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Fort Worth-based American Airlines is facing accusations of racial discrimination after removing two Black celebrities from flights during the last week and is being sued in federal court by a Black passenger for also being kicked off a flight. Dallas track star Sha’Carri Richardson said she was forced to leave an American Airlines flight Saturday after a confrontation with a flight attendant who confronted her while she was making a video during pre-flight announcements, according to videos the hopeful Olympian posted to Instagram. That came after New York rapper Talib Kweli said he was threatened with arrest and removed from an American Airlines flight last week following a dispute with a flight attendant over the size of his personal bag and carry-on luggage. American Airlines was also sued in U.S. District Court in North Florida on Friday by a Black man who said he was kicked off a flight in “an act of blatant racial discrimination” following a dispute with a flight attendant. “@americanair is racist. Period,” Talib Kweli said on his verified Instagram page where he shared the Richardson incident. “If this is how they are treated Black folks with fame privilege imagine how they are treating Black folks without large platforms!” American Airlines has faced issues with its treatment of Black flyers before. In 2017, the NAACP issued a travel advisory to Black passengers to avoid flying the airline after a series of complaints about interactions between the carrier and Black individuals. The NAACP dropped the travel advisory in 2018 and American Airlines has instituted implicit bias training and reviewed its complaint system to try to address racial discrimination. American Airlines chief diversity officer Cedric Rockamore said a company of this size is going to get complaints, but the overall number of passenger complaints and discrimination complaints have decreased in recent years. Every American Airlines employee is required to undergo implicit bias and discrimination training, he said, including frontline workers.<br/>

Finnair has drawn up incentive plans to support its strategic efforts to restore profitability, based on pre-tax earnings targets. It has approved a personnel plan for 2023-25 which covers staff groups that contributed to savings agreement as the carrier sought to reduce unit costs – this plan envisions a cash payout in the first quarter of 2026 if the earnings margin is achieved. Finnair’s board could approve the addition of further personnel groups to the plan. The airline is also offering a share-based plan for management to encourage an increase in long-term shareholder value. This plan, which includes around 70 participants, will cover 2023-24 and 2023-25. CE Topi Manner and the company’s executive board are among those taking part. It will result in a share payout if Finnair reaches the earnings margin target. The margin for 2023-24 is based on restoration of profitability while that for 2023-25 centres on “significant” profitability improvement, the airline states. Finnair says it is reinstating long-term remuneration for the senior management, following its suspension for three years as part of the Finnish government’s support programme during the pandemic. Up to 9.1m shares in total could be transferred to participants after each performance period. “Restoration of Finnair’s profitability after two significant successive external crises has…got off to a good start,” says Finnair chair Jouko Karvinen. “We want to support the journey towards profitability, profit improvement and value creation with long-term programmes that have a common improvement metric and clearly increase shareholder value.”<br/>

A British Airways flight from London has been forced to make a landing in Italy after smoke started reportedly filling the cockpit. The plane landed safely at Catullo airport in Verona, Italy. There are no reports of any injuries to passengers, and firefighters are currently at the scene, according to the website of the Italian daily newspaper Leggo. A BA spokesperson told Express.co.uk: "Our pilots requested a priority landing in Verona as a precaution due to a minor technical issue. The aircraft landed normally and customers disembarked as usual."<br/>The airport is located just over six miles southwest of Verona and is situated next to the junction of A4 Milan-Venice and A22 Modena-Brenner motorways.<br/>

Qantas Airways, the airline whose stellar safety record was made famous by Hollywood, is back in the spotlight after a flurry of mechanical malfunctions. The Australian airline has been hit by a spate of in-flight issues since the middle of last week, starting with a mayday alert and engine shutdown on a plane from Auckland to Sydney. At least four aircraft have since turned around because of problems with wing flaps, warning indicator lights or fumes in the cabin. The planes all landed safely. The series of incidents is particularly wounding for an airline that has built — and touted — a reputation for safety. Qantas has never suffered a fatal jet accident, a benchmark that entered popular culture when Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1988 movie Rainman insisted it was the only airline he would fly. More than three decades later, a key question is whether Qantas has lost its safety edge after repeated cost cuts and job losses under CEO Alan Joyce, or has simply been unlucky in the past week.Either way, the recent problems have put Australia’s largest airline under scrutiny again, months after it appeared to have resolved an embarrassing run of cancellations, delays and baggage losses. Joyce, who has forged a reputation for shredding expenses to deliver bumper profits during his 14 years in charge, is once more being blamed on social media for the airline’s woes. He’s become such a lightning rod for online vitriol these days that a single cockpit warning light or a smoky oven in the cabin can end up reigniting calls for his resignation. “There’s that cynicism that customers have every time something like this happens — are they spending enough on maintenance?” said Natalie McKenna, a lecturer in strategic communication at La Trobe University in Melbourne. “There is absolutely reputational damage. I think customers are starting to turn away from Qantas.” <br/>