Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is set to pour GBP100m of new funding into Virgin Atlantic to help the carrier survive until mass travel restarts as the Covid-19 pandemic abates. The loan from Virgin Group, which owns 51%t of the airline, forms part of a GBP160m support package that is close to being finalised, Virgin Atlantic confirmed. The deal also includes payment deferrals with the company’s creditors. “We continue to bolster our balance sheet in anticipation of the lifting of international travel restrictions during the second quarter of 2021,” the airline said. The GBP160m financing will provide “further resilience against a slower revenue recovery” this year, it added. Even with leisure flying grounded, Virgin has managed to eke out revenue this year from the heavy demand for cargo flights, including sending its heavy jets on the short hop between the UK and Brussels. The airline is also still operating some passenger flights, and has reported strong demand from the south Asian diaspora in the UK travelling to see friends and relatives in India and Pakistan.<br/>
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Hawaiian Airlines anticipates flying 90-95% of its normal schedule by May, as vaccine roll-out continues across the USA and as Americans begin to consider summer travel plans. The Honolulu-based carrier is seeing renewed interest in vacationers from the US mainland coming to the Pacific archipelago as Covid-19 cases decline, the economy recovers and consumer confidence grows, the airline says on 12 March. “The improvement in demand is encouraging, but we have a long way to go,” Brent Overbeek, Hawaiian’s senior vice-president of network planning and revenue management, writes in a blog post on the airline’s website. “We have seen an upward trend in booking since mid-January as Covid-19 cases decline, confidence in the vaccines grow and people feel comfortable travelling again. Right now, our focus is on ramping up our North America schedule... In February, we flew about 60% of our pre-pandemic levels, and as we continue to add back service, I think we will likely be in the 90-95% range in May.” <br/>
One airline in India has hit upon a new way to make a bit of extra money while encouraging people back on planes -- sell them Covid-19 tests. SpiceJet, India’s second-largest carrier, is offering coronavirus screening to passengers for as little as 299 rupees ($4). That’s about one-third the current market rate. SpiceHealth, the unit selling the tests, has also set up mobile-testing facilities for the general public in Mumbai and New Delhi, where starting from 499 rupees, people can come in or have a sample collected from their home. No-frills carrier SpiceJet posted a net loss of 569.6mn rupees in the quarter ended Dec. 31 compared with a profit of 732m rupees a year earlier.<br/>
A Colorado man accused of disrupting an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Denver by refusing to wear a mask and then standing up and urinating in the cabin faces a federal charge of interfering with a flight crew and attendants that carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine. The FBI arrested 24-year-old Landon Grier of Canon City after the flight landed March 9, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver. The affidavit by FBI Special Agent Martin Daniell III, who interviewed Grier and crew members, says Grier appeared to be trying to sleep but swatted at an attendant when she asked him repeatedly to put on his mask, as required by the FAA. A passenger later summoned attendants because Grier was urinating in his seat area, Daniell wrote. Grier made an initial court appearance on Thursday. A federal public defender was appointed to represent him. He was released on $10,000 bond pending his next court appearance set for March 26.<br/>
An airline passenger could wind up paying $14,500 for refusing to wear a face mask and drinking alcohol that he had brought on board. The FAA said Friday it proposed the civil penalty against a passenger on a Dec. 23 JetBlue Airways flight that left New York's John F. Kennedy Airport bound for the Dominican Republic, but turned back to JFK because of the man's behavior. The FAA said the man crowded a passenger in the next seat, spoke loudly and ignored a flight attendant's request to wear his mask. He also refused to stop drinking alcohol that he brought on board, which is prohibited by federal regulation, the agency said. Flight attendants complained twice to the pilots. The captain declared an emergency and returned to JFK, where police were waiting and escorted the man off the plane, according to the FAA.<br/>
It wasn’t so long ago that Spirit Airlines launching new service in a city would be met with a collective shrug or howls of laughter. Pundits and late-night talk show hosts made a habit of poking fun at the airline. Its customer service and on-time performance ranged from bad to abysmal. If Spirit showed up on any of the myriad lists that rank airline quality, it was probably dead last. The funny thing is, passengers kept coming back. The airline was making money and growing. All the while, it was adding modern, more fuel-efficient aircraft to its fleet. Its workers were being trained (or retrained) to be customer-centric. These days, about the only thing Spirit shares with its past is its name and its ultra-low- fare business model. "Today's Spirit is not the Spirit that five years ago was the butt of industry and consumer jokes," said Robert Mann, president of airline analysis and consulting firm R.W. Mann & Co. "They're for real now." Company leadership has "done a great job of fixing it, getting it back to being consumer-oriented and getting it efficient again," Mann said.<br/>
AirAsia's newest major shareholder Stanley Choi wants to realize CEO Tony Fernandes' long-held goal of landing the no-frills Malaysian airline in the Chinese market. Choi now owns an 8.96% stake in AirAsia via a private placement last month. He is confident that his corporate resume that includes Hong Kong and China, where he was born, could facilitate securing the needed approvals for what could become AirAsia China. "AirAsia has been dealing with China for a long time," the Hong Kong-based Choi said. "I can add value to that with my know-how and open more gateways for the company." In a November 2019 interview with Nikkei, Fernandes expressed his hope to establish an airline in China, which he views as friendly to foreign investment. "We have to make sure that we can be relevant in such a huge market," Fernandes said. At the time, China was already crucial for AirAsia, with the group recording almost 20% of annual sales from Chinese destinations. But the situation has since changed for the worse due to pandemic-driven border closures around the world, which have battered the aviation and tourism sectors the most.<br/>