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The music was blaring on a February afternoon when Francisco Torres stopped by a Massachusetts barbershop, proclaiming he was half-angel, half-devil. He wanted a dozen people to come outside the shop and shoot him with an automatic weapon stored in his car trunk. Before anyone could make sense of the request, Torres fled the shop and drove off. They never saw a weapon and he didn’t return. “I didn’t get what he was saying but then I realized he was talking about a gun. I told him there are kids in here, why are you saying this,” said Saul Perez, who was visiting friends at the shop and noted that an employee called 911, ushered children into the back and shut down the shop. “I was spooked.” The incident took place about a week before Torres would be arrested for attacking a flight attendant and attempting to open the plane’s emergency door on a cross-country United flight from Los Angeles to Boston earlier this month. In a video taken by a fellow passenger, Torres loudly threatens to kill people and promises a bloodbath before charging the front of the plane, where a group of passengers tackled him down to the ground to restrain him. He remains behind bars pending a mental health evaluation, with a judge ruling he “may presently be suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent.” Torres objected to the evaluation through his federal public defender, Joshua Hanye, who didn’t return a call Thursday seeking additional comment. A relative for Torres would not comment on the case. The flight attack was part of a decadeslong pattern of Torres demonstrating signs of a mental illness. He spent time in mental health facilities, according to lawsuits since closed that he filed in 2021 and 2022 against two hospitals in Massachusetts. Torres says he argued in one of the lawsuits that he was misdiagnosed for a mental illness and, in the other, that he was discriminated against for being vegan.<br/>

Last year Aegean Airlines outperformed its record of 2019, when there had been no Covid-19 restrictions. Compared to the last year before the pandemic, the airline group added 2% in turnover and 36% in profits after taxes, which amounted to E1.34b and E107m respectively. Last year, Aegean offered 15.8m seats and transported 73% more passengers year-on-year. Their total number reached 12.5m people, of whom 7.3m represent international traffic. Also, in 2022 Aegean allocated 90% of its 2019 Available Seat Kilometers, climbing to 99% of pre-pandemic levels especially in Q4.<br/>

Greek carrier Aegean is to double its spare aircraft capacity this year in order to protect its network against supply-chain issues. Speaking during a full-year briefing, chairman Eftichios Vassilakis disclosed the plan to retain “a very large number of aircraft” as back-up as it aimed to conduct “significantly higher” activity over the course of 2023. Vassilakis says the carrier – which aims to build a fleet of 76 aircraft this year – wants to improve resilience against potential supply problems, including issues with delivery delays or engines, and ensure a “robust” operation. “We’re doubling spare capacity in order to deal with that,” he states. Aegean is modernising its fleet with Airbus A320neo-family jets. CE Dimitris Gerogiannis says it received nine last year, but originally 12 had been scheduled. Nine more are to arrive this year, he adds. Gerogiannis says the airline has also completed the withdrawal of its De Havilland Dash 8-400 turboprop fleet, having replaced them with ATR 72-600s. He says the ATR operation is “more efficient” than that of the Dash 8s, and that the carrier also secured “significantly better terms” with lessors. While the ATR has a “range disadvantage” against the Dash 8, he says, this is “not relevant” to Aegean’s network because it deploys its jet fleet on longer routes. Gerogiannis adds that the fleet renewal has led to a “less complex” and “more uniform” operation for the carrier.<br/>

Lufthansa Group appears to be nearing the formal launch of a new operation, branded City Airlines, out of its second hub at Munich. The new carrier aims to expand the group’s European network using a fleet of Airbus jets. City Airlines will work in “close co-ordination” with other Lufthansa divisions, including regional operator CityLine, according to its website. “We want to offer our guests on short- and medium-haul routes an exceptional flight experience in proven Lufthansa quality,” it adds. “Behind the company is a highly professional team in the cockpit and cabin, which is characterised as much by training in accordance with Lufthansa standards as by its great diversity.” The new airline states that it will fly daily from Munich to “major European cities” as well as “remote regions”, while providing connections to the Lufthansa network from the German hub. “We combine the quality of Lufthansa and the experience of Lufthansa CityLine with the dynamism of a new young company,” it adds. German corporate documentation indicates the new division was founded in May last year, and link CityLine managing director Jens Fehlinger and Lufthansa corporate strategy senior director Marco Zenger to the project. Lufthansa Group chief Carsten Spohr had signalled, early last year, that the company was intending to obtain a new air operator’s certificate for a “second CityLine”, which would probably have a similar-sized fleet. The company had planned the division to accommodate former Germanwings crews. Spohr had also pointed out that CityLine will not be permitted, under a union agreement, to operate aircraft with more than 75 seats from 2026, and that the new operation will offer an alternative.<br/>

Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines Group reported strong travel demand on their Mainland China network in February, amid a ramp-up in flights after Beijing eased most of its ‘zero-Covid’ restrictions. In traffic results for February, both carriers also note that demand system-wide held strong, even after the peak Lunar New Year travel period. Cathay carried more than 1.1m passengers during the month, a significant increase year on year, and an 11% rise against January’s passenger volumes. Overall capacity rose about 6% against January, and the airline expects to operate at 50% pre-pandemic capacity by end-March. Traffic, meanwhile, was up 5% month-on-month. Cathay chief commercial and customer office Lavinia Lau says the airline had a “positive start” to the year. 
“Travel demand overall remained strong across our network, especially traffic to and from the Chinese Mainland via the Hong Kong hub. We also saw strong demand on our Taipei and Kaohsiung routes in the last week of February after the lifting of all travel restrictions on Hong Kong and Macau residents,” she adds. Mainland China RPKs rose seven-fold year on year, while capacity more than tripled in February. As for the SIA Group, which comprises mainline operator SIA and low-cost unit Scoot, it carried over 2.4m passengers in February, four times the number carried in the year-ago period, but down 8.8% against January. Group passenger capacity stood at 71% pre-pandemic levels, and was down 10.7% compared to the previous month SIA attributes the drop to February being a shorter month, as well as the cessation of supplementary flights after the year-end peak travel season. <br/>