Mexican ultra-low-cost carrier Volaris has announced 40 new domestic routes. These new services are primarily point-to-point, increasing regional connectivity across the country. The states of Guanajuato, Baja California, and Sinaloa will receive the largest number of new routes, with twelve, ten, and nine, respectively. Volaris is looking to increase its market share in the North American country. Fueled by a fleet composed of over 120 Airbus A320 family aircraft, the carrier announced the launch of 40 new routes connecting markets with leisure destinations last weekend. In a statement, the airline said that 33 of these routes will be exclusive, meaning zero competition from any other company. Holger Blankenstein, Executive Vice President of Volaris, said that due to a growing interest in knowing Mexico better, and the post-COVID new tourism trends, the company has seen the new touristic and industrial cities ready to be served. Volaris is the largest Mexican airline by traffic. Last year, it became the first company in the country’s history to carry over 30m passengers. This year, Volaris is set to break this figure once more. It carried over 10m passengers between January and April, increasing by 15% the traffic it had in the same period last year.<br/>
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Norwegian is being sued by a bank it once owned over whether it has the right to use the word Norwegian in its brand name, while the bank is the two sides’ ongoing card cooperation. Norwegian once owned Bank Norwegian, a financial offshoot established in 2007, but in August 2019 as it encountered snowballing economic travails, it sold its entire 17.5% stake in Norwegian Finans Holding, the entity that owned it, for a total sum of NOK2.22b kroner (US$245m at the time). The buyer was Cidron Xingu Limited, a company indirectly controlled by the Finnish financial group Sampo and Nordic Capital Fund IX, run by the private equity firm Nordic Capital. A brand licensing agreement was put in place as part of the deal, which was completed in October 2019. However, Swedish niche bank Nordax Group acquired Bank Norwegian two years later. Now, it wants to institute a name change to either “Bank Norwegian, a part of Nordax Bank AB” or “Bank Norwegian, a branch of Nordax Bank AB”. The latter descriptor is already used on its credit cards, its website shows. The bank and its parent say this is required under Norwegian law to clarify who the owners are, but the airline Norwegian, which owns the rights to the Norwegian brand, objects to it being associated with another brand, namely Nordax. Norwegian law requires banks to clearly state who owns the business. Bank Norwegian has now sued the airline to obtain a legal clarification, Nordax Bank’s report for the first quarter of 2023, disclosed last week, reveals.<br/>
Aeroflot will resume flights to Cuba this upcoming summer. The flights, which are set to begin on July 1, will fly from Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) to Kawama International Airport (VRO), serving Varadero, Cuba. The Moscow to Varadero route has been a popular route in the past. However, after the invasion of Ukraine led to Russian-imposed sanctions, the airline was forced to cancel this route, among others. This included many routes that connected Russia to destinations in the Caribbean. This was because of the airspace restrictions that were imposed on the country of Russia by the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, as well as others. Aeroflot looked to keep travel to the Caribbean going by flying through Turkey and Serbia and using the countries as points of entry and exit from Russia. Because of this, in the first quarter of 2023, Cuba saw over 38,000 Russian tourists enter the country, according to data from the Russian Tourism Agency. Russian tourists have found Cuba to be a popular destination due to the ease of the use of Russian currency. It is possible to pay in rubles and use Russian payment systems on the island.<br/>
Lebanon's army intelligence freed a Saudi national who was abducted on Sunday in Beirut and also arrested some of those involved, the army announced on Tuesday. An online army statement said that Saudi citizen Mashari al-Mutairi had been freed in an operation along the Lebanese border with Syria. Saudi's state-run Al Ekhbariya television station reported late on Monday that a man working for Saudi Arabian Airlines had been kidnapped in the Lebanese capital on Sunday, and that those responsible had demanded a $400,000 ransom. In a press conference at the Saudi embassy after Mutairi's release, Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said that no ransom was paid, and that Lebanese security forces had taken nine people into custody over the kidnapping. Mawlawi said the incident would not impact diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.<br/>
India's aviation watchdog has put on hold requests from lessors to repossess planes from Go First, as the airline's bankruptcy process imposes a freeze on assets which supersedes such requests, the regulator said in a court filing seen by Reuters. Lessors of Go First have locked horns with Go First and India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to reclaim its planes for missed payments, filing as many as 40 requests with the watchdog to allow repossession. Go First was granted bankruptcy protection on May 10. The lessors argue it has no rights over planes as the leases were terminated by leasing firms, but India's government, and the airline, disagree with that position and say the bankruptcy law imposes an assets freeze. In a May 29 court filing, which is not public, the DGCA for the first time detailed it has "no other option" but to keep all applications "pending in abeyance" given the assets freeze. While the DGCA has not rejected the applications, they have been placed on hold until the end of the moratorium period under the bankruptcy process - which is at least six months but could be longer, it said in the filing. The legal tussle between the regulator and the lessors is emerging as a key test for New Delhi's decision-making processes just when airlines are placing record orders and negotiating lease terms to meet demand for air travel. Already, SMBC Aviation Capital, the world's second-largest aircraft lessor, has warned that India's move to block repossession of planes is making the country a "risky jurisdiction". Go First's lessors include Standard Chartered's Pembroke Aircraft Leasing, SMBC, CDB Aviation's GY Aviation Leasing and BOC Aviation. The DGCA's stance comes despite a 2001 global treaty, called the Cape Town Convention, designed to protect repossession rights. India has ratified the treaty but the DGCA argued there was no local legislation enforcing it, rendering it ineffective.<br/>
A Boeing 777 jet operated by Pakistan International Airlines Corp. was impounded on May 29 in Kuala Lumpur over unpaid charges to a leasing company, forcing the carrier to send a replacement aircraft to pick up stranded passengers. A Malaysian court ordered the plane to be seized on the lessor’s request, PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez Khan said. The state-owned airline will seek legal remedies to free the plane, Khan said, saying that the disputed amount has already been paid. This is the second time in the past two years that a PIA aircraft has been seized in the southeast Asian nation. A spokesperson for AerCap Holdings NV, which Khan identified as the lessor, didn’t respond to a request seeking comment. PIA has been struggling to overcome its financial problems after the European Union banned its fight operations in 2020 over fake pilot licenses. <br/>