JetBlue Airways Corp. isn’t waiting for federal regulators to reverse course on antitrust initiatives before celebrating itself with a new look to turn heads on runways. The new livery, which the 25-year old carrier announced on Wednesday, is the first-ever complete refresh of its paint design. The makeover — which combines a solid lapis lazuli blue hue with various multi-colored patterns that extend forward from the tail — comes amid setbacks to its ambitious growth plans. The Biden administration’s Department of Justice is working to block a planned merger with Spirit Airlines and JetBlue’s regional alliance with American Airlines in the northeastern US. But JetBlue isn’t letting those potential snags get in the way of its efforts to distinguish itself from larger airlines with their more subdued color schemes. “The new livery helps us stand out among a sky of legacy carriers, and is a stunning reflection of our role as a disruptor,” Jayne O’Brien, the company’s head of marketing and loyalty, said. The first aircraft with the new livery is an Airbus SE A321 that features the carrier’s Mint premium cabin and the name A Defining MoMint. It will begin flights Thursday. JetBlue spokespeople didn’t respond to a request for comment on the cost of the paint jobs. <br/>
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Air Baltic will open a seasonal base at Las Palmas in Gran Canaria for the upcoming winter season, as it looks to expand its footprint beyond its traditional markets. It will base two Airbus A220-300s at the Canary Islands airport this winter, serving 10 direct routes covering Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Nine of those routes will be new to Air Baltic’s network, the carrier notes, including services to Bergen, Billund, Copenhagen and Oslo. “When preparing for the upcoming season, we always carefully analyse the market dynamics,” says Air Baltic chief executive Martin Gauss. “For winter months, when the overall passenger demand worldwide is traditionally lower, we have identified an opportunity to optimise our capacity to be as efficient as possible – by establishing a seasonal base and operating two aircraft from Las Palmas to serve the demand for sunny and leisure destinations.” Most of the services from the Spanish island will begin in early December, aside from the October launch of Gran Canaria-Riga flights. Air Baltic does not say for how long the base will operate. The carrier has frequently discussed operating from airports beyond Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius – a strategic move given more urgency by the dampening affect on demand of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in some of its key markets and the continued expansion of its fleet via the delivery of more Airbus A220-300 jets. Amid those factors, Air Baltic opened a single-aircraft base in Tampere, Finland in May last year, in a move announced pre-war. Air Baltic is also wet-leasing out at least 14 of its 40 or so A220s for the current summer season, including to Lufthansa Group. But it continues to take delivery of A220s from a 50-aircraft order and has options on a further 30 of the type. Gauss told FlightGlobal in April that the Baltic countries could accommodate around 40 A220-sized jets by end-2025 – some 10 fewer than it identified before the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Non-Baltic bases and the wet-leasing out of capacity have therefore become integral to Air Baltic’s strategy.<br/>
Ryanair has dismissed the chief pilot of its main Irish-registered operations after an investigation uncovered a “pattern of repeated inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour” towards junior female pilots at the company. A senior company insider said a note had been emailed to employees of Ryanair DAC, which operates the carrier’s Irish-registered aircraft, informing them that its chief pilot had been dismissed on Tuesday evening. The note, reviewed by the Financial Times, was signed by Ryanair’s chief people officer Darrell Hughes and did not name the person dismissed. Ryanair DAC’s chief pilot for the past three years has been Aidan Murray. Murray could not immediately be reached for comment. “The decision follows an investigation over recent days which identified a pattern of repeated inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour towards a number of junior female pilots, in breach of our harassment policy,” the note read. “We are determined to ensure all of our people come to work in a safe and secure environment.” It asked recipients to respect the privacy of the “brave women who came forward to assist us in this investigation”. An airline’s chief pilot flies relatively rarely and oversees the application of new safety rules, promotions and other organisational issues. The Ryanair insider, who has direct knowledge of the investigation, said it had been prompted by an anonymous tip-off and that the company had discovered the chief pilot sent inappropriately sexualised text messages to seven junior female pilots aged between 21 and 32. Some had been asked to send him explicit pictures of themselves, while several had their rosters altered so that they would fly with him. About 40% of Ryanair’s operations — including all the operations of aircraft based in Ireland, the UK, Spain and Portugal — use aircraft belonging to Ryanair DAC. There have been no arrests or allegations of criminal wrongdoing in the case.<br/>
India’s remote northeast region will see another airline attempt to kickstart connectivity from October, betting on demand in small towns and far-flung corners of the world’s fastest growing aviation market. Jettwings Airways, based in Guwahati, will start operations with two leased Embraer SA 175 aircraft and expects to operate a fleet of five small jets within a year, Chairman Sanjive Narain told reporters in New Delhi. The carrier aims to connect all the capital cities of India’s northeastern states - notorious for crashes due to its difficult terrain - and eventually fly to the rest of the country. Regional connectivity is crucial to taking the country’s boom in air travel to the residents in India’s tiny towns, hilly areas and islands - places with a potentially large population of first-time fliers. While the government requires domestic airlines to devote at least 10% of their capacity to remote routes, most carriers with bigger aircraft are reluctant to ramp up those operations since filling all the seats could be difficult. Jettwings Air will enter India’s fiercely competitive aviation industry that’s dominated by discount carrier Indigo, which has a market share close to 60%, and faces a daunting history. Regional carriers such as Air Pegasus, based in Bengaluru, Chennai-based Paramount Airways and Vijaywada-based Air Costa went bust just a few years after beginning operations. If the new entrant succeeds, it will further boost demand for regional jets in India where De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. has said it aims to win 80% of the small-plane market. The nation is also looking to partner with Embraer and Russia’s Sukhoi to manufacture small aircraft locally, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News in March. <br/>
Flair Airlines said on Wednesday it is leasing two more Boeing 737 MAX jets to meet rising travel demand, after the Canadian budget carrier lost access to four planes earlier this year in a dispute with a separate lessor. Small, privately held Flair is taking the planes through a sale-leaseback deal with SMBC Aviation Capital, the world's second-largest aircraft lessor, and will begin flying this summer, a company spokesperson said. While Flair claimed it had gotten MAX planes from Boeing at "a great price" in 2021, just months after they were returned to service following two crashes, Flair CEO Stephen Jones says MAX prices are back to where they were before the 2019 grounding. Boeing and European rival Airbus are ramping up production of narrowbody jets to meet surging travel demand. "It's clear that pricing has become very firm again," Jones said. In May, Ireland's Ryanair placed a major Boeing MAX order after reaching a truce on pricing. Jones said the deal shows Flair has the confidence of a big global leasing company, after the ultra-low-cost carrier had four aircraft seized in March as a result of a commercial dispute with a New-York based hedge fund and aircraft lessor. "We were really surprised and upset by the actions taken," he said. Lessor Airborne Capital has said the aircraft deal ended following a five-month-long period during which Flair was regularly in default of its leases by failing to meet its payments when due, with payment arrears reaching millions of dollars.<br/>