Spirit Airlines said Tuesday it plans to open a crew base at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, a United Airlines hub, the latest expansion as the discounter plots growth at large airports. Miramar, Florida-based Spirit in March announced crew bases at Delta Air Lines-dominated Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport and American Airlines hub Miami International Airport. Spirit says it plans to have 150 pilots and 300 flight attendants based in Houston, starting this fall. The carrier and its rivals have been scrambling to staff up to meet strong travel demand and improve reliability. Last summer, Spirit said thousands of flight cancellations over a 10-day stretch cost it about $50m. Establishing a crew base in Houston, where it currently averages 22 departures a day, would mean staff who live in the area wouldn’t have to commute from another city, a common practice in aviation. Spirit said it would open a maintenance facility in Houston. It already has a maintenance facility in Detroit. The carrier is scheduled to end 2022 with a fleet of 197 Airbus narrow-body jets, after getting 24 new planes this year. The new base comes amid a bidding war for Spirit. Fellow budget carrier Frontier Airlines and Spirit announced plans to merge in February, but JetBlue Airways swooped in with a rival all-cash takeover bid in April. While Spirit repeatedly rebuffed JetBlue, the airline has struggled to gain shareholder support for the Frontier combination, according to Frontier, and has postponed an investor vote on that deal four times to continue talks with both carriers, a sign that the Spirit-Frontier deal is under threat. It most recently scheduled a vote for July 27.<br/>
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Porter Airlines has announced a firm order for 20 Embraer E195-E2 passenger jets with a total list price value of US$1.56 billion as the company looks to further strengthen its presence and customer base in Eastern Canada. The airline said in a news release Tuesday that it plans to fly the new jets to business and leisure destinations in Canada, the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean, from Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. First delivery and entry into service is scheduled for the second half of this year, the company said. Porter said the purchase follows its deal last year for 30 Embraer E195-E2 jets, which have capacity of upwards of about 146 seats, with purchase rights for a further 50 aircraft. The deal brings Porter’s orders with Embraer to a total of 50 firm commitments and 50 purchase rights. Porter CEO Michael Deluce said that the aircraft will become core to the airline’s fleet.<br/>
The CE of EasyJet said the low-cost airline had stabilised it flight operations after cutting its summer schedule last month, but melting runways and air traffic control (ATC) restrictions were not helping during a "challenging summer". CEO Johan Lundgren said easyJet's daily operations were back to pre-pandemic levels after the cuts, which followed caps on capacity at London Gatwick and Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. "We can't help if runways are closed down because they're melting, we have help if air traffic control puts restrictions into the flow system," he said at the Farnborough Airshow on Tuesday. "But the things that actually are within our control, that's been stabilised." Flights at Britain's London Luton Airport were temporarily disrupted on Monday after soaring temperatures caused a defect in its runway, prompting airlines including easyJet to divert planes. Lundgren said easyJet had removed a row of seats in its A319 aircraft to free up a member of cabin crew and had deployed more staff in airports to increase resilience. "Having said that, we can't be complacent because we know that there are challenges around the ATC environment, ground handlers, airports," he said. Lundgren said he backed airports capping flights, adding that easyJet's cuts were in line with the moves. "We were supportive of (a cap), because clearly the airport is in the best situation to evaluate what the whole of the system can deliver, in terms of ground handlers as an example," he said. "For the sake of the customer, it is the airport who has the best view of the situation. One ground handler who fails working with one other airline will impact us as well because there will be delays."<br/>
Aerospace giant Rolls-Royce said Tuesday it was pairing up with airline easyJet to develop and test hydrogen combustion engine technology for aircraft. London-listed Rolls-Royce said the two companies would work together on a range of ground-based tests slated to begin this year. Both firms had “a shared ambition to take the technology into the air,” it added. easyJet carried the same statement about the partnership on its website. The goal of the collaboration, called H2ZERO, “is to demonstrate that hydrogen has the potential to power a range of aircraft from the mid-2030s onwards,” Rolls-Royce said. According to the company — not to be confused with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, which is owned by BMW — the firms will conduct an “early concept ground test” of a Rolls-Royce engine using the hydrogen technology in the U.K. this year. A full-scale ground test of the technology using a Pearl 15 jet engine will follow on from this, with Mississippi mooted as a potential location. Tuesday’s announcement follows a statement on Monday in which Rolls-Royce outlined its plans for the above ground tests. “The technology that emerges from this programme has the potential to power easyJet-size aircraft, which is why we will also be making a multi-million pound investment into this programme,” Johan Lundgren, the easyJet CEO, said. “In order to achieve decarbonisation at scale, progress on the development of zero emission technology for narrowbody aircraft is crucial,” Lundgren added.<br/>