Hawaiian Airlines will operate 10 cargo planes for Amazon.com starting next fall under a deal that could eventually involve more planes and give Amazon a 15% stake in the airline. The airline’s parent company, Hawaiian Holdings Inc., said Friday that it will fly and maintain an “initial fleet” of 10 leased Airbus A330-300 jets for the retail giant. The fleet could grow “depending on Amazon’s future business needs,” the company said. Hawaiian said it issued warrants that Amazon can exercise over the next nine years and acquire up to 15% of Hawaiian stock. Shares of Hawaiian Holdings jumped 13% in afternoon trading on Friday. When travel plunged and consumer spending spiked early in the pandemic, airlines began carrying more cargo and demand for freighter planes grew. More recently, the cargo business has cooled off as consumer spending shifted away from goods toward services including travel, and airlines have been stuck with excess cargo capacity. Global demand for cargo fell 8.3% in August compared with a year earlier, the IATA reported this month. Hawaiian said it won’t use any of its current planes to serve Amazon. Instead, Amazon’s air division will lease the first 10 planes -- which will be converted from passenger jets to freighters -- from leasing company Altavair. “This relationship provides a catalyst to grow our business and the unique opportunity to diversify our revenue sources while capitalizing on our established strengths,” said Hawaiian CEO Peter Ingram. The A330-300 is a large, two-aisle plane that usually has about 330 seats when used for passenger flights.<br/>
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Mexican airline Interjet, which was declared bankrupt by a judge in August, has been ordered to pay out 144 million pesos ($7.23 million) to thousands of clients in a class action lawsuit, the country’s consumer protection office said Friday. The ruling is a win for fliers who faced flight cancellations, delays and unjust charges from 2018 to 2020, the prosecuting office known as Profeco said in a statement. A spokesperson for Interjet did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Interjet abruptly stopped flying in 2020, and the carrier’s union has since been protesting for what they allege amounts to months of unpaid wages and benefits. Interjet’s outstanding payments are suspended until a March deadline, by which it is required to reach a deal with its creditors, according the August bankruptcy ruling. Other affected passengers will have until next October to join a second phase of the class action suit, Profeco said. <br/>
Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air is drawing up plans for flights from the UK to the Middle East and Asia as part of an ambitious expansion into the long-haul market. The London listed carrier, which focuses on the European short-haul market, is planning trips out of the UK to destinations that could include the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Saudi Arabia. It will use some of the 47 new longer-range single-aisle A321XLR planes it has on order from Airbus on the routes, said Marion Geoffroy, the managing director of Wizz Air UK. The narrow body jet took its first flight in June, with the aircraft slated to enter service in 2024, according to Airbus. “Of course, the UK would be a good market [for the XLR], and we’ve actually started the design of the potential network for XLRs and secured some designations to countries where we currently don’t fly to,” she said. The airline, founded in 2004 and listed in London in 2015, has grown to become a major competitor to Ryanair in Europe’s low-cost market. But it has suffered a difficult year and been badly exposed to the sudden rise in the price of jet fuel after abandoning fuel hedging during the pandemic. Its shares, which hit record highs in 2021, have fallen nearly 70 per cent this year, as investors bet on Ryanair dominating the European low-cost market. However, Wizz’s problems have not stopped the airline from extending its ambitions beyond Europe and come as it pursues a wider strategy of growth in the Middle East, where it has set up a joint venture in Abu Dhabi.<br/>
India's air safety watchdog has lifted its restrictions on budget carrier SpiceJet's operations and will allow the airline to operate at full capacity from Oct. 30, Reuters partner ANI said in a tweet on Friday. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had halved the airline's approved fleet in July this year for a period of eight weeks, citing safety concerns. The restriction was extended till Oct. 29.<br/>