unaligned

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation has released the most detailed report to date on the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger jet by the country’s military in January, blaming human error and a mistake in aligning a radar system for the tragedy in which all 176 passengers and crew died. The Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800, flight PS 752, was bound for Kyiv and “following a normal path” on January 8 when it crashed moments after take-off from Tehran, according to the report released at the weekend.  The tragedy happened hours after Iranian missile strikes on US forces based in neighbouring Iraq, in retaliation for the death of Qassem Soleimani, a senior commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, in a US drone strike days earlier. Tehran first denied any mistake had been made and said the aircraft had crashed for yet-to-be-determined reasons. But three days later and following international pressure the government acknowledged the military had mistakenly shot down the plane. The report by the Iranian civil sector’s investigation team — which has not yet been finalised — said that on the night of the tragedy, there had been a “procedural change” in which the military took over issuing flight clearances from the civil sector. This meant that “only the flights already detected and cleared for flight operations by the defence network could be permitted to start up”. Story has details.<br/>

A startup Los Angeles air-shuttle service will expand into Alaska after receiving approval to buy planes and other assets from a bankrupt airline in a deal that is expected to include coronavirus relief aid. California-based Float Shuttle struck an $8m deal shortly before a bankruptcy-court hearing on Thursday to take over at least six planes as well as certain terminal leases, intellectual property and two FAA certificates from Ravn Air Group of Anchorage, Alaska. Float’s purchase includes two of Ravn’s carriers, RavnAir Alaska and PenAir. The California company doesn’t plan any immediate name change. Ravn had more than 70 planes when it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, saying nearly all of its business had dried up due to the pandemic. For much of its bankruptcy case, the carrier painted a bleak picture of its chances for survival as a going concern, fearing it would have to liquidate its business with no one taking it over. Many of the company’s assets have been sold off to various buyers. For many isolated communities, Ravn Air was the only practical means of travel and the way to supply goods and deliver mail. It has served more than 100 destinations in Alaska. Float co-founders Tom Hsieh and Rob McKinney said Thursday that their goal was to get Ravn planes back in the air, to start serving communities in Alaska again and to rehire as many Ravn employees as possible. The airline has laid off roughly 1,300 workers.<br/>

Emirates has cut a tenth of its workforce during the novel coronavirus pandemic in layoffs that could rise to 15%, or 9,000 jobs, its president said, according to a report on Saturday. The Middle East’s largest carrier, which operates a fleet of 270 wide-bodied aircraft, halted operations in late March as part of global shutdowns to stem the spread of the virus. It resumed two weeks later on a limited network and plans to fly to 58 cities by mid-August, down from about 157 before the crisis. However, its president Tim Clark has said previously that it could take up to four years for operations to return to “some degree of normality”, and the airline has been staging rounds of layoffs, as recently as last week, without disclosing numbers. Before the crisis hit, Emirates employed some 60,000 staff, including 4,300 pilots and nearly 22,000 cabin crew, according to its annual report. Clark said that the airline had already cut a tenth of its staff and that Emirates “will probably have to let go of a few more, probably up to 15%”. Clark said that Emirates was “not as badly off as others” but that the crisis hit just as it was “heading for one of our best years ever”.<br/>

Virgin Atlantic Airways is in the process of attempting to secure the support of American payments group First Data in order to land a GBP1m ($1.39m) rescue deal, according to reports. First Data has made “stringent” demands in return for backing Sir Richard Branson’s airline — namely, that it gets to hold on to all future bookings revenue, to “protect itself” should Virgin collapse. This deal could potentially save thousands of British jobs in the airline industry. Virgin is expected to announce the rescue deal outline next week, Sky said. Hedge fund David Kemper Capital Management has already “broadly agreed” to negotiations regarding a significant cash injection. The airline is seeking over GBP500,000 in debt and equity funding due to economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. First Data’s demands are similar to those made by merchant acquirers shortly before Exeter-based airline Flybe’s collapse in March. Lloyds Bank’s Cardnet has “broadly agreed” to terms put forth by Virgin Atlantic. The endorsement of Cardnet and First Data are "the final piece of the jigsaw" in securing a package that would allow Virgin Atlantic to continue trading and save thousands of UK jobs, they added. However, without this backing, Virgin Atlantic risks collapsing into administration.<br/>

Bondholders owed $2b by Virgin Australia have committed to putting a rival bid for the stricken airline to its creditors at a meeting next month. During a federal court hearing on Friday morning, counsel for a group of the bondholders, Ian Jackman SC, raised concerns that a sale to US private equity group Bain Capital was being treated as a “fait accompli” by the airline’s administrators. Judge John Middleton rejected a request by the bondholders for access to the sale agreement between the administrators and Bain Capital. However, he warned the administrators that if they failed to disclose enough information to creditors to enable them to make an informed decision, they risked the creditors’ meeting becoming mired in litigation. This could potentially derail any sale, putting at risk the future of Australia’s second-biggest airline, which employs about 10,000 people. “It is in everybody’s interests for as much communication [as possible] to alleviate people’s concerns,” Middleton said. Jackman told the court the bondholders sought access to the sale agreement so that they could prepare a rival proposal, in the form of a deed of company arrangement, to be considered by the creditors.<br/>

Wizz Air has dismissed critics of its decision to restart its UK flights in May at the peak of the pandemic as “naysayers”. Owain Jones, the low-cost airline’s UK managing director, also said accusations that the carrier resumed services early to avoid paying out refunds for cancelled flights are “nonsense”. The airline was branded “hugely irresponsible” for launching services from London Luton while the UK was still under lockdown. Consumer group Which? said it was a “cynical cash grab” as Wizz would not need to pay out refunds to services that went ahead. “There will always be naysayers,” Jones said, adding that Wizz wanted to resume flights as soon as possible to help repatriate stranded foreigners and assist essential workers. He said the accusations that the airline was trying to avoid paying out refunds was “fanciful thinking from people who might not understand how to run a business”. “If you fly an airline to avoid making refunds you would probably quite quickly use all your money up. It’s nonsense,” he said. “What we did was during April, we were looking very much at how we could get things back in the air as soon as possible, that’s what our customers wanted.” Jones said Wizz’s early restart meant it became a blueprint for other carriers in Europe. He said his cabin crew and customers have become accustomed to the “new normal” in terms of face masks and social distancing, but he does not believe the guidelines are here to stay.<br/>

Breeze Airways, the start-up passenger carrier headed by serial aviation entrepreneur David Neeleman, has applied to acquire the certificate of now-defunct Compass Airlines, and published plans for its first year of operation. Breeze, which had originally been called “Moxy”, had intended to launch air transport services in 2020. The airline pushed back its plans to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing sharp drop in passenger demand across the air transport industry. It has also posponed until 2021 deliveries of Airbus A220s. In a filing with the DoT on 9 July, Compass and Breeze applied for the transfer to Breeze of the “certificate of public convenience and necessity issued to Compass… which authorises Compass to engage in interstate scheduled air transportation”. Within its first twelve months of operation, the Salt-Lake-City-headquartered budget airline says it hopes to connect up to 15 secondary, underserved cities in the central United States. The region is also idiomatically referred to as “flyover country”. On 7 February, Breeze submitted its own application for an operating certificate which, it says in this new filing, it will withdraw pending transfer of the Compass certificate. Breeze says in the filing it will begin operations in “mid-October 2020” out of the same location, and supervised by the same Flight Standards District Office of the FAA. But the public health crisis has upended some of the new airline’s plans, and stretched out its timeline, the filing says.<br/>

IAG’s Paris Orly-based long-haul budget unit, Level France, is to cease operations after seeing demand for its transatlantic services plummet. The airline began in 2006 and was formerly known as OpenSkies before being rebranded as Level France in 2018. “In light of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the expectation that passenger demand will not return to 2019 levels until 2023 at the earliest, OpenSkies is formally notifying its works council about a proposed cessation of operations and the development of an employment safeguard plan,” says Level France. The carrier adds that it has faced “challenging circumstances since its creation”, and has been further impacted by the “unprecedented crisis” caused by Covid-19. Consultations with employee representatives will begin on 15 July.<br/>