unaligned

Airport police officers removed a pilot from the cockpit of a JetBlue flight departing Buffalo on Wednesday morning and conducted a sobriety test that indicated blood alcohol content more than four times the federal limit for pilots, the authorities said. The pilot, James Clifton, 52, was taken into custody by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority police, who notified the federal authorities and released him to JetBlue security personnel, according to the transportation authority, which operates the Buffalo airport. A spokeswoman for the transportation authority said that the pilot had not been arrested by the airport police but added that he could face federal charges and that the investigation was continuing. When Clifton went through security screening for a 6:15 a.m. flight from Buffalo Niagara International Airport to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a TSA officer noticed that he “may have been impaired,” airport officials said on Wednesday. The pilot made it into the cockpit, the statement said. He was given a portable breathalyzer test and registered blood alcohol content of 0.17. The FAA bars pilots from flying planes if they have blood alcohol content of 0.04 or higher or if they have consumed alcohol in the last eight hours. <br/>

WestJet Airlines is acquiring Sunwing Airlines, as competition in the Canadian travel market heats up. WestJet released a statement on Wednesday confirming the news, adding that "the transaction will bring together two distinctly Canadian travel and tourism success stories." Under the agreement, WestJet will create a new tour operator unit headed by Sunwing CEO Stephen Hunter that includes Sunwing Vacations and WestJet Vacations as separate brands. The WestJet Group of companies will expand to include Sunwing Airlines. The company says this will add capacity as it sees otherwise seasonal aircraft operate year-round. Currently, Sunwing supplements seasonal demand with imported aircraft. Both airlines are privately held. Toronto-based Sunwing is controlled by the Hunter family and WestJet was purchased by Onex Corp. in 2019. Crystal Hill, vice-president of CUPE 4070, the union that represents WestJet flight attendants, attributed the financial stability of Onex to the company having stronger net earnings last year. "This is positive overall," she said, observing that the deal suggests faith in a travel market rebound. The agreement, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close late this year. <br/>

Spanish operator Volotea is to be the first airline customer for a new Airbus flight-training school which has been inaugurated at Angouleme in France. It will be managed by Airbus Flight Academy Europe, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the airframer. Eleven cadet pilots from the school will be recruited by Volotea and be operating for the carrier from around April and May, once the final training is complete. “We know the programme quality is of a very high standard, adapting perfectly to Volotea´s training philosophy,” says the airline’s chief, Carlos Munoz. “Our company keeps on growing year after year our Airbus fleet, and we’re going to be needing many more pilots.” Volotea operates a fleet of A320-family twinjets.<br/>

Israel’s government has granted flag-carrier El Al more time to sell its frequent-flyer programme, one of the conditions of a financing package agreed with the state. El Al has also pledged not to sell its take-off and landing slots at various airports, or use them in other ways to raise funds, without the government’s approval. The Israeli finance ministry says it has approved a shift in the deadline for El Al’s plan to raise at least $100m from the loyalty scheme, from 28 February to 14 March. El Al’s full-year figures for 2020 indicate that the loyalty programme, known as Matmid, had around 2.4m members. The carrier recently allocated the programme to a subsidiary. The airline says it has undertaken not to enter a transaction involving the sale or transfer of its rights to airport slots without clearance from the state. It had been considering using the assets to raise further funds, potentially through loans, to support its recovery.<br/>

Siptu members of Aer Lingus ground staff have rejected a Labour Court recommendation that granted the company a pay freeze until the end of 2024. The recommendation also backed a proposed permanent 10% pay cut to roster duty allowances. “In real terms, this would mean that our members would experience a four-and-a-half-year pay freeze in total, with pay remaining static since 2019,” said Siptu sector organiser, Niall Phillips. “Like many workers in the aviation sector, our members in Aer Lingus were severely affected by Covid-19 with many working significantly reduced hours since March 2020 and only returning to 100 per cent of their contracted hours in November 2021. While our members accept that Aer Lingus suffered heavy losses due to the pandemic, our members also suffered very significant reductions in income during the same period.” The latest rejection comes only months after workers refused to back a Covid-19 recovery document to reduce costs and change work practices to offset losses incurred by the airline during the pandemic.<br/>

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has warned that the travel industry faces a “very difficult” period but has insisted the long-term recovery of his airline remained on course despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Irish carrier and its rivals have been forced to cancel and divert some flights because of airspace closures, while also facing surging fuel costs after the price of oil rose above $100 a barrel. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for most airlines for the next 12 months,” O’Leary said on Wednesday. Aviation consultancy IBA has forecast that the industry’s recovery from the pandemic will be delayed by at least two months after shares took a tumble. The MSCI index of European airline shares has lost nearly a fifth of its value over the past two weeks. But O’Leary expects Ryanair to ride out the disruption. Bookings fell 20% week on week on Thursday and Friday following the start of military action in Ukraine, but have since recovered and were down about 9% by the start of this week, O’Leary said. “I think it will not have a dramatic impact on bookings, clearly if the war doesn’t escalate and spread elsewhere,” he added. Ryanair has hedged 80% of its expected fuel needs at $65 per barrel until March 2023, leaving it well protected from the sudden spike in prices and able to outcompete its rivals on ticket prices, O’Leary said.  But the airline still expects to take a $50m hit on fuel over the next 12 months. “It is not a huge amount of money, but it certainly makes post-Covid recovery much more difficult,” he added. Ryanair will fly its biggest ever schedule from the UK this summer and O’Leary said he expected ticket prices during peak periods to rise because of higher fuel charges and greater demand for travel.<br/>

Ryanair has pledged to be “the first airline to return to Ukraine” when it is safe to do so after the Russian invasion. Its CE, Michael O’Leary, said Ryanair had been set to fly 2m people to four airports in the country this year and had hoped to expand further before the invasion last week. He said he did not believe it would be possible to fly to Ukraine “for the foreseeable future, after Russia … essentially disabled a lot of the flight systems”. He added: “We will be the first airline to return to Ukraine when it is safe to do so … but I suspect it will take until next winter, when hopefully the Ukrainians will have seen off the Russians and sent them back to where they came from.” O’Leary said Ryanair was flying humanitarian cargo in the belly of its planes “for the first time in 30 years” to Polish airports, liaising with Ukrainian embassies. The airline has had a surge in bookings to Poland, where family members are flying to reunite with Ukrainian refugees close to the border. Wider flight bookings on Ryanair have otherwise dropped about 20% in the first days of the conflict, and are still around 10% down.<br/>

Ryanair's CE has said that the most effective way to target Russia amid its ongoing onslaught of Ukraine is to ramp up oil production in the West. Michael O’Leary said that Russia — one of the world’s largest energy producers — is benefiting from soaring oil and gas prices as supply fears bite in an already tight market. Further production from Western countries would reduce their reliance on Russia — particularly in Europe, which derives 40% of its oil and gas from the country — and weaken the energy markets on which Russia’s economy strongly depends. “The most important thing that we in the West can do is drive up oil production, because what hits Russia hardest is low oil prices and low gas prices,” O’Leary said. Russia’s economy has already been hard hit by Western sanctions, with markets slipping into freefall and the Russian ruble tumbling almost 30% against the dollar. But so far it has done little to deter President Vladimir Putin’s resolve to seize control of Ukraine. Global energy markets, meanwhile, have rallied amid concerns over further disruption to the oil and gas pipelines which carry Russian products through Ukraine, and some have accused Putin of trying to weaponize the West’s reliance on its hefty energy supplies.<br/>

Wizz Air on Wednesday said it had suspended all flights to and from Ukraine and Russia, and was working to evacuate staff and planes still in Ukraine after Russia invaded last week. Wizz on Saturday said that flights to and from Russia had been suspended temporarily. “As the only EU airline to have bases and aircraft based in Ukraine, with three aircraft located in Kyiv and one aircraft in Lviv, we have an evacuation plan ready to bring the assets out of the country when it is safe to do so,” Wizz said. “With the closure of Ukrainian, Moldovan and Russian airspace, the Company has suspended all flights to and from Ukraine and Russia while operating Moldova flights out of Iasi, Romania. We will continue to review the suspensions as the situation unfolds.”<br/>

British airline Jet2 has dropped its mask mandate, a unique move in the airline industry as face coverings still remain a requirement among most major carriers. According to the airline, passengers will no longer be required to wear masks in England or Northern Ireland on planes or in airports however face coverings are still legally required for passengers 6 years and older traveling in Scotland. "Your safety is our priority, so we've created our Face Mask Policy so everyone knows exactly what's expected while traveling with us," Jet2 wrote in its guidance, adding, "It's no longer a legal requirement to wear a face mask at our airports or onboard our planes. However, as per UK government guidance, we recommend that you continue to wear a face mask in these spaces, and you will need to wear one when you get to your overseas destination." The decision to eliminate masks comes after the United Kingdom dropped the legal requirement to wear face coverings in England. Going forward, the government has said "operators are free to set their own requirements for wearing face coverings." Despite the changing guidance, face coverings will still be required on other British airlines like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. "Although UK rules are easing, here at British Airways like other airlines and airports, wearing face masks is still our policy," the airline wrote. "We have this policy to protect our most vulnerable customers and abide by the laws of countries around the world."<br/>

Again today, an El Al plane had to be diverted from its route because of a violent passenger: El Al has announced that flight LY 251, that was on its way to Tel Aviv from Tel Aviv to Prague, returned to Tel Aviv because of violent behavior by a passenger that represented a risk to the flight's safety. The decision to return to Ben Gurion Airport was made shortly after take-off, after a "violent passenger" incident was declared. A similar incident occurred in the skies yesterday as well, when an El Al plane flying from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv had to make an emergency landing in Madrid. The emergency landing came after a passenger became unruly and behaved violently towards the air crew, to the point that it was decided that he was jeopardizing the flight's safety. This morning, when the Prague-bound flight returned to Tel Aviv, the police were waiting for the passenger concerned. El Al said: "A criminal complaint has been filed against the passenger, and after the incident has been investigated and the details of how it came about are clear, the company will examine the use of further measures at its disposal, among them putting the passenger on a blacklist, which will mean that he will be forbidden to fly on El Al in the future, and even a claim on account of the damage apparently caused to the company, in order to exhaust the treatment of the matter."<br/>

Former Virgin Australia Holdings bondholders have been encouraged to join a class action lawsuit against the Virgin Australia parent’s senior executives at the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney over the losses they suffered when the company was sold to Bain Capital in 2020. Unsecured creditors, including bondholders, voted in September 2020 to accept a return of just 9% to 13% on their claims - claims which totalled about A$7b. A minority of shareholders lodged a plea to halt the deal, but the federal court in Sydney denied this and the sale went ahead in November of that year. Now, however, London-based Balance Legal Capital, which describes its business as “promoting access to justice by supporting litigants who do not have the means or the capability to fund worthy litigation,” has pledged to fund the lawsuit. It will be led by Corrs Chambers Westgarth, an Australian law firm that previously provided advice to bondholders when Virgin headed into voluntary administration in April 2020. Balance Legal Capital said in a notice on its website that anyone who had acquired unsecured notes in a Virgin Australia bond issue whose prospectus was released in November 2019 is eligible to take part in the class action suit.<br/>