American Airlines is canceling extended leaves for about 3,300 flight attendants and telling them to come back to work in time for the holiday season. And American plans to hire 800 new flight attendants by next March, according to an airline executive. The moves are the latest indication that leisure travel in the US is recovering more quickly from the pandemic than airlines expected. “Increasing customer demand and new routes starting later this year mean we need more flight attendants to operate the airline,” Brady Byrnes, the airline’s vice president of flight service, told flight attendants in a memo Thursday. Byrnes said cabin crews who are coming back from leave will return to flights in November or December.<br/>
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Finnair Thursday posted a sixth consecutive quarterly loss, with the COVID-19 pandemic still keeping most of its planes grounded, and raised its annual cost savings target to E200m from E170m. An increase in Q2 air traffic helped to boost revenue and reduce the airline’s operating loss to E139.1m from E171.2m in the same period last year. The operating loss was slightly better than a consensus forecast of E149.25m from five analysts, Refinitiv Eikon data showed, and the company said it expects to make a similar loss in Q3. “Even though travel restrictions have been lifted at a slower pace than we expected, many countries, including Finland, have now opened to travel,” CE Topi Manner said.<br/>
Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) has launched a tender for the sale of six Airbus A380-800 aircraft or their components, the company said in a post on LinkedIn on Thursday. MAG, which is the parent of national carrier Malaysia Airlines and underwent a restructuring earlier this year, invited interested buyers to send in proposals by noon of Aug. 12. Group CEO Captain Izham Ismail said in May MAG was looking to dispose of its A380 fleet, following completion of its debt restructuring. He said at the time the group was convinced that the fleet did not fit its future plans, as it “restrategised to position its business as a global travel group”.<br/>