United Airlines began accepting applications Tuesday as part of a plan to train 5,000 new pilots by 2030, at least half of whom will be women and people of color. The airline announced a year ago that it had bought a flight school, United Aviate Academy in Phoenix, and expects to enroll 100 students in 2021. Training programs had been put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic. About 7% of United's more than 12,000 pilots are presently women and 13% are people of color, the airline said. United has partnered with Sallie Mae to offer student loans to ensure that no eligible applicants are turned away for financial reasons. United did not provide information on the cost to attend the flight academy. United also said it will fund $1.2m in scholarships to "break down" financial barriers that have limited access for "generations of women and people of color." JPMorgan Chase is also kicking in $1.2m for scholarships. United says it typically takes a student about five years from starting flight school to landing a job at the airline. The flight school, it says, provides training to pilots with limited or no experience. "Over the next decade, United will train 5,000 pilots who will be guaranteed a job," United CEO Scott Kirby said Tuesday.<br/>
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Major Japanese airlines, struggling with weak passenger traffic amid the coronavirus pandemic, have started seconding more employees to other companies and organizations. Beginning in April, Japan Airlines increased the number of seconded employees to about 1,400 per day from 1,000. According to ANA Holdings Inc., the parent of All Nippon Airways, the cumulative number of seconded ANA group employees since October last year reached about 750, far above its initial plan of some 400. ANA Holdings has sent employees to some 200 organizations, including the city governments of Himeji in Hyogo Prefecture and Urasoe in Okinawa Prefecture, as well as Seijo Ishii Co., a Lawson Inc. unit that operates high-end supermarkets. The period of secondment is about a half year to two years.<br/>
Several thousand Australians have already booked getaways to tourism hot-spot Queenstown following Tuesday's announcement of a trans-Tasman bubble start date, Air New Zealand CE Greg Foran says. Foran spoke day after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia will commence from April 19. He said the airline's booking website was inundated following the announcement, with Kiwis making bookings for Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne - all popular for New Zealand tourists. In return, several thousand Australians have already booked getaways to New Zealand tourism hot-spot Queenstown, Foran said.b "We've seen about 100-times increase in bookings and actually yesterday, from the period from 4pm through to about 10pm, it was actually a record - an Air New Zealand record for the number of bookings that were made across the Tasman. Queenstown had a really significant uptake - so to [Mayor] Jim Boult and all of his team down there, who I know have been doing it tough, you've got some people heading your way." About a year since the idea of a trans-Tasman bubble was first floated, Foran's thrilled it's only days from getting underway. "We're up and running again to not quite a third of our market but close to it, so planes are up and running. We've been working hard to get ourselves organised - we've brought back about 340 crew." Foran said the airline would aim to have its flights 80% full. <br/>