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The union that represents American Airlines’ pilots sued the carrier in federal court Thursday to block a program that encourages aviators to help with simulator training, an initiative the carrier launched as it races to add staff and meet strong travel demand. The airline asked line pilots to come into one of American’s training centers on their days off to participate in pilots’ simulator sessions, which is normally handled by specially trained check pilots. A check airman would still conduct the evaluation. “As demand continues to grow and we continue to hire, we need to expand our pilot-training capabilities to a historically unprecedented level,” said Lyle Hogg, vice president of flight operations training, in a note to pilots. But the Allied Pilots Association argued in its suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, that the training sessions would constitute a change in work rules, which would require negotiation with the union. “Management right now is making up rules as they go along,” said Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the union, which represents some 14,000 American Airlines pilots. “They’re in a crisis to get pilots through training. They’re underwater trying to get as many pilots through as possible.” The lawsuit comes as American and other carriers are scrambling to hire as many pilots as possible as passengers return in droves.<br/>

American Airlines’ new CEO Robert Isom is aiming for one thing this summer: reliability. The airline grew faster than its large competitors last year and occasionally passengers faced widespread disruptions, the result of routine challenges like weather as well as understaffing. Other carriers such as Southwest Airlines and Spirit Airlines faced similar issues that forced them to trim schedules. Now Isom, who took the helm of the biggest US carrier on March 31, said his priority is making sure passengers can count on American this summer and beyond. “People really need to feel like they have control of their itineraries and we give them control by making sure they get to where they want to go on time. I just can’t be any more blunt about it than that,” Isom told pilots during a company town hall last week. “Other airlines are really struggling.” American’s partner in the Northeast US, JetBlue Airways, for example, earlier this month told staff it would cut as much as 10% of summer flying to avoid repeats of mass cancellations and delays, CNBC reported. American’s West Coast code-sharing partner, Alaska Airlines, announced a 2% capacity cut this spring because of a shortage of pilots. Air travel has surged and passengers have shown they are willing to pay up for tickets after two years of pandemic, a trend that’s helping carriers cover a jump in fuel costs. The TSA on Friday screened more than 2.3m people, about 10% fewer than in 2019 but up 57% from a year ago. Isom said domestic leisure travelers are making up for relatively weaker demand for business and international travel. March appeared to be American’s best month in its history, he said. American is set to report first-quarter results and provide its Q2 outlook before the market opens on Thursday. American’s Q1 capacity was down close to 11% from the same period of 2019, it said in a filing last week. <br/>

Finland’s flag carrier Finnair has applied to the US DoT for authority to fly routes the USA for Lufthansa Group’s low-cost Eurowings Discover subsidiary. “Finnair has entered into a wet lease arrangement with EW Discover whereby Finnair will operate certain flights on EW Discover’s behalf on routes between the European Union and the United States,” reads the filing, submitted by Lufthansa on 14 April on the Finnish carrier’s behalf. The routes will be operated as codeshares with Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines. All three of those carriers belong to Lufthansa Group. “The codeshare flights… will commence on or about May 15, 2022, provided the carriers have received all necessary governmental authorisations,” the filing says. If approved, the airline will operate the Eurowings flights between Frankfurt and the US cities of Las Vegas and Tampa, and between Munich and Las Vegas, it adds. The Finnish airline has suffered since late February due to airspace restrictions that add up to 7h to round-trip flights between Europe and Asia, according to a recent Eurocontrol analysis of Flightradar24 data. The changes reflect new flight patterns introduced after the closure of Russian and Belarusian airspace to many airlines in Europe, alongside decisions by some countries to avoid those airspaces voluntarily in response to security concerns amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finnair’s home city of Helsinki is most affected among the four airports considered by Eurocontrol, reflecting an impact that tends to lessen the further south and away from Russia a European airline is based. Services to and from northeast Asia are, however, significantly affected across the board.<br/>

A plan by Sri Lanka's state-owned national airline to lease nearly two dozen aircraft has sparked public criticism and opposition condemnation as the country struggles with its worst financial crisis in decades. Sri Lanka is struggling with low reserves that have declined more than 70% over the past two years to $1.93b at the end of March. The dollar crunch has caused acute shortages of fuel, food and medicines, with rolling power cuts for hours a day for more than a month. On Tuesday, Sri Lanka suspended some external debt repayments and said it would instead use meagre dollar cache to focus on essential imports. Protesters demanding President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign have been staging daily sit-ins outside his office. Tender notices for the lease of 42 aircraft were published on the airline's website on Thursday. SriLankan Airlines has been struggling with a fall in tourism because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis. In 2019/20, SriLankan Airlines reported a loss of 44.14b Sri Lankan rupees ($140.90m) against 41.70b Sri Lankan rupees in the previous year. "This must be a joke?!," a member of parliament from the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) alliance, Harsha de Silva, said in a post on Twitter. "Sri Lanka is bankrupt; no fuel, gas or medicine. Where the hell is money for this nonsense?! Better immediately clarify."<br/>

Hong Kong’s recently-announced decision to ease a number of onerous travel restrictions is only likely to lead to a “modest increase” in capacity, says Cathay Pacific, as the airline continues to see report weak traffic. Cathay says it welcomes the easing of measures on 1 April – including lifting a travel ban to several of its key markets including the USA and UK, as well as reducing the length of on-arrival quarantine – noting that demand has slightly picked up. “However, travel and operational restrictions remain stringent, and we have only been able to achieve a modest increase to our passenger flight capacity,” says Cathay group chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam. “Operational constraints” brought about by the restrictions also mean that cargo capacity will not likely increase beyond the current levels, which are around 30% pre-pandemic capacity. Hong Kong remains among the few places in the world to pursue a zero-infection strategy, in line with Mainland China. As the Omicron variant of the coronavirus spread around the world early in the year, the city banned all incoming flights from several countries, including the USA, UK as well as the Philippines. The ban has since been lifted, but Hong Kong has kept a tight lid on arrival numbers. The isolation period has also be halved to seven days for incoming travellers, provided they are fully-vaccinated, test negative before departure, and on the sixth and seventh day of quarantine. These measures have led to another “difficult month”, says the embattled carrier in traffic results for March. Cathay flew just over 30,000 passengers in the month, slightly lower than February’s figures, but about 65% higher year on year. The figure is just 1% pre-pandemic passenger numbers. <br/>