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A Brazilian man used the name of a 4-year-old child who died in a car accident in Washington State in 1979 to get a United States passport and a job as a United flight attendant, according to a criminal complaint. The man, Ricardo Cesar Guedes, who was born in São Paulo, Brazil, started using the child’s identity in 1998 when he applied for an American passport, according to a complaint filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The application he submitted used a Social Security number that was issued in the child’s name in 1996, almost two decades after his death, the complaint said. Guedes, who lives in Houston, was arrested in September after he was observed “using the victim’s identity” to enter a secure area of George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the complaint says. He was charged with fraud in the application and use of passport, aggravated identity theft, impersonation of a United States citizen and fraudulent entry into a secure space of an airport. Rosa Victoria Gilcrease-Garcia, a lawyer representing Guedes, declined to comment. For more than two decades, Guedes used the identity of William Ericson Ladd, who was born in Atlanta on Sept. 14, 1974, according to the complaint. Special agents from the Diplomatic Security Service, the security arm of the State Department, interviewed William’s mother, Debra Lynn Hays, in July 2021, according to the complaint. She confirmed her son’s birth date and that he died in a car crash on Aug. 8, 1979, on a state highway near Colville, Wash. Investigators matched a set of fingerprints that were taken by Brazilian officials in the 1990s, and that were included with Brazilian national identity documents for Guedes, to a set of fingerprints that Guedes submitted to pass a background check for his job with United Airlines using William’s identity, according to the complaint. Guedes listed his employer as United Airlines when he renewed his passport in 2013 and 2020, according to the complaint. <br/>

Virgin Australia and United Airlines have jointly filed for approval from the US Department of Transportation for their previously announced upcoming codeshare agreement. According to reports, the paperwork was filed with the DOT this week, ahead of the planned launch of the partnership in April 2022. It comes one month after the airlines revealed their partnership plans, and marks a major move for Virgin Australia, as it drops previous US codeshare partner Delta Air Lines. Pending all regulatory approvals, the codeshare agreement would see United and Virgin codeshare on all flights to and from Australia as well as flights within both Australia and the US. The two airlines specified to the DOT that they have already reached an agreement on which routes will be on codeshare. It will see United’s network expand out from just Sydney and Melbourne to more than 40 Australian cities and regions, while Virgin – not currently servicing its own long-haul international network – will sprawl to the US, Mexico, South America and the Caribbean.<br/>

It makes a lot of sense for airlines to use a bus to connect smaller communities to major airports. Buses can go places aircraft cannot, and when they do replace planes, they can do so more cost-effectively and with lower carbon emissions. That’s what the partnership between United and Landline, a luxury bus company that markets itself as a regional aircraft on wheels, launched last year aims to do. United CEO Scott Kirby described the service as “going well,” and Landline co-founder and CEO David Sunde called its performance as “good” in separate comments in November. And in what Sunde described as a signal of some success, United added a fifth daily bus between the Denver airport and Fort Collins, Colo. — one of Landline’s two routes under the pact — in November. Landline has connected United’s Denver hub to the ski town of Breckenridge, as well as the nearby city of Fort Collins, since March and April, respectively. But the offering is being marketed as more than just your average airport bus. Landline buses carry United flight numbers and depart the Denver airport from a gate on Concourse A alongside other United Express flights. Bags are transferred automatically — both to and from Breckenridge and Fort Collins — and travelers can check in for their entire trip at both Landline-managed destinations. In addition, travelers can earn frequent flyer miles and status points by riding the bus. The biggest pain point for travelers is buses arrive landside at the Denver airport where they have to proceed through security screening on their own. Despite the tighter integration between Landline and United, neither Kirby nor Sunde described the partnership as a clear success. Both qualified their comments in ways that suggest the service is still maturing.<br/>

Canadian airlines are slashing their flight schedules as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on air industry plans and profits. Transat is nixing nearly 30% of its flights for the next two months. The tour operator said the ongoing impact of the Omicron variant and the federal government's "restrictive measures" last month have triggered a wave of trip cancellations by passengers. On Dec. 15, the Public Health Agency of Canada advised against non-essential travel abroad. Transat's slimmed-down flight schedule is in place Thursday through Feb. 25, though the Montreal-based company says more changes may be necessary. Air Canada said in a flight advisory Wednesday it is suspending flights to at least 14 Caribbean destinations "in light of the current pandemic context," effective Jan. 24 through April 30. The Montreal-based company cancelled 11 per cent of all flights Thursday and 10 per cent Wednesday -- 87 trips in total, according to tracking service FlightAware. Air Canada Rouge called off 14% of its flights Wednesday. And regional carrier Jazz Aviation, which partners with Air Canada, cancelled 16% and 14% Wednesday and Thursday respectively, or 155 flights in all. Air Canada said all travellers impacted by the Caribbean route suspensions will receive a full refund. The move comes a week after WestJet cut 15% of its scheduled flights through to the end of January, citing a high proportion of flight crews calling in sick due to Omicron.<br/>

The organizer of a private trip to Mexico for a group of Quebec influencers says he has "significantly learned" from the ordeal but is still upset that airlines won't fly the group home based on what he called "presumptions" about them. "I understand why many fellow citizens are upset about the current situation," James William Awad wrote in a statement posted on Blogspot on Thursday. "The 111 private club is a dream and a vision that I poured my heart and soul into creating. This was my first travel event. I have significantly learned, and I am still learning from this experience." Awad said that it's unfair of Sunwing and other airlines to refuse to carry the same passengers back to Canada, leaving most of them stranded in Cancun. He said that in a meeting Tuesday, he agreed to a list of requests from Sunwing, including four additional on-flight security staff at his expense, stringent mask-wearing, and negative PCR tests for all passengers. There was to be no alcohol served on board and all passengers were required to be in "a sober condition" at check-in. "Standing in the aisle [would] not be permitted," he wrote, and he would "be held responsible if the flight has to divert to an alternate location due to non-compliance." But there was a sticking point, Awad said: he insisted that a meal be served, and the airline didn't want to provide food. Air Canada and Air Transat both said publicly on Wednesday that they were also refusing tickets to people when they could identify them as passengers on the Sunwing flight, though some of the group did reportedly make it back to Montreal with Air Canada on Wednesday. Air Canada said Thursday that it's so far blocked 19 people from flying because they were linked to the group, but that it can be difficult to screen them out. "Air Canada has not been provided with the Sunwing passenger manifest, making it difficult to prevent passengers from that flight boarding our aircraft," said an Air Canada spokesperson. "As stated, to the extent that we can identify the passengers who were part of the group, we are denying boarding to ensure the safety of other passengers and our crews," the company said. "Fifteen people were denied boarding yesterday and four others this morning for this reason."<br/>

Europe's sky is filling up with near-empty polluting planes that serve little other purpose than safeguarding airlines' valuable time slots at some of the world's most important airports. The highly contagious omicron variant of COVID-19 has put many off flying, and because of it, getting people and goods from point A to point B has become an afterthought for thousands of flights. It has created strange bedfellows, with environmentalists and major airlines united to cut down on empty or near-empty flights by pressuring the European Union — a pledged global leader in combating climate change — to tweak the rules on airport slots. “The EU surely is in a climate emergency mode,” activist Greta Thunberg tweeted sarcastically this week, linking to a story about Brussels Airlines making unnecessary flights. The company has said that if the EU doesn't take action, it would have to fly some 3,000 journeys this winter primarily to safeguard its network rights. Lufthansa said it would have to fly an additional 18,000 “unnecessary” flights through the winter to hold on to landing slots. Even if the holidays brought a big increase in passengers — marked by thousands of flight cancellations that left travelers stranded — the rest of the winter period could be slow as omicron surges worldwide. Normally, airlines had to use 80% of their given slots to preserve their rights, but the EU has cut that to 50% to ensure as few empty or near-empty planes crisscross the sky as possible. Just last month, when there were still some hopes the pandemic might finally wane, the EC confirmed the 50% rule but said it would be increased to 64% at the end of March. However, major airlines like Lufthansa, Air France and KLM say they are counting on further flexibility, including further decreasing the threshold level on the time slots. “More flexibility in the short term is required, not just in summer but also in the current winter schedule,” a Lufthansa statement said. "Without this crisis-related flexibility, airlines are forced to fly with planes almost empty, just to secure their slots.”<br/>

Lufthansa on Thursday said it was no longer offering regular flights to Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, as the Central Asian country faces its worst unrest in over a decade. “Due to further developments, Lufthansa has now decided not to offer any more regular flights to Almaty until further notice,” a spokesperson for the company said. Almaty’s airport was reportedly overrun by anti-government protesters on Wednesday, forcing flights to be canceled, before it was later retaken by government security forces.<br/>

The Meteorological Agency has issued a warning for heavy snow in the capital on Thursday — the first such warning in four years — as low pressure and a drop in temperatures brought snowfall to large areas of the country's Pacific coast. As of Thursday evening, central Tokyo had recorded 6 centimeters of snow, Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture had logged 5 cm and both Chiba and Yokohama had 3 cm, according to the agency. The snowfall was the first of the season in these areas, and the first for Tokyo in two years. The weather agency also warned of more snow later Thursday for the Kanto and Tokai regions, urging people to be prepared for possible traffic disruption and icy roads. In the 24 hours until noon Friday, up to 10 cm of snow is expected in mountainous areas within the Kanto region. About 100 domestic flights departing or arriving at Haneda or Narita airports were canceled by 4 p.m., affecting some 9,000 passengers, according to JAL and ANA.<br/>