A Spirit Airlines plane skidded off the taxiway at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Thursday morning after a powerful winter storm created slick conditions. A spokesman with Spirit Airlines said that Flight 696 from Las Vegas to BWI landed safely, but the plane slid off the taxiway while heading to the terminal. Sutton said the front wheel slid into the grass area. No passengers were injured, Sutton said. All 111 people on the plane are safe and were transported by bus to the terminal. BWI Airport tweeted Wednesday night that its winter weather team had worked throughout the day to maintain safe surfaces in the airfield and near the terminal, saying "crews remain on standby to maintain safe operations this evening and in the morning."<br/>
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EasyJet is basing four additional aircraft at London Gatwick as the low-cost carrier looks to take advantage of rebounding in passenger demand in the new year. The extra capacity will allow the UK operator to “return to growth as early as next summer” from its largest base, it expects, forecasting a “rapid return to flying once restrictions are eased”. New connections to Aberdeen, Bilbao and Cagliari are planned, while the frequency of services on several other routes will increase. In total the carrier plans to operate 71 aircraft from Gatwick next summer, to 107 destinations. “In anticipation that demand for travel will return – and having recently seen signs of growing confidence by our customers in making plans for travel next spring and summer – we have decided to continue investing at our largest base, London Gatwick,” said EasyJet CE Johan Lundgren. “This commitment is in line with our strategy of maintaining a strong network of number-one and number-two positions at Europe’s leading airports, providing even more popular destinations for customers.” He adds: “Thanks to the decisive actions we have taken throughout 2020 we are ready to bounce back and capture demand as it returns. As the largest airline at Gatwick, EasyJet’s unrivalled network of major airports, friendly service and great value mean customers will choose us when they are able to return to the skies.”<br/>
Norwegian shareholders have backed a proposed rights issue as part of the carrier’s continuing restructuring efforts at an extraordinary general meeting today. The carrier earlier this month outlined plans for “significant equitisation” of debt at market price, and to seek approval for a NKr4b ($453m) rights issue. The move came after the Norwegian government denied further financial support to the carrier – prompting it to enter a court-supervised examinership in Ireland, which has since been supplemented by a parallel process in Norway. The airline had previously warned it would require further funding to survive the winter season. “The company achieved over 80% votes in favour of the proposed rights issue,” the airline says following today’s EGM, noting all its proposed resolutions were backed during the meeting.<br/>
Federal investigators have found problems with an anti-skid device in an airplane that crashed in Alaska last year, killing one person and injuring four others on Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands, according to documents. The documents released by the NTSB on Wednesday said the plane’s systems showed signs of a mechanical issue that could have affected interplay between its brakes and its anti-skid controls, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Investigators said there were crossed wires on the left side of the plane. The manufacturer of the anti-skid system, Crane, said in the document that the crossed wires could have prevented the brakes on the plane’s left side from working. The Saab 2000 turboprop crashed after attempting a second approach into Unalaska under windy conditions. The plane — which carried 39 passengers and three crew — overran the runway, crashed though a perimeter fence and across a road before stopping on rocks next to the Bering Sea shore. The front wheel rolled into the water. Shrapnel and part of a propeller sliced into the cabin. A 38-year-old Washington state man who was traveling to Unalaska for work was killed. His death was the first crash-related death on a US commercial airline in the last decade. Story has more details.<br/>