A major airline union said Friday that it has enough support among JetBlue Airways’ roughly 3,000 fleet service staff to seek a unionization vote, in the latest move to organize workers. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said it will file an application for a union vote with the National Mediation Board. The work group includes baggage handlers and other ground operations employees. A vote in favor could create the third-largest unionized work group at the New York-based airline. JetBlue’s pilots and flight attendants are already unionized. It would come during a wave of union votes across companies from Amazon to Starbucks. A vote could also take place while JetBlue is in the process of trying to acquire budget airline Spirit Airlines, where more than 80% of employees are represented by unions, compared with JetBlue’s 46%, according to annual company filings. Ensuring more predictable schedules is one of the pillars of a potential labor contract for the fleet service workers, said IAM’s air transport territory general vice president, Richard Johnsen. “They really have never had that opportunity to have a say in their future,” he said. “Now might be the most critical time.” Staff schedules plunged early in the pandemic but surged along with travel demand as Covid cases waned, sparking tensions with airline unions across the US. “JetBlue values its relationship with all of our crewmembers including our ground operations crewmembers who, for the last two years, helped manage the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic,” the carrier said in a statement. “We firmly believe that the direct relationship we have with our ground operations crewmembers has worked, and will continue to work, and that third-party representation and the costs to our crewmembers that come with it are not in their best interests.”<br/>
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The union for Sunwing Airlines pilots said it is urging Canada's government to stop a plan by the Ontario-based leisure carrier to hire foreign pilots this winter to help cope with an expected holiday travel surge. Airline industry use of foreign pilots as aviation rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic is sensitive for unions in Canada and the United States. Those unions want greater efforts to hire pilots from the airlines' home countries despite complaints of shortages. "It's a punch in the face," Barret Armann, president of the union local that represents Sunwing pilots, said of the plan to hire non-Canadian pilots, adding that Labor Minister Seamus O'Regan "needs to step in and stop this." Sunwing will apply with the government to bring in 65 pilots this winter as temporary foreign workers due partly to a "staffing issue" in the summer, according to a Unifor union local memo to pilots citing a meeting last week with airline management. Sunwing is in the midst of being acquired by Canada's second-largest carrier WestJet Airlines, owned by private equity firm Onex Corp. It was not clear whether Sunwing has started a formal process to hire foreign pilots. Sunwing did not reply to requests for comment. The memo described a job ad from Czech carrier SmartWings that said "foreign pilots will indeed work (in Canada) under our contract but be paid more than 75% of our pilots." The memo said Sunwing has available pilots in Canada.<br/>
An airport serving France's southern Mediterranean coast is closed indefinitely after a cargo plane overshot its runway on landing and finished nose-down in the water of an adjacent lake before dawn on Saturday (local time). The three people aboard were rescued unharmed from the Boeing 737 that was laden with air freight and came to a stop in reeds, grass and water at the airport outside the city of Montpellier, regional authorities said. The Bureau d’enquêtes et d’analyses (BEA) posted photos of the plane on Twitter. “Accident of @BoeingFrance #737 registered EC-NLS operated by #WestAtlantic / runway excursion during landing on 24/09/22 at the airport of @mplaeroport/ 4 investigators @BEA_Aero on site / opening of a security investigation.” The West Atlantic plane had arrived from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. The airport is closed to passenger and cargo flights until the plane has been moved, authorities said. An accident investigation in underway.<br/>
Flights were cancelled across Spain's Canary Islands on Sunday, airport operator Aena said, as storm Hermine moved in from over the Atlantic, bringing heavy rains to the popular holiday destination. There had been 141 cancellations by mid-afternoon across many of the islands, including 62 from Tenerife North airport, 23 from La Palma, 20 from El Hierro, eight from Lanzarote and four from La Gomera. Heavy rainfall flooded streets, and some were blocked by fallen trees. Spain's national weather agency, Aemet, has issued a red weather alert for the islands of Gran Canaria, La Palma and El Hierro from midday until midnight on Sunday.<br/>
EasyJet said its holidays unit would deliver pretax profit in excess of GBP35m ($39m) in the year to end-September, despite the disruption suffered by the British airline this summer. CE Johan Lundgren said before an analyst presentation that the business was "well on track" to achieve more than GBP100m in profit in the medium term. EasyJet will update on full-year trading on Oct.13. It has not provided guidance for group profit given the uncertainty in the market.<br/>