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Air Canada and WestJet cancelled more than 4,200 flights in the month of January, as the airlines continued to face headwinds due in part to travel restrictions and the Omicron variant. According to data provided by Cirium, an aviation data company, Air Canada cancelled 2,755 flights in the month of January, representing 12% of its total scheduled flights. WestJet cancelled 1,467 flights over the same period, representing 13% of its scheduled flights. Data provided by Cirium show that in January of 2020 when each airline was operating nearly double the flights overall, Air Canada cancelled 6% of its scheduled flights (2,651 in total) while WestJet scrapped 3% (534 total) of its scheduled flights. Airlines often adjust schedules and consolidate flights based on demand. But the emergence of the Omicron variant, subsequent staff shortages and government travel restrictions has complicated airline schedules. While Air Canada did not announce any major schedule reductions for the month of February, the airline previously said it will suspend some flights to sun destinations from Jan. 24 until April 30 due to the pandemic. Suspended destinations include Antigua, Aruba, Samaná, Curaçao, Exuma, Grenada, Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, Bermuda, Grand Cayman, Havana, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. "Since the pandemic began, we have been adjusting our schedule in response to, among other things, government restrictions, the trajectory of COVID and market conditions," Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick said Tuesday. "At this time, we have no update on schedule changes other than those we previously enacted." <br/>

Ethiopian Airlines flew passengers on a Boeing 737 MAX plane on Tuesday, but opinions are divided on its first flight using the model since a crash nearly three years ago forced regulators to ground the fleet globally. In March 2019 a flight to Nairobi crashed in a field six minutes after take-off from Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa killing all 157 passengers and crew. The accident followed another incident five months earlier, when the same model crashed in Indonesia, killing 189 people. The accidents exposed a problem with a system on the plane, and the model was grounded worldwide, costing Boeing some $20 billion and prompting court cases that exposed shortcomings with the certification process. Tuesday's demonstration flight had journalists, diplomats and officials on board and was initially scheduled to reach neighbouring Kenya but remained within Ethiopia due to poor weather, officials on board said. While airborne, acting CEO Esayas Woldemariam told reporters that commercial flights would resume after the demonstration. "We made sure everything is in order, now we are doing...a demo flight so to speak. It is after this that we are availing it to commercial aviation," said Esayas. Some relatives of those killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash were angered by the decision to resume flying the 737 MAX. "I will never fly in a MAX and certainly if I find myself booked into a MAX, I will have to cancel that flight," said Tom Kabau, a Kenyan lawyer who lost his 29-year-old brother George in the crash. A lawyer for victims of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accused the airline of having failed families on many fronts.<br/>

ANA Holdings surprised with a small Q3 operating profit on Tuesday but Japan's biggest airline still expects a loss for the year, indicating a worse-than-expected fourth quarter as the Omicron variant spreads. ANA's 100m yen ($869,716) operating profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 was its first in eight quarters and contrasted with the 16.5b yen loss forecast by five analysts polled by Refinitiv. It also beat ANA's target of returning to an operating profit in the fourth quarter. read more But the airline, which posted an operating loss of 115.8b yen for the first nine months of the financial year, maintained its October forecast for a 125b yen full-year loss, pointing to a return to the red in Q4. CFO Ichiro Fukuzawa said it was difficult in January to meet its pre-Omicron target of reaching 80% of pre-pandemic domestic passenger numbers and 20% of pre-pandemic international passenger numbers. "We expect that travel demand during spring vacation and international cargo demand are strong but we still need to take a hard look at the fourth quarter," he told reporters. "This is the reason why we didn't change our forecast for the full year." Q3 domestic passenger numbers rose to around 50% of pre-pandemic levels as Japan lifted a state of emergency, with international passengers at around 10% of pre-pandemic levels due to tight border controls. ANA benefited from cost cuts and record air cargo revenue and Fukuzawa said it expects the freight market to remain strong in the current quarter. In Q4, it faces headwinds from record COVID-19 case numbers.<br/>

ANA is in the process of moving several of its North American flights to Tokyo’s Narita International Airport to offer better connections across its Asian network. The move reverses an almost decade-long trend of shifting flights to the city’s close-in Haneda Airport. Like most of its peers in the region, ANA’s international network is operating at a fraction of its pre-pandemic capacity. North America flights remain relatively strong, but business traffic remains down significantly, while visiting friends and relatives and traffic has begun to rebound. Moving North America flights from Haneda — a popular airport with business travelers going to Tokyo — capitalizes on these trends and leverages as much of ANA’s international network as feasible, the carrier said in its financial results for the nine months ending in December on Tuesday. The move, however, reverses the long-term trend toward more Haneda flights, both by Japanese and US carriers. In the 2010s, Delta spearheaded a long-fought battle between the Japanese and US governments for more access to Haneda and, following the receipt of five additional slot pairs at the airport in 2019, dismantled the hub at Narita that it had inherited from Northwest. ANA’s move is the latest salvo in what is the slowest-moving game of ping pong in the airline industry. Narita opened with great fanfare in the 1970s to alleviate congestion at Haneda, which then served as domestic-only airport until the early 2000s when limited international flights resumed within Asia. And when the Japanese government opened a few slots for long-haul international flights in 2010, US carriers pounced. And now the cycle, at least temporarily while business travel remains down, reverses.<br/>