Breeze Airways, a new US carrier founded by airline backer David Neeleman, has expanded its growth plans with an additional order for 20 Airbus A220-300 jets, industry sources said. Bringing the startup's total order for the jet to 80, the deal would make Breeze the second-biggest customer for the Canadian-designed A220 family after Delta, leapfrogging JetBlue which Neeleman also founded. The order matches a purchase of 20 A220-300 from an undisclosed buyer, reported by Airbus in a monthly report last week. Breeze is on course to start flying in the summer, Neeleman told a recent conference. <br/>
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Interjet shareholders unanimously voted to approve a filing for bankruptcy protection, a move that would enable the Mexican airline to resume payments to employees that have been frozen for several months. Alejandro del Valle, who took a 90% stake in the carrier late last year, led discussions over the filing with former majority owners and founders Miguel Aleman Magnani and his father, Miguel Aleman Velasco. “The objective of this agreement is to have the company operating again as soon as possible while prioritizing workers’ rights,” the statement read. Interjet is the second Mexican airline to file for bankruptcy protection since the start of the coronavirus pandemic last year. Grupo Aeromexico SAB filed in June after the virus devastated demand for air travel worldwide. Unlike US airlines, Mexican carriers didn’t receive government aid. Interjet, formally known as ABC Aerolineas, hasn’t flown since Dec. 11, according to data compiled by online tracker Flightradar 24. The carrier’s active fleet dwindled to four jets after most of its Airbus planes were repossessed last year by lessors amid financial woes that predated the pandemic.<br/>
The recovery has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for even industry outperformers like Volaris, which is seeing its March and April capacity spike after falling significantly at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Volaris benefits from Mexico’s fairly loose pandemic restrictions. The country has had few barriers for domestic travel, and its beach resorts for the most part have remained open for international visitors. But Mexico has grappled with severe Covid-19 outbreaks and has not vaccinated as large a percentage of its population as the US has. Volaris’ bread-and-butter leisure, and visiting friends and relatives traffic has held up. In fact, the airline plans to operate 110% of its 2019 capacity in the second quarter. Part of this is responding to demand, and part is a function of its growing fleet, which at the end of the first quarter stood at 87 Airbus A320-family aircraft. But Q1 was bumpy. January and February, historically a weak period for the airline, were even weaker as Mexico and the US struggled with new waves of the diseases, affecting both leisure domestic travel and southbound beach traffic, Executive VP Holger Blankenstein said during the company’s Q1 2021 earnings call. January capacity was 97% of 2020, but capacity fell to 75% in February, before springing back to 93% in March.<br/>
Wizz Air has rejected calls from unions in Italy to agree a labour contract with them as the budget airline presses ahead with a rapid expansion in the country. In a letter to the labour ministry, reported by the Avionews website, the Hungarian airline said it was determined to operate in Italy without engaging with unions. Lengthy negotiations between Rome and the EC on a plan to revive cash-strapped carrier Alitalia have left gaps in the Italian market that low cost competitors are rushing to fill. Wizz Air, which started deploying crews and aircraft in Italy in July 2020, plans to open its fourth base in the country in June under a deal with Palermo airport in Sicily. “Unions want Wizz Air to introduce a collective contract for its workers in the country to avoid risks of inequalities among its employees versus other carriers in the country,” a union source said. Another union source said a meeting organised by Italy’s labour ministry to mediate between unions and Wizz Air managers on April 15 ended without progress.<br/>
Emirates said Monday that some passengers travelling from Dubai could now share coronavirus test results and vaccine certificates digitally with the airline, removing the need to show paper documents at check-in. The digital verification of medical records, however, only applies to those who took a PCR test in Dubai or who received their vaccine from a Dubai health regulator centre, it said. Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Like some other emirates, it has its own vaccine programme, run alongside that of the federal government. At check-in, eligible passengers would need to opt-in to share their test results or vaccine details, which would be provided by Dubai's health regulator, the airline said. Emirates said digital verification would significantly ease travel procedures and reduce wait times.<br/>