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No issue with EU airport slot rule, no sign of ghost flights, EU says<br/>Europe's airport slot rules should not be changed to protect legacy airlines, the head of European low cost carrier Wizz Air said Thursday, adding that if a company could not operate its slots they should be made available to rivals. An easing of the "use it or lose it" rule has allowed legacy carriers to preserve airport access during the coronavirus crisis despite a sharp drop in traffic, sparking protests from low-cost rivals keen to expand into once-congested airports. "Leave the slot rules as they used to be prior to the pandemic and the market will sort it out," Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi said. "We would be able to operate those slots at constrained airports so why are they protected for the benefit of legacy carriers who are incapable of operating them because they are inefficient?" Varadi said easing the rules was, in a way, "distorting the market" because it protected legacy carriers struggling to fill planes from lower cost rivals that could sell all their seats. Under European Union airport rules, airlines must use at least 80% of their take-off and landing slots in order to keep them for the following year. The EU suspended those rules at the start of the COVID-19 crisis, but has started partially restoring them, rekindling concerns over empty flights as the pandemic continues. Varadi, head of Wizz Air since its inception in 2003, said access to airports should be prioritised as a public interest.<br/>

Wizz Air Holdings plans to double the size of its carrier in Abu Dhabi, after the Gulf operation got off to a slower-than-expected start because of the coronavirus pandemic. The new airline, co-owned by state-backed holding company ADQ, ended its first year in operation with four planes based in the capital of oil-rich United Arab Emirates. The fleet will expand to eight this year, adding links to destinations including Vienna, Bari, Italy, and Krasnodar, Russia, as the venture hires another 200 people locally, CEO Jozsef Varadi said. It currently employs around 200 people in Abu Dhabi. “With that, we would be at least doubling or tripling the passenger numbers we carry in and out of Abu Dhabi,” Varadi said. Wizz, based in Budapest, is on a growth tear powered by its low-cost model after other carriers were weakened during the pandemic. The Abu Dhabi venture is at the heart of its eastward push while Wizz also builds its presence in Western European markets like the U.K. and Italy. The venture’s first year was impacted by tough Covid restrictions in Abu Dhabi, Varadi said. In the past three months, travel rules were loosened and the EXPO 2020 event kicked off. Wizz Air Abu Dhabi operated 506 flights in Q4, almost half of its total for all of 2021. “Now we are seeing significant improvement in the market,” Varadi said. “We are seeing less restrictions imposed by government, and clearly we are seeing a lot more demand on the consumer side.”<br/>

Turkish budget carrier Pegasus Airlines and Moldovan low-cost airline FlyOne will start flights between Istanbul and Yerevan in early February, as Turkey and Armenia work to repair ties after years of animosity. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced the move to start charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan last year, after the two countries appointed special envoys to normalise relations. The two envoys will hold the first round of talks in Moscow on Friday. read more Pegasus will hold its first flight from Istanbul to Yerevan on Feb. 2 with a return flight on Feb. 3, a spokesperson for the airline said, adding the route would open with three reciprocal flights per week. A first Yerevan-Istanbul flight by FlyOne is scheduled for Feb. 2, according to Russian state news agency TASS, which cited the airline's chairman. Neighbours Turkey and Armenia have for decades been at odds over the 1915 killing of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces and have had no diplomatic or economic relations in three decades. Turkey also backed Azerbaijan against ethnic Armenian forces in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.<br/>

Indonesian investigators may need another year to determine the cause of last year's crash of a Sriwijaya Air jet that killed all 62 people on board, according to an interim report released on Thursday. Under international standards, a final report would normally be issued within a year of the Jan. 9, 2021 crash, but Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) said the pandemic had made it harder for its team to travel. "Because data has just been gathered, we're compiling a final report, including an analysis and a conclusion," KNKT investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said. The Sriwijaya accident was Indonesia's third major airline crash in just over six years and shone a spotlight on the country's poor air safety record. The 26-year-old Boeing 737-500 had an imbalance in engine thrust that eventually led the plane into a sharp roll and then a final dive into the sea, the interim report said. That was in line with a preliminary report issued last year. When the plane reached 8,150 feet (2,484 metres) after take-off from Jakarta, the left engine throttle lever moved back while the right lever stayed in its original position, the reports said, citing the flight data recorder. There had been two prior problems reported with the autothrottle system that automatically controls engine power based on maintenance logs, but the issue was rectified four days before the crash, KNKT said last year. The cockpit voice recorder was recovered from the Java Sea in March, after the preliminary report was released. The interim report said the first officer's communications had been recorded but the captain's voice was only recorded when loud enough to be heard from the first officer's headset microphone. It did not provide details of the communications.<br/>