Travellers at Toronto's Pearson International Airport are being asked to pack plenty of patience on Monday as longer than expected lineups and Canada-wide staffing shortages cause delays. "This is ridiculous — this is really not well organized," said Adam Brazier, who is travelling home with his family to P.E.I. "A lot of people are going into the wrong lines right now because there's nobody to tell us which lines to go into." Matthew Green, the NDP MP for Hamilton Centre, reached Pearson airport about 90 minutes before his 8:10 a.m. domestic flight to Ottawa. He says he arrived to find about 500 people lined up in the airport outside of the gate, in what he described as a "disorganized, chaotic conga line." What became immediately apparent, Green says, is that the airport was "completely understaffed, unprepared, and unable to accommodate the bottleneck that was happening there." The airport sent out a message on Twitter Monday morning, advising travellers to leave themselves lots of extra time and to check their flight status before leaving for the terminal. <br/>
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Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA) increased its jet fuel prices in several cities starting on Sunday, data published on the firm's website showed. The average hike was close to 7%, according to Brazilian airlines association Abear. Kerosene prices have climbed by about 49% this year. The company had already increased prices for jet fuel in early April. Petrobras did not immediately comment on the matter.<br/>
One foggy night in December 2018, David Hill was trying to land a helicopter when a beam of light suddenly overwhelmed his night vision goggles. Hill, an emergency services pilot, had been called to airlift a teenager who had been badly injured in an all-terrain vehicle crash from a village 35 miles north of Madison, Wis. But now, Hill was temporarily blinded. Flying about 500 feet above the ground, he tried to get his bearings. It was “like looking into the sun, and all I can see are bright spots,” he recalled. A person had pointed a laser at his helicopter. From 2010 to 2021, close to 70,000 pilots reported similar episodes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Last year it recorded more than 9,700 cases, a record high, and a 41 percent increase from 2020. When a laser pointer reaches a cockpit, the light can disorient or “completely incapacitate” a pilot, who on a commercial airplane could be responsible for hundreds of passengers, the FAA said. Some commercial flight paths have been disrupted, causing pilots to change course or even turn around. “What you might see as a toy has the capacity to momentarily blind the crew member,” Billy Nolen, the acting administrator of the FAA, said. Though no plane has ever been reported to have crashed as a result of a laser strike, Nolen said that there was always a risk of a “tragic outcome.” He added, “This is not an arcade game.” The FAA said one factor for the increase in laser strikes was that lasers were becoming increasingly powerful, cheap and easy to purchase. Pilots may also be getting better at reporting the incidents, the agency said. Other observers point to a society frayed by the pandemic for the bad behavior. “If you’re invading the safety of my airplane, then you’re an aggressor,” said Capt. Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, the union that represents the pilots of American Airlines. “These are attacks.”<br/>
Guy Stockbridge runs multiple businesses from his headquarters in central California, including landscape companies that ripple across his home state and a utility solar business with operations in 17 states. Flying is a way of life for Stockbridge and others at his company, Elite Team Offices, based in Clovis. For years they flew both privately and on commercial flights out of Fresno, roughly 10 miles from Clovis. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and private jet ownership became more and more attractive. “Buying a jet has been on my mind for years, but Covid definitely added to the equation!” Stockbridge said. He is not alone. A shift toward private flying that more wealthy Americans saw as a necessary luxury during COVID-19 is now showing signs of becoming something else: a pricey but sought-after alternative to a premium ticket on a commercial flight. Many stayed for the convenience, with analysts and industry executives saying they see both more first-time jet owners and families and even small- and medium businesses flying private. Airlines had an 80% share of premium travel in 2021, down from 90% before COVID-19, according to Alton Aviation Consultancy.<br/>