unaligned

Airline unions are fighting a request by SkyWest Airlines to operate some flights as charters, accusing the company of trying to evade safety rules for passenger airlines. SkyWest is not a familiar name to most air travelers, but it is one of many small carriers that operate flights for American Eagle, United Express and Delta Connection. The Utah-based company asked the US DoT for permission to operate new flights under less-restrictive charter-airline rules if it limits planes to 30 seats. Significantly, charter pilots do not need as much experience as pilots on scheduled airline flights. Under a rule that Congress passed after a 2009 crash that killed 50 people, most candidates for airline jobs need 1,500 hours of flight time — fewer hours only if they have military experience or a degree from an accredited aviation school. Charter pilots also aren’t required to retire at 65, like airline pilots. “If approved, the SkyWest scheme would gut the safety rule, make flying less safe, and reward them with taxpayer funding,” Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said Tuesday. SkyWest says it plans to use pilots who hold airline-standard licenses for the charter flights. The company says charter service is the only way to preserve flights to many smaller communities that major airlines no longer serve. SkyWest says 82% of communities in the taxpayer-subsidized Essential Air Service program are served only by charters.<br/>

A former Southwest Airlines customer-service agent has been indicted and charged with fraud for allegedly making and selling travel vouchers worth nearly $1.9m. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that DaJuan Martin was working at Chicago’s Midway Airport when he filled out the vouchers with phony names, then sold them to others including a co-defendant, Ned Brooks, at less than face value. In an indictment handed down Monday, Martin, 36, of Bolingbrook, Illinois, was charged with 12 counts of wire fraud. Brooks, 46, of Chicago, was charged with four counts of wire fraud. Each count is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Martin worked for Southwest between November 2018 and June 2022. As a customer-service agent, he had authority to issue the vouchers to customers who experienced service problems. Brooks and others would send Martin text messages when they wanted vouchers, according to the indictment. Prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of nearly $1.9m from Martin, $732,000 from Brooks, nearly $27,000 in cash and a 2021 Land Rover.<br/>

Argentine budget airline Flybondi said on Tuesday it would ground two planes due to an inability to access U.S. dollars needed to pay for services outside the country, underlining the strict capital controls facing many companies. Flight cancellations and delays will affect 5,500 passengers between Wednesday and Friday, according to a statement from the airline. Flybondi said it had been unable to obtain official authorization to make foreign leasing payments for its fleet, in addition to other specialized services it must acquire outside the South American country. The capital controls stem from the government's policy of guarding the central bank's scarce foreign currency reserves, needed to pay down debt but also used to finance dollar-denominated imports. Flybondi has 12 Boeing 737 planes in its fleet and its 20 daily domestic routes make up about a fifth of the domestic industry. Its decision to ground planes underscores the difficulty accessing hard currency facing even big companies, a problem made worse by a historic drought that sharply reduced farm exports, which normally fill central bank coffers with dollars.<br/>

Aer Lingus is one of a number of global companies caught up in a cyberattack that has compromised employee personal information. Zellis, a provider of human resources and payroll support services, has alerted a number of its clients, including Aer Lingus, British Airways, Boots and the BBC, that they have experienced a “cybersecurity incident” which has led to the disclosure of current and former employee data, according to an Aer Lingus spokeswoman. “It has been confirmed that no financial or bank details relating to Aer Lingus current or former employees were compromised in this incident. It has also been confirmed that no phone contact details relating to Aer Lingus current or former employees were compromised. “The third-party provider has confirmed that the incident has been contained and that they have officially notified the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) and the National Cyber Security Centre, as has Aer Lingus.<br/>

Emirates Airline is close to a substantial aircraft order of as many as 100 to 150 jets as it prepares to replace its fleet of Airbus SE A380 double-decker planes due to come offline early next decade, President Tim Clark said. The airline is “close to doing something” that will involve buying more Airbus A350s and Boeing Co. 777s, and “maybe” also Boeing’s smaller 787 Dreamliner, Clark said Tuesday. “We will be making orders fairly soon,” Clark said. The airline will seek to place the orders for delivery starting 2027 through 2033, with the A380 planes exiting the operation in 2032. “It could come next week, it could come at the Dubai Air Show,” he said. Clark said demand for flying is the strongest it’s been in a long time, with the possibility of some “tapering” toward the middle of next year. Emirates’ president has built the Dubai-based carrier into the world’s largest long-haul airline, commanding a fleet of more than 100 Airbus A380s that use Dubai as a global hub. Boeing and Airbus are enjoying a surge in demand for aircraft, with substantial orders being placed by the likes of Air India Ltd. to newcomer Riyadh Air, and interest from Turkish Airlines for several hundred new planes. All that’s placing pressure on other airlines to buy.<br/>

Tim Clark won’t let go of the Airbus A380. The president of Emirates Airline has long been the biggest cheerleader of the super-jumbo, highlighted by the fact that his airline operates more than 100 of the double-decker behemoths, far in excess of any rival. Yet despite all the praise the long-serving executive has heaped on the plane over the years, Airbus SE could never make the numbers work. After orders ran dry, the European planemaker killed the program in 2019 and handed over the last unit at the end of 2021 — to Emirates. Dubai’s state-owned airline plans to fly its A380s into the next decade, and start retiring them in 2032, Clark said. There’s still life for aircraft that size, Clark said Tuesday, likening the A380 to a Dyson vacuum cleaner that’s capable of gobbling up transfer capacity and redirecting it like no other jet. With travel demand booming and more people upgrading to the front of the cabin, Clark says his A380s are full and that passengers are loving the experience. “It’s a great big black hole that’s sucking in matter from everywhere,” Clark told journalists in Istanbul at the IATA annual meeting. What’s more, tight capacity and the difficulty airports like London Heathrow are having adding runway capacity have only raised the need for large aircraft that can accommodate the masses, he said. “As you know, I’ve been bemoaning the absence of the A380,” Clark said. “I have six A380s going into Heathrow at a 95% seat factor, and in the absence of a third runway, which I don’t think will happen, I shudder to think what’s going to happen.” Clark says that on popular routes, the A380’s economies of scale allow it to ferry the same number of passengers that would require two and a half trips by the smaller Boeing Co. 787 jet, an advantage he said is “lost on a lot of people.” Other airlines have long disagreed. The A380 might well be a hit with travelers, who enjoy the sheer size of the plane with its high ceilings, two full cabins and perks like business-class bars and first-class showers. But the model always remained an exotic afterthought for most operators, who bought it in much smaller numbers than Airbus originally anticipated.<br/>

Indian low-cost operator IndiGo is committed to “further internationalisation”, its CE Pieter Elbers says, as it expects to carry 100m passengers by early 2024. IndiGo carried just over 85m for the year ending March 2023 – 10 millon more than its pre-Covid highs. Elbers outlined the ambition during a briefing during the IATA AGM in Istanbul, at which he would not comment on renewed speculation that the airline is looking to place large orders for new aircraft. “We are not commenting on any speculations or any drivel. We have a long outstanding fleet order…we have a steady flow of planes coming in,” Elbers, who took helm of the carrier in September 2022, told the briefing. It is the second time in recent months the airline has downplayed rumours of a landmark order. On 4 June, a Reuters report – citing industry sources – said that the carrier was close to locking in on a record deal for 500 Airbus narrowbody aircraft: a larger order than that of its compatriot Air India, which in February placed orders for 470 jets. The report also cites plans for 25 widebody aircraft orders, either from Boeing or Airbus. The airline has a large orderbook of over 490 aircraft, all of them Airbus A320neo family aircraft. These include the longer-range A321XLR, which Elbers says will allow the airline to “further expand the network…well into Europe and further into Asia”. He declined to disclose which European point the airline would be deploying the longer-range narrowbody: “We haven’t finalised the network yet, we are still waiting for a firm view of what’s going to be the precise delivery schedule.” The airline has access to Europe currently via a codeshare partnership with Turkish Airlines, covering 33 points in Europe via Istanbul, which IndiGo operates to. Under the agreement, the low-cost operator also damp-leased two 777-300ERs from Turkish to operate its flights from India to Istanbul. Elbers also downplayed any negative impact the A321XLRs will have on its codeshare partnership with Turkish. “There’s always multiple travel parts to do and there’s multiple ways: some fly direct [to Europe], some connect through Delhi, some connect in Istanbul,” he adds. Elbers, who formerly led Dutch carrier KLM, believes the airline - India’s largest by domestic market share — is making progress in its international brand awareness. He states that when he first joined, the airline brand was strong in India but “it is little known outside of India”. Elbers notes that its codeshare partnerships – not just with Turkish but other carriers like Qantas and Air France – have helped international travellers “get a feel of the IndiGo experience” when they transit within India on domestic, IndiGo-operated flights. The airline has set a target of expanding the proportion of international ASKs from the current 22% to around 30% of total capacity with the next two to three years, and Elbers confirms that the airline remains on track to do so. On 2 June, the airline announced six new international points: Jakarta, Nairobi, Baku, Tashkent, Almaty and Tbilisi, with flights set to launch from August. It is its first foray into Africa and Central Asia. <br/>