A flight from Texas to Florida was diverted after a fight between two passengers led to a cellphone catching fire. Officials say that during a dispute between the two passengers, who were traveling together, the cell phone got broken and began smouldering. Attendants on the Southwest flight grabbed it and were able to seal it inside a battery containment bag. The flight, which was travelling from Dallas Love Field to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, was diverted for landing at Pensacola International Airport. Both passengers were removed from the flight before it carried on its way without them. Southwest officials say that the diversion was because of the unruly behaviour and not the phone issue.<br/>
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Transat, the vacation operator that Air Canada tried to buy, will discontinue its nascent hotel division and increase its presence in Eastern Canada in an effort to restart its business and return to profit. The Montreal-based company will gradually resume operations starting July 30, it said Thursday. As part of its new strategy, it plans to seek partnerships with other carriers to expand its network, renegotiate some aircraft leases and real-estate contracts, and narrow its fleet to only two Airbus plane models. Transat shares roses as much as 4.9% to their highest level since March 16 before paring those gains. Transat sells vacation packages and flights to Canadians visiting sun-spot destinations in winter and European cities in summer. Airline operations have been suspended in Canada since Jan. 29 because of Covid-19 restrictions. As a result, revenue at Transat has all but vanished, dropping 99% from a year earlier in the quarter that ended April 30.<br/>
Loganair is to include a GBP1 charge on every ticket sold to invest in schemes aimed at tackling climate change. The airline's GreenSkies programme, which takes off next month, will see the "carbon offset charge" included. Loganair said the money would be invested in projects to remove the same amount of carbon from the environment as produced by its aircraft. The airline will also begin trials in Orkney of aircraft powered by hydrogen and renewable electricity. The announcements came as the airline committed to being fully carbon neutral by 2040. Funds raised through the GreenSkies charge will be invested in projects such as reforestation, and wind farms. Loganair CE Jonathan Hinkles said the entire transport industry had a "huge task" ahead to address and reduce emissions generated by travel. "The technology required to deliver zero-carbon regional flights is still under development and testing today, and these are programmes in which we're pleased to be taking an active role", he said. "Until they're ready for use more widely though, we'll be mitigating the carbon emissions from every Loganair flight through the new offset programme and taking all of the steps that we safely and reasonably can to reduce those carbon emissions in the first place."<br/>
The leaders of Ryanair and Airlines for Europe (A4E) have criticised the findings of a report released earlier this week that says the airline industry has been engaged in “anti-climate lobbying”. “I don’t think we should give this report too much time or credibility,” says Ryanair group chief executive Michael O’Leary during A4E’s annual Aviation Summit Thursday. “You’ll find more factual accuracy in a children’s comic than appeared in this rubbish yesterday,” he alleges. The report from UK-based think tank InfluenceMap claims that the airline sector is “lobbying against EU-level policies such as the sustainable aviation fuels blending mandate and the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), while also trying to weaken the international carbon offsetting scheme, CORSIA”. At the same time, airlines have “initiated extensive, climate-focused PR campaigns to deflect growing concern from governments and the public over the sector’s climate footprint”, it alleges. InfluenceMap says its findings are based on “nearly 800 evidence pieces as well as dozens of documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests”.<br/>
Successor carrier Air Montenegro has begun scheduled commercial flights today, launching with a service from Podgorica to Belgrade. Air Montenegro’s launch of scheduled flights comes less than six months after the collapse of Montenegro Airlines in late December 2020. The government first outlined plans for a successor carrier in early January after registering the new company. Air Montenegro CE Predrag Todorovic notes that the carrier was able to get airborne in three and a half months, having been established on 8 February. The launch of scheduled flights comes after the airline carried out its maiden flight at the start of June, a service carrying the Montenegrin national football team to Sarajevo. In addition to flights to the Serbian capital, the airline will serve the Slovenian capital Llubljana, Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Frankfurt from 15 July. Montenegro’s economic development minister Jakov Milatovic says: ”I am very pleased to attend today the first commercial flight of the new national airline Air Montenegro. With this, the Government fulfilled the promise given five months ago that Air Montenegro will take off before the main tourist season.”<br/>
Azerbaijan’s Silk Way Group has closed and will liquidate its Silk Way East Airlines unit, local news agencies reported on June 9 citing a statement circulated by the country’s State Tax Service. Creditors have been told they can submit any claims they have within a period of two months to the group’s address at Baku Airport. Silk Way Airlines incorporated the subsidiary in October 2016 but it remained merely a proposed cargo carrier within the group without launching operations, which have continued both at fellow subsidiary and cargo specialist Silk Way West Airlines and at the parent carrier. Silk Way Airlines continues as an operator of five Il-76TD freighters, and the group also includes business charter specialist SW Business Aviation. <br/>
Kuwaiti budget carrier Jazeera Airways is to open London Heathrow services from mid-June, two years after commencing operations at London Gatwick. The airline says it will operate its initial flight on 18 June, and serve the route from Kuwait weekly. Jazeera claims it will be the first low-cost airline from the Middle East region to fly non-stop to the primary UK hub. Frequency of the service will increase as pandemic-related travel restrictions ease, it adds. “Our new service to Heathrow airport enables Jazeera Airways to cater to popular demand for flights to and from London,” says CE Rohit Ramachandran. He says this demand includes interest from business passengers, tourists and students from the Gulf emirate. Jazeera’s reservations system indicates that the airline will use Airbus A320neo jets on the route.<br/>
Administrators of Air Mauritius have secured a further postponement to the deadline for presenting a plan of reorganisation to the carrier’s creditors. In a stock market disclosure on 8 June, administrators Grant Thornton say they have gained supreme court clearance to hold the watershed meeting no later than 31 January 2022. The administrators Sattar Hajee Abdoula and Arvindsingh Gokhool had previously had until 30 June to present the plan, itself a postponement from an original deadline of December 2020. Grant Thornton says discussions are under way to finalise the “financial means” and the “structural reforms” to be implemented at the flag carrier. Abdoula says the administrators final proposals will depend “greatly on the support funding” that the future backers of Air Mauriritus are prepared to invest in the carrier. “Discussions were initiated and we hope that the necessary arbitrations will be made quickly,”, Abdoula adds.<br/>
Hong Kong Airlines will stand down its fleet of Airbus A320s until mid-2022 and operate a skeletal fleet of just eight A330s on cargo flights, as the embattled carrier enters what it calls “a critical survival mode”. The airline confirmed reports of a wide-ranging restructuring — its latest in more than a year — in a statement to FlightGlobal. <br/>The latest round of restructuring, which HKA says is “imperative to transform…into a leaner and more efficient organisation”, will also see staff numbers cut further. HKA says it will ground all A320s for one year from July. Cirium fleets data indicates that the carrier has a fleet of 11 A320s, of which 10 are in storage. “In view of the low travel demand in the foreseeable year, our active fleet will comprise of around eight A330 aircraft to support our belly cargo operation and limited passenger services,” the carrier, partially owned by now-bankrupt Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, discloses. <br/>