Southwest will resume the sale of alcoholic beverages on Feb. 16 after a nearly two-year absence due to COVID concerns. The move will leave American Airlines as the only major U.S. airline still not serving alcohol in economy. Southwest, the nation's largest domestic carrier, said it will add back beer, wine, sparkling wine and spirits, each selling for $6 or $7. The airline said it will honor free drink coupons that expired in 2020 or 2021. The airline periodically sends free drink coupons to frequent flyers and also includes a free drink with the purchase of its priciest ticket, called Business Select. Southwest was the first major US airline to suspend traditional inflight service at the beginning of the pandemic to reduce interactions between passengers and flight attendants. That policy, which included all inflight beverages except unopened cans of water on request, began on March 18, 2020. The airline planned to resume inflight cocktails, beer and wine in June 2021 but scrapped those plans after a high-profile incident on a Southwest flight from Sacramento to San Diego in which an altercation between a passenger and a flight attendant sent the flight attendant to the hospital. "Given the recent uptick in industry-wide incidents of passenger disruptions in-flight, we have made the decision to pause the previously announced restart of alcohol service onboard,'' Southwest spokesperson Chris Mainz said at the time. "We realize this decision may be disappointing for some customers, but we feel this is the right decision at this time in the interest of the safety and comfort of all customers and crew onboard." <br/>
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Regional carrier Skywest Airlines swung to profit in 2021, but says that the impending pilot shortage will negatively affect its 2022 planning. The St. George, Utah-based airline, which flies under contract for United Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines, says on 3 February that it made a profit of $4m during the final three months of last year, compared to a loss of $46m in the same quarter a year earlier. The carrier earned $111m during the full year, up from a loss of $8.5m in the full year 2020. Total revenue for Q4 came in at $777m, up 32% from $590m in the final three months of 2020. For the full year, revenue was $2.7b, up from $2.1b in 2020. “We continued to see very strong demand for our product during Q4. While we are facing new headwinds as the industry prepares to operate in a post-pandemic environment and we work to rebalance staffing, we remain focused on delivering an exceptional product,” says CE Chip Childs. “We expect this will be another transition year with break-even profit.” During 2021, the airline says it transported more than 36m passengers, up from 21m passengers in 2020. SkyWest will place 47 new Embraer 175 aircraft into service in 2022 and early 2023, of which 18 aircraft were delivered at the end of 2021, and 29 aircraft have deliveries scheduled in 2022 or early 2023. By early 2023, it will have 240 Embraer E175s in its fleet.<br/>
El Al Airlines, forced to slim down following a government bailout during the pandemic, said on Thursday it has entered a non-binding memorandum of understanding to buy smaller local rival Arkia. Under the proposed deal, Arkia would become a fully-owned subsidiary of El Al. In return, Arkia's shareholders would get a 10%-14% stake in El Al through shares and options, the airline said in a regulatory filing. Arkia, in its own statement, said the deal stipulates it would continue operating as an independent brand. "We still have a long way to go before the deal to acquire Arkia is completed, which is part of El Al's strategy to expand into additional areas of activity," said El Al chairman Amikam Ben Zvi. Any deal would need approval from the government, Israel's competition regulator and the companies' labor unions. The companies hope to reach a binding agreement 30 days after a month of due diligence. After that they will have up to 150 days to complete the transaction. El Al in 2018 had sought to buy another small carrier, Israir, but the competition regulator did not allow the merger. El Al said in October it had entered talks with Arkia regarding a possible acquisition. Both airlines have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic with Israel's borders largely closed to foreign tourists since March 2020.<br/>
Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Al-Sahhaf said Kuwait Airways announced it is resuming flights to Iraq, Iraqi state news agency reported. Kuwait Airways suspended its flights to Iraq last month due to "the current situation there", the Gulf country's flag carrier said a day after several rockets landed in Iraq's Baghdad International Airport compound, damaging at least one civilian airplane.<br/>
Air Astana Group topped pre-crisis passenger levels last year in carrying a record 6.62m, almost half of which flew with its low-cost unit FlyArystan. It represents an increase of 79% on the 3.7m the Kazakhstan airline group carried in the pandemic-hit 2020 and is around 1.5m more than its previous high recorded in 2019. Air Astana Group CE Peter Foster says: ”These figures represent a strong recovery from the Covid 19-affected 2020. In large part this was driven by the strong performance of FlyArystan, which in only its second full year of operation carried almost as many customers as Air Astana, driven by low fares, mainly on routes within Kazakhstan. As a result of its ultra-competitive cost structure, FlyArystan is therefore on track to fulfil its core mission of increasing mobility by air across the country for Kazakhstan’s citizens.” Low-cost unit FlyArystan launched operations in May 2019 and doubled passenger numbers last year in carrying 3.06m. During 2021, FlyArystan launched flights to the Georgian city of Kutaisi from three cities in Kazakhstan and launched 10 new domestic routes. Air Astana lifted passenger numbers 59% on 2020 in flying 3.56m.<br/>
Akasa, a new Indian airline backed by billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, plans to offer stock options to attract staff, using a lure more often deployed by technology startups in its bid to gain a foothold in one of the world’s most competitive air-travel markets. The carrier, which is preparing to start flying in late May, is taking the unusual approach of granting company shares to a bigger pool of top employees, rather than a select group of senior executives, as the aviation industry globally suffers from a talent shortfall. Airlines have retrenched thousands of workers because of the pandemic and many pilots have quit, either taking early retirement or switching careers. “We want to have an organization that’s very tight knit in values, but diverse in experiences, genders, locations within India,” Chief Executive Officer Vinay Dube said in an interview. “We were saddened by the plight of employees through the pandemic, some of the bankruptcies that have taken place in Indian aviation, and we wanted to create homes for them where they are happy.” The degree to which Akasa plans to grant stock options for staff will be “far greater than most airlines in India and hopefully reminiscent of maybe some of the tech startups where they go fairly deep in the way they provide employee stock ownership plans,” Dube said. There isn’t a suggestion stock options would be given to air crew or regular pilots, however.<br/>