WestJet cancelled a flight with the Boeing 737 Max aircraft from Calgary to Toronto on Friday after a warning light went off in the cockpit. Lauren Stewart, a spokesperson for the Calgary-based airline, said Friday that WestJet flight WS658 returned to the gate after the aircraft’s “health monitoring system indicated a potential fault that needed to be verified and reset.” Flight WS658 had been scheduled to depart Calgary International Airport at 8 a.m. MT. “This process takes time and requires a subsequent engine run, which we do not perform with guests on board,” Stewart said in an email, adding that passengers on the flight were rebooked on a Boeing Dreamliner. An engine run is a standard routine checklist testing the operation of an aircraft’s engine systems. A spokesperson for Transport Canada said in a statement Friday that “this incident is not related to the previous grounding of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft.” Stewart said “the aircraft was cleared by maintenance this morning and will return to service on Sunday Jan. 24 as planned.” Friday’s flight was supposed to mark WestJet’s third commercial flight with the aircraft since Transport Canada re-certified the equipment.<br/>
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Bahrain’s Gulf Air is in talks with Airbus and Boeing to delay some aircraft deliveries as the pandemic continues to distrupt global travel, its acting CE said Sunday. Airlines around the world have pushed back deliveries and cancelled orders, expecting a years-long recovery from the pandemic that has crushed global travel demand. Gulf Air expects Airbus A320neo deliveries to be put on hold until 2022, though it hopes to receive at least three larger A321neos this year, Acting CEO Waleed Abdulhameed Al Alawi said. It is also in talks with Boeing over a new delivery schedule for five 787-9 Dreamliners it has on order, though it will receive some this year, he said. Airbus and Boeing declined to comment. Unlike some other carriers, Gulf Air lacks a domestic market to cushion it against international border closures. The airline is currently flying to around half of the 49 destinations it operated to before the pandemic and expects it could resume flying to all destinations by the end of 2023.<br/>
Air Seychelles, straddled with more than 800m rupees ($38m) of debt, is a “great problem” for its home country, the Nation newspaper reported Saturday on its website, citing President Wavel Ramkalawan. In his state-of-the-nation address, Ramkalawan said the airline’s international routes had contributed to the debt load, and queried whether the company could boost profitability by focusing on domestic services, according to the Victoria-based newspaper. An Indian Ocean archipelago of 115 islands and 98,462 people, the Seychelles is grappling with a lack of revenue because of the Covid-19 pandemic. To salvage its economy, the popular tourist destination has begun a vaccination campaign and plans to reopen borders from March.<br/>
Hong Kong’s newest carrier Greater Bay Airlines has formally applied for air transportation rights to operate to more than 100 points in the Asia-Pacific region. More than half of the routes are to Mainland China, a filing with Hong Kong’s Air Transport Licensing Authority (ATLA) indicates. These include trunk routes to Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Haikou, as well as to second- and third-tier Chinese cities. Greater Bay Airlines, headed by former Cathay Dragon chief Algernon Yau, has also applied to operate to other countries in the region such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Thailand. The filing also states that the airline is looking to operate Boeing 737-800s on these routes. In November Cirium reported that the carrier had approached leasing companies to acquire its first aircraft, with which it hopes to begin operations as early as next summer. The ATLA has set a 14-day deadline for the filing any objections from other parties.<br/>
JetBlue Airways has complained to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) that it is being locked out of securing slots in London for its planned transatlantic expansion. In a filing with the DOT on 19 January, the New-York-based low-cost carrier accuses the UK government of protecting airlines which currently have slots at the two major international airports in London but are not using them, thus creating a barrier to new market entrants. “JetBlue continues to face slot uncertainty as a result of the United Kingdom’s decision to delay addressing crucial matters affecting slots at London-area airports including both London Heathrow Airport and London Gatwick Airport,” the US carrier writes. ”At [Heathrow], existing slot holders have reduced services at a scale previously unimaginable while new entrants like JetBlue remain locked out.” The airline specifically mentions Virgin Atlantic, which is no longer operating from Gatwick, and Norwegian Air, which last week announced that it was ceasing long-haul transatlantic operations. Both airlines have, however, been permitted to keep their slots at the two London airfields. “At the same time, carriers like JetBlue, poised to enter the transatlantic market and disrupt the status quo and fulfil a crucial need for low-cost carrier transatlantic service, are unable to sufficiently secure [Heathrow] slots or consistently timed [Gatwick] slots because of the fiction that carriers are going to return to the pre-Covid-19 status quo,” the airline says. “They are not, and the UK government needs to address this reality immediately,” JetBlue writes.<br/>