Morocco’s national airline said it was canceling all flights it had scheduled for Wednesday to carry fans to Doha for the World Cup semi-final, citing what it said was a decision by Qatari authorities. “Following the latest restrictions imposed by the Qatari authorities, Royal Air Maroc regrets to inform customers of the cancellation of their flights operated by Qatar Airways,” the airline said. The Qatari government’s international media office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Royal Air Maroc had previously said it would lay on 30 additional flights to help fans get to Qatar for Wednesday night’s semi-final game against France but on Tuesday a source at a RAM travel agency said only 14 flights had been scheduled. The cancellation of Wednesday’s seven scheduled flights means RAM was only able to fly the seven flights on Tuesday, leaving fans who had already booked match tickets or hotel rooms unable to travel. RAM said it would reimburse air tickets and apologized to customers.<br/>
oneworld
Cathay Pacific saw strong traffic growth in November on the back of Hong Kong’s continued opening as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic. During November Cathay carried 527,000 passengers, up sevenfold from a year earlier, according to its traffic results. While this marked a significant jump, it is still 80% lower than in pre-pandemic November 2019. RPKs grew six-fold from a year earlier as ASKs doubled. Cathay’s passenger load factor saw a big improvement, jumping 51.7 percentage points to 78.5%. “We continue to see positive signs for our travel business,” says chief customer officer Ronald Lam. “Sentiment and demand for travel out of Hong Kong continued to improve in November. We also saw increased visiting friends and relatives traffic into Hong Kong, particularly from long-haul origins such as North America, Europe and the South West Pacific. Transit traffic via the Hong Kong hub also improved as we grow our network of destinations.” Cathay’s November cargo carriage, however, fell 23.8% from a year earlier, and its cargo load factor dropped 15.6 percentage points to 66.9%. Cargo capacity as measured by AFTKs dropped 11% year on year. “Production activities in the Chinese Mainland and trade flows remained constrained,” says Lam of Cathay’s cargo result. <br/>
Hong Kong’s High Court approved Hong Kong Airlines Ltd.’s HK$49b debt restructuring plan, boosting the carrier’s chance of survival after years of financial turmoil. At a hearing Wednesday, Justice Jonathan Harris said the court was sanctioning a so-called scheme of arrangements for Hong Kong Airlines. Counsel for the carrier, which is backed by bankrupt Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co., said there was no opposition to the plan. A court in England signed off on a parallel proposal last week. Hong Kong Airlines plans to jettison 33 aircraft from its 53-strong fleet, while HNA Aviation will oversee the issuance of new shares to an investor to raise about HK$3b for the airline. The carrier was struggling to repay debt even before the Covid crisis, when anti-government protests in 2019 kept visitors away from Hong Kong. Several of its aircraft were seized after a failure to make payments. The airline has scaled back operations, having flown to 34 destinations prior to the pandemic. The court approval is timely as the process of renewing Hong Kong Airlines’ transport license is due to begin this month.<br/>
Qantas will increase its domestic services on the “golden triangle” early next year as the airline’s on-time performance and cancellation rate return to pre-COVID-19 levels. The number of return services between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane will increase by 57 per week from March, helping to raise the airline’s domestic capacity to 93% of 2019 levels. The airline also announced that about 50% of flights from Melbourne and Sydney to Perth will be serviced by Qantas’s Airbus A330 fleet. Qantas’ group customer officer Markus Svensson said the decision recognised the carrier’s operational performance had returned to 2019 levels and hoped the increased number of seats would incentivise customers with flight credits to redeem them now the airline is better placed after a dismal couple of months earlier in the year. “The data shows most customers have already redeemed their COVID credits but there’s still a significant number who are yet to put them to use,” Svensson said. “Our systems were never designed to unwind literally millions of bookings due to a pandemic and there have been some obvious challenges for us and for customers that we’ve worked hard to fix.” The airline is awaiting $600m in Qantas credits to be redeemed by customers yet to re-book after losing flights to the coronavirus pandemic. In an attempt to incentivise those holding on to their credits, the airline is offering double Frequent Flyer points if they book before February next year. More than $1.2b in travel credits have been used by passengers over the past two years but all outstanding COVID-19 credits will expire by the end of 2023.<br/>