unaligned

Southwest pilots’ union plans to hold a vote that could give it the power to call a potential strike, a move that comes weeks after the carrier’s holiday meltdown further strained ties with its workers’ unions. Even if Southwest’s pilots vote in favor of giving the union authority to call a strike, it wouldn’t be immediate and it would require clearance from the federal National Mediation Board. Southwest and the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association have been in negotiations for a new contract for years. Union leaders have focused on better work rules and scheduling for Southwest workers. During the travel chaos last month, many pilots and flight attendants were stranded and had to wait on hold to reach schedulers or hotel services. The union’s president, Casey Murray, said it was the first time it has held a strike authorization vote. “This decision is not one based on emotion, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t angry,” Murray wrote Wednesday to pilots. He said the union is also negotiating “gratitude pay to compensate our Pilots who suffered through the meltdown.” The strike vote will begin May 1, Murray said. Scheduling it for then means “we can best prepare for and give our customers time to book elsewhere so that they may have confidence in their summer vacations, honeymoons, and family outings,” he wrote to members. “The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association’s call for an authorization vote does not affect Southwest’s operation or our ability to take care of our Customers,” Adam Carlisle, vice president of labor relations at Southwest, said in a statement. “We will continue to follow the process outlined in the Railway Labor Act and work under the assistance of the National Mediation Board toward reaching an agreement that rewards our Pilots and places them competitively in the industry.” <br/>

Frontier Airlines did away with its customer service call line a few months ago in favor of a messaging-based system available on multiple platforms. The airline says customer response has been good so far, but a number of Frontier passengers told USA TODAY that their experience with the new protocol was decidedly less positive. Joe Lorenz was booked to fly from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Denver to celebrate the New Year, and he received a message that his flight was canceled while he was on his way to the airport. He and his travel companions ended up renting a car and driving from Michigan to Colorado, but they were unable to confirm whether the reservation for their flight home was still valid. "I'm not doing it again. It's a deal breaker for me," he said. "We're fairly tech-savvy people. I can't imagine trying to deal with this if we didn't have three people on this trying to figure it out." Lorenz said getting in touch with the airline is frustrating and time-consuming using the new system. First, he said, the messaging app sent him through a series of automated prompts. It took Lorenz about 20 minutes to connect with a live agent through the chat, and even then, that person's responses were delayed. "Every time you ask this person, it's legitimately five to 10 minutes before they answer," he said, adding that the third-party customer service agents he dealt with were never able to confirm whether or not his return flight booking was still valid. Lorenz was unable to resolve an issue with online check-in for his return flight via customer service messages, too. Instead, he had to speak to a ticket agent at the airport, which he said resulted in a $25 charge for in-person check-in, which is Frontier's standard "airport agent assistance" fee.<br/>

A JetBlue flight at JFK Airport in New York City bumped into another plane just days after a near-collision at the airport sparked an investigation by the FAA. The most recent incident took place on Wednesday morning, WABC reported. Officials said that Flight 1603 to San Juan, Puerto Rico was set to take off at 6am, but the aircraft was taken back to the gate and out of service after it struck the tail of another plane operated by the same airline. The struck aircraft had no one inside it. The flight took off at 7.50am once all the passengers had boarded another plane. No injuries were recorded, officials said, but the FAA will investigate the incident. The plane “came into light contact with a parked unoccupied aircraft during pushback,” a spokesperson for JetBlue said, according to NBC New York. The planes were of the same model – Airbus A320s. JetBlue said both of them will be taken out of service. “JetBlue Flight 1603 struck the tail of a parked JetBlue aircraft while pushing back from the gate around 7am at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York,” the FAA said. “The flight was going to Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Both aircraft were Airbus 320. No injuries were reported, and the FAA will investigate.” The news of the collision comes after a tense audio recording captured air traffic controllers’ panic as two commercial planes nearly collided at the airport on Friday night.<br/>

Pilots and flight attendants of Mexican airline Aeromar will hold off on a possible strike despite being owed millions of dollars, their unions said Tuesday, hours before a deadline to reach an agreement with the company was set to expire. It was a positive sign for the 35-year-old regional airline after the Mexico City International Airport on Friday confiscated two of Aeromar's hangars following its "refusal to comply with payment obligations" of some 500m pesos ($26.7m), according to the airport. Flight attendants union ASSA said it had chosen to hold off on the strike "for the sake of safeguarding the company once again". Aeromar met with airport officials Monday to present a payment plan, Mexico's transportation ministry said, adding that its operations at Mexico City continued to operate normally. The carrier, which operates 10 ATR turboprop planes, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Aeromar's plight has attracted attention from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is also working to revive the brand of defunct carrier Mexicana to launch a military-run commercial airline. He said in October that the government was willing to help Aeromar to pay off debts owed to the country's tax authority and to its employees in installments.<br/>

Ryanair is likely to focus on organic growth in the coming years, having found its acquisitions to be “a pain in the arse”, according to group CE Michael O’Leary. Speaking in London on 17 January as he launched Ryanair’s UK summer schedule, O’Leary said the low-cost giant is “much keener on organic growth and ordering more aircraft” than looking to acquire other carriers. “We’ve done two M&As,” he states. “We did Buzz at Stansted about 20 years ago, we did Lauda in Vienna about four years ago. Both of them have been a pain in the arse.” Among his reasons for disliking acquisitions, O’Leary explains that “it’s very challenging from a cost point of view, as you are generally buying someone else’s mess and then it takes three or four years to tidy it up”. Ryanair eventually took full control of Lauda in January 2019. On Ryanair’s experience, he describes the timing of its acquisition of Austrian carrier Laudamotion in early 2019 as “spectacularly awful”. “We bought it just before Covid shut flying down for two years,” he says, adding that the unit is now profitable and growing. He further laments the regulatory challenges that come with acquisitions activity, citing his carrier’s multiple failed attempts to purchase Aer Lingus. “Most M&A in the case of Ryanair gets blocked by the European Commission,” he says, complaining that legacy carriers have not been subject to the same roadblocks in their acquisitions activity. Moreover, O’Leary says that Ryanair has a “skinny management team” and that organic growth is proving “so efficient” for the business.<br/>

Officials in Nepal said on Wednesday there was no chance of finding any survivors of the country's deadliest plane crash in 30 years, but workers will continue to search for the remains of the last missing passenger. Rescue teams used drones and rappelled down deep gorges on Tuesday to sift through the charred remains of the Yeti Airlines ATR 72 turboprop, which was carrying 72 people when it crashed near the tourist city of Pokhara on Sunday morning. "There is no possibility of finding any survivor. We have collected 71 bodies so far. The search for the last one will continue," Tek Bahadur K.C., a top district official in Pokhara, said on Wednesday. Identifying bodies and accounting for all 72 people has been difficult because of the state of the remains, said Ajay K.C, a police official at the rescue site. "Until the hospital tests show all 72 bodies, we’ll continue to search for the last person," Ajay K.C said. Search teams found 68 bodies on the day of the crash, and two more were recovered on Monday before the search was called off. One more body had been recovered as of late Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Teams had diverted the flow of a nearby river to look for bodies, said Gurudutt Ghimire, another official who is part of search operations.<br/>

Passengers aboard a Vistara flight to Mumbai on Wednesday found themselves back in Singapore after a malfunction forced its pilots to circle back. According to the Flightradar website, flight UK106 departed Singapore at about 11am. The Airbus A321 was then seen circling over Malaysia before returning to Changi Airport. In response to queries from The Straits Times, a spokesman for Vistara said a technical snag was detected in one of the engines of the aircraft shortly after take-off. “As a precautionary step, the pilots decided to turn back and landed the aircraft safely at Changi Airport,” he said, adding that Vistara is working with partner airlines to offer alternative flight options to affected passengers. Most of the passengers have been transferred to other flights scheduled to take off on the same day, he added. Although Vistara did not say how many passengers were on board, its website states that the Airbus A321 in its fleet can seat 188 passengers. ST understands that some passengers were transferred to a Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight slated for departure on Wednesday evening. They were also given meal vouchers. The latest malfunction comes a week after a Vistara flight departing from Delhi had to return after a malfunction was detected. On Jan 9, the flight carrying 140 passengers from the Indian capital to Bhubaneshwar – a city in eastern India – had to make an emergency landing back in Delhi after it was found to have experienced hydraulic failure. India’s aviation watchdog, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation, has launched an investigation into the incident.<br/>

AirAsia Aviation is considering plans to deploy its Airbus A330s from the southern Malaysian state of Johor, as the airline eyes opportunities to ramp up its presence in the state. Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia Aviation parent Capital A, says it would be “my next dream” to operate the A330s from Johor’s Senai airport to Australia, Japan and South Korea. Fernandes was speaking at the launch of Asia Digital Engineering’s new hangar facility at Senai airport on 18 January. Asia Digital Engineering is the MRO unit of Capital A. Senai airport is a hub for AirAsia Malaysia, which operates multiple domestic flights a day, as well as international flights to cities like Bangkok. Should AirAsia operate its widebodies – usually flown by medium-haul sister unit AirAsia X – from Johor, it would mark the first time the airline is flying them outside of its Kuala Lumpur hub. Fernandes’ disclosure on 18 January comes as AirAsia Aviation units in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia are in the midst of ramping up system-wide capacity following the Covid-19 pandemic. The group is in the process of bringing back parked aircraft to service. According to Fernandes, AirAsia Aviation has returned 140 aircraft to service, with a further 64 to be brought back<br/>