United Airlines has come out swinging against Delta Air Lines’ request to the US government for “gateway flexibility” for flights to Tokyo Haneda from the USA. The Chicago-based carrier said on 8 May in a sharply-worded filing with the US DoT that its competitor’s request is a “self-serving scheme” that is “clearly not in the public interest”. “The department should reject Delta’s latest self-serving scheme for an unprecedented and untested ‘pilot programme’ for ‘limited’ gateway flexibility at Tokyo Haneda, just as the department has rejected Delta’s and others’ prior requests for gateway flexibility, and should continue to use its own unbiased judgement in allocating rights based upon a full and complete assessment of public benefits,” the carrier writes. Last week, Delta Air Lines asked the US government to relax slot rules for flights between the USA and Tokyo’s Haneda International airport due to a “fundamentally changed” demand environment. The Atlanta-based carrier said in its DOT filing on 1 May that demand assumptions for various routes from the USA are “no longer valid” in the post-Covid-19 era, and “need to be reassessed and refined to align capacity to actual demand”. The airline holds slots to serve Haneda from seven US cities: Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, Detroit, Minneapolis-St Paul, Portland and Honolulu. Delta says demand on those routes has recovered only 64% or less. In the first quarter of 2023, it operated flights to Haneda from just the first four of those cities. The global pandemic, it says, “materially altered the competitive landscape” on flights between the USA and Japan’s capital. American Airlines on 2 May filed a short response to the DOT in support of the proposal. “As a current US-Haneda slot holder, American supports the requested relief,” American writes. “Enabling flexible, market-based decision-making for US-Haneda service is warranted in the current demand environment.” ”Gateway flexibility for up to two current slot pairs would create public benefits by allowing all participating carriers to adapt their networks to the evolving conditions in this market consistent with Open Skies principles,” American adds. But United wholly rejects that premise. The airline says that Delta paints an unrealistic picture of the demand environment between the USA and Japan. <br/>
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Virgin Australia has announced another major codeshare agreement, adding Air Canada to its list of partner airlines. The new deal brings Virgin’s codesharing partners to six: Qatar Airways, United Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, ANA, and Air Canada. In a LinkedIn post, Virgin said the codeshare would allow “seamless travel” between Australia and Canada. “We have been strategic partners with the national carrier of Canada since 2017, and from today, our customers can book flights on a single ticket at www.virginaustralia.com to the country’s most iconic destinations, including Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and more,” the airline said. “Velocity Frequent Flyer members can continue to earn and redeem Points when travelling on eligible Air Canada services between Australia and Canada, the United States and Central America. Our customers can now travel to more than 500 destinations around the world on services operated by Virgin Australia and our partner airlines.” Air Canada offers direct flights from Brisbane and Sydney to Vancouver, after which passengers can connect onwards through Canada’s domestic network.<br/>
Air France-KLM, International Airlines Group, and the Lufthansa Group shared more than just a bullish outlook for travel demand during recent investor calls. They all want a bigger piece of the standout Latin or South America region, and they are not averse to capturing it through acquisitions. Air France-KLM is eyeing TAP Air Portugal, IAG has its sights set on Spain’s Air Europa, and Lufthansa is near a deal for Italy’s ITA Airways. Each transaction, if they happen, would give these respective groups a larger share of the booming Europe-Latin America market. “TAP has a very strong position geographically at the southernmost point in Europe towards South America, and they do have a very strong network to Brazil with 11 cities online nonstop out of Lisbon,” Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith said during an earnings call on May 5. “So it’s very interesting, and could be potentially eventually accretive to our bottom line performance.” Air France-KLM, for now, is just eyeing a deal with TAP. The Portuguese government must initiate a sale first, which Smith thinks should happen around summertime. And if the parameters meet the group’s requirements — for one, not diluting its target of a 7-8% operating margin from 2024 — it plans to “participate in that process.” The interest in Latin America is for good reason. In Q1, Air France-KLM saw South Atlantic yields jump nearly 33% compared to 2019 on just 4% less capacity. Lufthansa saw group yields on Latin America routes jump nearly 43% over the same period. IAG, which did not publish a comparison to 2019, saw Latin America passenger unit revenues increase 33% compared to last year. At all three groups, Latin yield performance was the strongest across their global networks except for Asia, where capacity remained artificially constrained. Industry capacity between Europe and Latin America was down just 2% compared to pre-pandemic during the first half of the year, according to Diio by Cirium schedules. Air France-KLM is the largest of the European groups to Latin America with a 21% share of capacity during the first six months of the year, Diio data show. IAG comes in a close second with a 19% share, and the Lufthansa Group lags with just a 7% share. Iberia, however, is the single largest carrier ahead of Air France. “We are missing a southern hub compared to our European competitors, especially for the growing — the [origin and destination] traffic in and out of Africa and Latin America,” Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr said earlier in May. This is one reason for the group’s planned investment in ITA, which it has until May 12 to finalize with the Italian government. None of the European Big Three have an immunized joint venture with a Latin American airline covering intercontinental flights. <br/>
After more than 855 days in storage, the last of Air New Zealand’s jets sent to a US desert has been dusted off and is ready to come home. The Boeing 777-300, registration OKM, will touch down in Auckland on Wednesday after a 10,000km journey from the Mojave Desert near Victorville, California. Air New Zealand COO Alex Marren said it had taken more than seven weeks and more than 1500 manhours of work to get the aircraft back up and running. “The process starts off with unwrapping the plane from its storage protection and then it gets a good wash, getting rid of the dust and grime that has accumulated in the desert,” she said. “Then it goes through a thorough servicing and maintenance programme. It’s a long and a complicated process and our engineering and maintenance team have done an amazing job getting the aircraft ready to fly again.” A pilot team then spent a day running through checks and tests, similar to the process when getting a new aircraft from the factory. “Overall, a team of more 100 Air New Zealanders have been involved in bringing back these 777 aircrafts in some way,” Marren said.<br/>