Jetstar has cancelled around a quarter of its domestic flights scheduled for Wednesday in preparation for an all-day strike by ground crew and baggage handlers amid a bitter standoff over pay and conditions. The Transport Workers Union told the airline Friday that about 250 of its members would walk off the job for 24 hours at Sydney, Melbourne, Avalon, Brisbane, Cairns and Adelaide airports starting Wednesday morning. Jetstar Monday confirmed it had cancelled 48 domestic flights - out of about 200 it operates daily - to "minimise the impact" of the stop-work. Other flights have been consolidated and some passengers have been moved onto flights operated by Qantas. The union says its members face irregular working hours, and is demanding a guaranteed minimum of 30 hours of work each week. <br/>
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Argentinean investigators have opened a probe after an Embraer 190 apparently lost its left-hand nose-wheel in Rosario. The Austral Lineas Aereas twinjet had arrived at Rosario following a service from Buenos Aires Feb 16. Argentinean accident investigation authority JIAAC says the incident occurred at about 23:10 local time and none of those on board was injured. But the incident is the second nose-wheel loss to occur to an Austral E190 in about 2 years. JIAAC completed last year an investigation into the previous incident in Jan 2018, which occurred before take-off at Mar del Plata when the left-hand nose-wheel detached during taxiing. Examination of the failure turned up evidence of corrosive pitting and that this had led to an undetected fissure. <br/>
Although Kazakhstan’s airlines collectively enjoyed a timid traffic growth last year, it is primarily the nation’s LCC FlyArystan which can take the credit for the improvement. Traffic through the country’s airports also increased in 2019, but the growth came mostly from foreign, not local airlines. Overall last year Kazakhstan’s airlines collectively carried some 8.6m passengers, a 9% improvement (or 700,000 more) on the results of 2018, according to the Civil Aviation Committee. The growth rate is the country’s second highest in the previous 5-year period, following on from the 23% surge in 2017, which was attributed to the introduction of an open-skies regime at the country’s capital Nur-Sultan (then Astana), and to the hosting of the 2017 global EXPO-2017 event. <br/>
New Chancellor Rishi Sunak could abandon a controversial overhaul of air passenger duty agreed as part of a rescue deal for Flybe - hurling the regional airline's long-term future into jeopardy. Sunak is against a cut to the tax, industry sources said. His predecessor Sajid Javid had backed a reduction in a bid to keep Flybe afloat. One source said: “The change of Chancellor will make it significantly less likely to happen”. Flybe has complained for years that APD of up to GBP26 per flight disproportionately affects its finances, making its low-cost, short trips between UK cities less attractive than alternatives such as taking the train. Slashing the levy was a key part of a rescue deal agreed with ministers last month when the airline came close to appointing administrators after running low on cash. <br/>