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Canada's two biggest airlines are cutting thousands of flights as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge. WestJet Asaid Tuesday it will cancel 20% of its February flights, less than three weeks after announcing flight reductions of 15% for January. The move marks a response to "government barriers" amid the Omicron variant, which has also affected staffing levels, the Calgary-based airline said. "We continue to advocate for the elimination of cumbersome travel rules that are unnecessarily impacting Canadians and prolonging the recovery of the travel and tourism sector," CE Harry Taylor said. While Air Canada has not announced major flight consolidations, it has cancelled 15% of its flights in March and 11% in February -- 6,805 flights in total -- within the last two weeks alone, according to figures from airline data company Cirium. The Public Health Agency of Canada advised against non-essential trips abroad in mid-December. A requirement that international travellers quarantine until on-arrival molecular tests come back negative has further dissuaded visitors, the two carriers said in a statement along with Toronto's Pearson airport Monday.<br/>

Croatia Airlines is in talks with Boeing concerning a potential B737 MAX order to replace its A320ceo jets, local aviation news site Avioradar.hr has reported. The manufacturer has since confirmed the talks are ongoing. Croatia Airlines currently operates five A319-100s, which are 20.4 years old on average, and two A320-200s with an average age of 22.2 years. The carrier has four A320-200Ns on order from Airbus but has repeatedly stressed that it would not take these aircraft and has been in talks to cancellation them since pre-COVID times. Nonetheless, it does plan to add other new aircraft - according to a recent business plan drafted by the Boston Consulting Group, the state-owned carrier would need 12-15 new aircraft over the next five years. Considering the carrier's existing A320neo order, speculation is rife about the A220 being the favoured choice for its future needs, although Embraer E2 jets are also in contention.<br/>

Industry analysts and investors are now paying keen attention to whether the European Union (EU) will block Korean Air's takeover of Asiana Airlines after vetoing Hyundai Heavy Industries' acquisition of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME). The EU has a long track record of opposing large-scale mergers within the airline industry. Last year, the EU Commission turned down two major mergers between Canada's leading carrier, Air Canada, with the country's third largest airline, Air Transat, and also repeatedly took a negative stance on a merger between Spain's leading airline IAG and Air Europa citing monopoly concerns. However, experts say Korean Air's acquisition of Asiana is different from previous airline takeover, saying it does not raise monopoly concerns because the two Korean carriers are smaller players in the global industry. The EC usually examines business mergers by going through a preliminary examination. If the EC determines that a merger may impede competition, an in-depth investigation is then launched. Most of the decisions are made after the initial review. Over the past 10 years, the EU has reviewed more than 3,000 merger deals. Among them, only 75 cases were concluded after an in-depth investigation. The EU regards mergers as infringing on competition within the aviation industry. The number of mergers continues to rise in the airline industry as carriers face difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Local analysts say the situation is a little different in the case of Korean Air's acquisition of Asiana as the takeover is not likely harm European competitors or consumers, which is the EU's top concern. "Even if Korean Air, which ranks 18th in terms of global air transport market share, and Asiana Airlines, which ranks 32nd, merge, the impact on the international aviation market will not be large, so the opposition from overseas competition authorities will not be great," Hwang Yong-shik, a professor of economics at Sejong University, said. When merged, the combined carrier is forecast to become the world's seventh largest.<br/>

ANA Group carriers will steadily ramp up domestic passenger capacity to reach pre-pandemic forecasts, as the airline eyes a recovery in domestic travel demand this year. The group, comprising mainline carrier All Nippon Airways, as well as low-cost unit Peach, expect to operate the same amount of capacity “as planned…before the Covid-19 pandemic” for fiscal years 2022, which begins on 1 April. “ANA will flexibly capture demand by utilising larger-sized aircraft, deploying aircraft [meant for] international routes, and offering additional flights. Peach will increase flights to capture demand for leisure travel, which is expected to recover at an earlier stage, as ANA and Peach will leverage their strengths to bolster the ANA Group network,” states ANA in an 18 January media release. The schedule forecast comes as the airline group pursues “transformative measures to shift to a new airline business model”. As part of these measures, both carriers will jointly develop flight schedules in the new financial year, with ANA transferring operations of selected international and domestic routes to its low-cost unit, and add its code to a number of Peach flights. Detailing plans for its domestic network, ANA says it will tap into business travel demand out of Nagoya, increasing the number of flights to several domestic points, including Sapporo, Sendai and Okinawa. <br/>