the pilots’ union. Friday, Delta said filing for federal mediation “allows both sides to have more productive conversations” to reach an agreement more quickly. The chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association’s Delta group said in a message to his members that mediation might “motivate management to meaningfully engage at the table.” Negotiations began in April. Federal law makes it difficult for airlines and unions to conduct lock-outs or strikes. The union is seeking higher pay, better benefits and more hiring. Delta relied on overtime to operate during the busy summer travel season last year. <br/>
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Delta Air Lines says it will add 13 new daily nonstop flights from Miami to US destinations as its strategy following its US$1.9b investment in LATAM Airlines begins to take shape. The flights will link Miami international to several of Delta’s hubs and other core cities including Orlando, Raleigh-Durham, Salt Lake City and Tampa. As a result of this expansion, Delta will offer 41 daily non-stop flights between 10 US airports and Miami, the airline said Friday. All of the new routes will be flown with Embraer 175 aircraft and begin in May, except for the Miami-Salt Lake City connection, which will be operated on a Boeing 737-800 aircraft and begin July 28. Delta adds that the flights will be timed to maximise connectivity with LATAM flights to Central and South America. <br/>
A Delta Airlines Airbus A319 slid off a taxiway in Kansas City while taxiing in bad weather Friday, leading the airport to temporarily cease operations due to deteriorating winter conditions. Delta’s flight 1114, bound for Detroit, exited the taxiway pavement, the airport’s marketing manager Joe McBride, said. “Passengers were safely offloaded and bused to Terminal B. Crews will remove the aircraft sometime today,” he said. “It is not impeding much of the airfield.” The aircraft was carrying 149 passengers and crew. There were no known injuries, McBride says. The incident in Kansas City was the second this week involving a Delta aircraft. Tuesday, a Delta jet bound for Shanghai dumped fuel over a densely populated area of Los Angeles, dousing tens of schoolchildren and adults due to an “engine issue”. <br/>
Jet Airways has entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement with KLM for its businesses in the Netherlands. The carrier said in a stock exchange disclosure that the deal was inked Jan 13 with Dutch resolution professionals, but gave no details on the transaction value or timeline. Jet Airways is facing a separate liquidation proceeding in the Netherlands, but Indian authorities previously allowed cooperation with the Dutch insolvency administrator. The carrier states that the transaction involves the sale of a part of the company’s business activities and will have no impact on its shareholding structure. It is “subject to the completion of several conditions including statutory and regulatory clearances, both under Indian law and Dutch laws”. <br/>
Romania’s govt has discussed allocating critical financial support to ailing Tarom during a meeting Thursday. Transport minister Lucian Bode had asked prime minister Ludovic Orban to approve a draft memorandum for granting rescue aid, supplemented with restructuring aid, for 2020. After the meeting the head of the prime minister’s chancellery, Ionel Danca, gave a briefing during which he stated that the rescue aid will amount to US$45m. Danca says that, in the absence of the funding, “it would be impossible [for Tarom] to finance current activity” from March. Orban indicates that discussions have already been conducted at EC level, with new VP Margrethe Vestager, who was formerly the competition commissioner under Jean-Claude Juncker’s presidency. <br/>