An intruder tried to seize a plane at the airport in Mauritania's capital Nouakchott Thursday before being arrested, a security source said, with the man's family saying he dreamed of studying in the US. The security source said that the man "sneaked aboard a Mauritanian plane" that had "no passengers aboard". He then threatened to blow up the aircraft, a Mauritania Airlines Embraer used for domestic flights, the source said. Transport Minister Mohamedou Ahmedou Mheimid said the intruder had been a young man "known to police" who suffered from mental health problems. "An investigation has been opened to determine the failures that caused this security breach and remedy them in future," he told national television. The source did not give details of the man's identity or nationality and could not say whether he really had any explosives. In a statement, the family of a young Mauritanian, Soulymane Ould Sidi Baba, said he had been behind the attempted commandeering of the plane. A "brilliant" student of English, he had fallen into a "depression" after "repeated failures to travel to the US" to continue his learning and disappeared two days before the incident, the family said. They added that he had not been armed at any point.<br/>
unaligned
JetBlue Airways wants customers to book more than flights. The New York-based airline on Thursday launched a new site, Paisly, that offers travelers hotel rooms, car rentals and other add-ons, like tickets to theme parks. The carrier will continue to offer packaged trips under JetBlue Vacations, a similar product offered by rivals like Delta, American and United, but the new site will give the option of adding on other activities or lodging later. JetBlue is also planning to offer home rentals through partnerships with property managers, said Andres Barry, president of JetBlue Travel Products. The carrier is also planning to expand lodging and other offerings as it adds new cities to its network, like London. “We know there’s a segment of customers who are not interested in buying their entire trip all at once before travel,” Barry said. Last-minute trips have become more common during the Covid-19 pandemic as travelers navigate ever-changing travel restrictions, closures and infection rates.<br/>
Processes for passengers to prove either Covid-19 vaccination or negative test results are likely to play a role in the opening up of European airline markets, but more comprehensive digital health passports are not, in the view of Ryanair group CE Michael O’Leary. O’Leary said he worries “when people talk about digital health passes and digital passports etc, etc”. He expresses doubt that there will be “international agreement on what a digital health pass will even look like”, and believes that “governments will not be in a position to produce” such passports. Rather, O’Leary reckons “the best we will manage as an industry” in the coming summer season will be a system where passengers “upload vaccine certificates or negative PCR certificates”. Earlier in March, Ryanair launched a “Covid-19 Travel Wallet” through its app, enabling customer to upload “their negative PCR tests, their Covid vaccination certificates and other Covid documents that may be required for EU travel this summer”. O’Leary further cites the system adopted in Israel, “where the citizenry have the green vaccine certificate uploaded to their mobile app” to allow access to hospitality venues, saying: “I think we will have a similar system here this summer”. IATA – which has its Travel Pass app in trials with a number of airlines – has expressed concern that some governments are not taking the necessary steps to ensure the standards and processes will be in place for their widespread use.<br/>
The coronavirus pandemic led to a huge loss at El Al in the final three months of 2020, and the airline said it was working on a recovery plan to emerge from the crisis. The carrier said Thursday it lost $140m in the October-December period as it operated just a handful of flights, versus a net loss of $31.5m a year earlier. Revenue fell to $111.6m -- $73m coming from cargo activities -- from $518m. For all of 2020, when COVID-19 closed Israel’s borders to foreigners and significantly curtailed the carrier’s operations, El Al’s loss swelled to $531m from $60m in 2019.<br/>
TUI touched the brakes on its summer holiday plans, lowering its capacity for July onwards to 75% of 2019’s level from the previous level of 80%, as Europe’s peak travel season hangs in the balance. TUI has secured multiple bailouts from the German government to survive the pandemic, and like most airlines and travel companies is banking on a big travel rebound this summer to restore its battered finances. But hopes for a recovery have been thrown into doubt over the last week due to rising COVID-19 cases in some European countries including Germany, which alongside Britain is TUI’s biggest customer market. TUI, which before the pandemic took 23m people on holiday a year, said that while it had slightly trimmed capacity it had the ability to flex it up at short notice. For summer 2021, the company said it had 2.8m bookings, with 180,000 new trips arranged since February. Those booking levels are 60% below where they were in 2019, before the pandemic when people could travel freely. TUI called the bookings encouraging and said the vaccine roll-out and the use of rapid COVID-19 testing meant “there is reason to look ahead very optimistically”.<br/>
Virgin Australia’s new hybrid model means it will drop free snacks for economy passengers from Thursday but will retain complimentary tea and coffee. CE Jayne Hrdlicka said snacks “aren’t valued by our guests” and will allow the business to keep ticket prices down. The airline has been adamant since it emerged from administration that it will not return to its Virgin Blue budget routes, giving the decision over food onboard greater significance. While free food has been scrapped for economy, customers will still be able to buy meals from an onboard menu, which will initially include cheese and crackers and Australian wine, before expanding later in the year. A new business class menu, still included within the ticket price, includes “simple, modern, fresh and contemporary dishes” made using locally-sourced produce.<br/>