unaligned

The summer of major flight woes continues, leaving Spirit Airlines passengers the latest to be stranded. The Florida-based budget carrier canceled 277 flights Monday, or 36% of its scheduled flights, on top of 165 canceled flights Sunday, according to flight tracker FlightAware. Flight delays are also an issue, with 159 so far Monday and 342 on Sunday. Passengers reported waiting hours in line for refunds and other customer service help at airports in cities including Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Some stranded travelers camped out. "It looked like a hurricane shelter," passenger Rebecca Osborn said of Spirit's counters at Orlando International Airport. Spirit Airlines spokesman Erik Hofmeyer blamed the flight cancellations on weather and unspecified operational challenges, a common refrain from airlines including Southwest and American this summer. (American has its own woes Monday, canceling 429 flights, or 14% of scheduled flights, and delaying hundreds more as it struggles to recover from Sunday storms at its massive Dallas hub.) "We're working around the clock to get back on track in the wake of some travel disruptions over the weekend due to a series of weather and operational challenges," Hofmeyer said. "We needed to make proactive cancellations to some flights across the network, but the majority of flights are still scheduled as planned."<br/>

Lilium, a German start-up making electric jets that can take off and land vertically, has announced plans to sell 220 of its vehicles for up to $1b to Brazilian airliner Azul. The two firms said on Monday that they plan to build an eVTOL (electric vehicle takeoff and landing) aircraft network across Brazil between now and 2025. “The aircraft we’re planning to launch will do 175 miles an hour,” Alex Asseily, Lilium’s chief strategy officer, said Monday. “The range will be 155 miles.” The aviation industry is under intensifying pressure to look at new ways of powering their carriers as policymakers publicly acknowledge the necessity of transitioning to a low-carbon society. Lilium’s latest aircraft is a five-seater model but the one that goes into serial production and gets sold to Azul will be a seven-seater model, Asseily said, adding that the production line is 50% complete. Each Lilium jet will cost Azul roughly $4.5m. Azul is the largest domestic airline in Brazil in terms of cities served and daily departures. John Rodgerson, CEO of Azul, said that Azul’s brand, route network and loyalty program will help to “create the markets and demand for the Lilium jet network in Brazil.”<br/>

Norway's Norse Atlantic, a recently formed long-haul airline that plans to challenge established players on routes between Europe and the United States, has agreed to lease six aircraft from BOC Aviation, it said on Monday. The leasing agreement expands the budget carrier’s fleet to 15 widebody jets, all Boeing 787 Dreamliners, as Norse seeks to fill the void left by Norwegian Air’s exit from transatlantic routes. The global airlines industry has experienced heavy losses during the coronavirus pandemic, leaving a glut of airplanes available for those launching new carriers. Norse has said it could offer its first flights by the end of 2021, depending on how the pandemic and travel restrictions develop. “We very much look forward to welcoming customers on both sides of the Atlantic on board these state-of-the-art aircraft as soon as demand for transatlantic travel resumes,” Norse founder and CEO Bjoern Tore Larsen said. The leasing contract with BOC is for around 16 years for each of the six aircraft, Norse said. It comes on top of nine jets leased from Ireland’s AerCap for between eight and 12 years each.<br/>

Aer Lingus is poised to name Emerald Airlines as its new regional carrier this week, with the new service likely to begin in January. The airline has been in talks with Emerald, founded by aviation entrepreneur Conor McCarthy, since December on taking over the Aer Lingus Regional contract formerly held by Stobart Air. “Aer Lingus and Emerald Airlines are at the final stages of agreement, and Aer Lingus is hopeful that an announcement will be made in the coming days,” the Irish flag-carrier said. It is likely that Mr McCarthy’s operation will begin flying regional routes for its new partner from January 2022, a year ahead of the original timetable set for the service. Stobart Air’s deal with Aer Lingus ran until the end of next year, but that airline folded in June, throwing a question mark over what would happen to the network between then and January 2023, when Emerald had been due to take over.<br/>

EasyJet and Deutsche Bahn began selling in late July combination tickets that include flights and rail travel, Skift has learned. The deal is notable for a behind-the-scenes aspect. Europe’s second-biggest discount airline is using a new method to sell the tickets from the German railway operator. “It’s going to send shockwaves in the industry because rail is finally sexy,” said Ann Cederhall of LeapShift, a UK-based travel brand retailing consultancy. Other carriers, such as Air France, Avianca, and Vueling, are also embracing this method to sell long-haul flights from other providers. But rail is a hot topic. Airlines are paying renewed attention to rail partnerships after the French government required cuts to domestic flights in exchange for billions in state aid during the pandemic and Germany is looking at parallel steps in demanding minimum flight prices to discourage cheap short-haul flights. The countries want to encourage train travel, which is believed to generate fewer carbon emissions. EasyJet’s move relies on partnerships involving application programming interfaces, or APIs, or data feeds that rail and airline partners can plug into, rather than use older, hard-coded systems that are often less agile. Software engineers in sectors such as advertising and financial technology have long relied on APIs. While airlines have used APIs for years for certain tasks, they have been slow to adopt robust, modern versions of this data-sharing tool to sell partners’ airfares, rail, and other content. “The benefit of an API partnership is primarily cost savings,” Cederhall said. “With an API partnership, it’s just you and the partner splitting the money. No waiting for settlement three months from now. You avoid the fees a clearinghouse may charge for classic interline. You can spin it up in a few weeks to see if there’s demand, making it easier to test routes and see if customer demand truly exists — rather than waiting six or nine months via a traditional tech implementation.”<br/>

A new regional airline route linking Wales with Scotland begins on Monday. Loganair flights from Cardiff to Edinburgh will run five times a week. It comes after the airline Flybe collapsed in March 2020, meaning many regional routes in the UK including between the Welsh capital and Ediburgh were lost. The first Loganair flight between the cities leaves Edinburgh for Cardiff at 14:30 BST on Monday and will return to the Scottish capital at 16:20. Kay Ryan of Scottish airline Loganair said the new route would fill the gap left by Flybe. She said in May that the new route would "allow family members to reunite as well as enable people to enjoy a well-earned break". Loganair already fly to European and Scandinavian destinations from their hubs in Scotland - plus they link other UK cities like London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol.Flights between Cardiff and Edinburgh will be on Loganair's 49-seat Embraer 145 regional jets and the journey is expected to take about one hour and 25 minutes.<br/>

Jetstar has suspended flights from Auckland to Rarotonga until next March. One disappointed customer who had paid to travel in October was told today his booking had been cancelled. Jetstar had sold tickets earlier this year in the hope Australia would have joined the quarantine-free travel arrangement by then. In an email to the customer the airline said: "We're sorry to let you know that Jetstar is suspending its services between Auckland and Rarotonga until March 28, 2022." A Jetstar spokesman told the Herald it had decided to cancel services to Rarotonga until that date for a number of operational reasons. "However we fully intend to resume this route in late March 2022 if not earlier." Jetstar's services to Rarotonga originate in Australia (fifth freedom operation) so are currently not part of the NZ-Cook Island bubble.<br/>