unaligned

A 23-year-old Ohio man who the authorities say groped two flight attendants and punched a third before being duct-taped to his seat amid jeers from his fellow passengers on a flight last summer was sentenced on Tuesday to 60 days in jail. Parts of the episode, which occurred during a Frontier Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Miami on July 31, 2021, were recorded on video. It was among many altercations between service workers and angry customers that have received widespread publicity during the pandemic, particularly on commercial flights. In February, the man, Maxwell Berry of Norwalk, Ohio, pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Miami to three counts of assault. In addition to the jail term, Berry was fined $2,500 and ordered to pay more than $1,500 in restitution. Berry’s lawyer, Jason Kreiss, had argued in a memo to the court that he should not go to jail for the crime, saying that what he had done that day was out of character and that he had already suffered a severe punishment in the form of damage to his reputation. But in an interview on Tuesday, Jordan Galarza, the flight attendant whom Berry struck, called the 60-day sentence “a disgusting miscarriage of justice.” “He made an enemy of everyone on that flight,” Galarza said. He also defended the way Berry was physically restrained. Although it “looked a bit barbaric,” Galarza said, “the people on that aircraft saw justice happen — more than what we saw today.”<br/>

Allegiant Travel Company, the parent of Allegiant Air, expects “substantial opportunities” to propel its earnings during 2022 as it experienced the “busiest and best Spring ever”. The Las Vegas-based low-cost carrier says that the first three months of the year were a turning point for the company as it recovers from the two-year pandemic. Revenue topped $500m during Q1 2022, up from $279m in the same period in 2021, and even higher than the $452 million Allegiant posted in the first quarter of pre-pandemic 2019. “The first quarter marked a sizable shift in the demand environment,” says Maurice Gallagher, the company’s CE. It is Gallagher’s 61st and final time presiding over the company results, as he steps down from the post, which he’s held since 2003, in June. His successor is company president John Redmond. While revenue rose, costs also climbed, leaving the company with a $7.9m loss for the quarter, from a $6.9m profit last year. The airline says it was forced to cancel more than 1,000 flights – or 12% of its schedule - in late December and early January, as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 tore through the company’s ranks. But the company says it was able to stabilize the operation by March, when more travellers returned as well for spring break travel.<br/>

Ryanair’s load factor - a measure of how well an airline is filling available seats - rose above 90% for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as traffic rose sharply during the key Easter holiday period. Ryanair flew 14.2m people in April compared to just 1m during lockdown a year ago and 13.5m in April 2019, the second month in a row it has carried more passengers than in the corresponding pre-pandemic period. The Irish airline, Europe’s largest by passenger numbers, said it operated over 82,600 flights in April with a 91% load factor. CE Michael O’Leary said earlier this year that he expected Ryanair’s aircraft to be almost 90% full by April and above that level in the summer. The airline has said it is profitable when occupancy reaches 80%. Its load factor regularly reached at least 96% a month before the pandemic. The low cost carrier expects to fly 14% more capacity this summer than in the same season of 2019, and will carry a record 165m passengers in the year to March 2023 up from just under 100m in the previous year and a pre-COVID record of 149 million.<br/>

Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air on Wednesday lost its court challenge against E36.66m of rescue aid Romanian carrier TAROM received during the COVID-19 pandemic which was cleared by EU competition regulators. The General Court of the European Union, the EU's second-highest legal chamber, upheld the EC's approval of the state aid in 2020. The aid was compatible with EU internal market rules, it said, because it aimed to prevent the social hardship that a disruption to TAROM services might have caused for connectivity of regions in Romania. The aid, which Romania disclosed to the commission in February 2020, consisted of a loan to finance TAROM's liquidity needs repayable after six months. The commission approved the aid in the same month. Wizz Air sought to overturn the commission's decision, contending that the aid failed to meet two conditions - that it contributed to an objective of common interest and that the company should not have received rescue aid before. The EU court said that an objective of common interest included preventing social hardship or market failure and the commission was right to seek this as a risk given the poor condition of Romania's road and rail infrastructure. It said that further aid could be granted if at least 10 years had elapsed from earlier restructuring and that this was the case for TAROM.<br/>

Aeroflot Group’s budget carrier Pobeda has obtained permission to operate services to Iran from Russia’s civil aviation regulator. Pobeda will be permitted to fly twice-weekly between Moscow and Tehran, according to the decision disclosed by federal air transport authority Rosaviatsia. All Pobeda flights are conducted with a fleet of Boeing 737s. It had previously indicated that it would reduce the number of aircraft in its operation, owing to the reduction in demand. The Iranian clearance is among a batch of approvals for new services, although the sanctions imposed on Russian air transport have limited the scope. Utair has been authorised to operate Indian flights from Moscow, to Mumbai and Delhi. Other new routes – covering destinations outside of Russia, China and former Soviet states – include services to Korea, Turkey, Greece, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates.<br/>

Hainan Airlines swung back to profitability in 2021, but began the new year posting a steep operating loss as China’s pandemic-related curbs impacted travel demand. For the year to 31 December 2021, the carrier posted an operating profit of CNY3.5b ($530m) - a significant improvement from the record CNY71.6b operating loss in 2020. Hainan, which in January completed business restructuring, reported a 16% year-on-year increase in revenues to CNY34b, while costs fell 9% to CNY46b. The carrier posted a full-year net profit of CNY4.7b, reversing the CNY64b net loss in 2020. Hainan’s full-year earnings contrast with that of China’s three largest carriers, which were all loss-making in 2021. The carrier, previously part of the debt-laden HNA Group, was placed under new management under strategic investor Liaoning Fangda Group Industrial in early December 2021. Liaoning Fangda was selected last September as the embattled HNA Group’s strategic investor, paving for it to be the controlling shareholder of the group’s aviation businesses. Despite improved financial performance in 2021, Hainan warns that it was far from being out of the woods. It notes that global aviation recovery remains slow with “much uncertainty”. <br/>

Chinese carrier Loong Air has become the first to sign for a new Airbus pilot-training scheme, whereby airlines use operational and training data to tailor and adapt the programme. The evidence-based training initiative extends the competency-based training and assessment product already offered by the airframer. Chinese carriers, says Airbus, are leading the “appetite” for evidence-based training, as a result of regulatory measures developed by the Civil Aviation Administration of China which include requiring the country’s airlines to implement such schemes by 2024. Hangzhou-based Loong Air chair Liu Qihong says the carrier will be the launch customer for the new Airbus service, and the first operator in China to “step into the new era” of flight training. The evidence-based training service is intended to be flexible and enable airlines – with their own instructors and full-flight simulators – to conduct the training rather than having it take place at a dedicated Airbus centre. With data analytics central to the concept, Airbus has signed a memorandum of understanding with human factors and training-data specialist Hinfact, located in Toulouse. Hinfact says the complexity of aircraft systems, with their high level of automation, has changed the way pilots interact with aircraft and demands evolution of technical and non-technical skills. Airbus and airlines will acquire Hinfact software as part of the evidence-based training deployment, using it to draw operational and simulator data and, through its analytics capability, identify areas for competency improvement and suggest the need for customised training sessions.<br/>