Air Canada delayed or cancelled nearly 2,000 flights over the Canada Day long weekend in a potential taste of more trouble ahead for passengers. Roughly half of all trips by the country's biggest airline - including its lower-cost Air Canada Rouge and regional partner Jazz Aviation - were disrupted Saturday through Monday, according to figures from tracking service FlightAware. The 1,965 flight delays and cancellations - over 52 per cent of scheduled flights - stand in contrast to numbers from other Canadian carriers including WestJet, Air Transat and Flair Airlines, which registered lower flight disruption levels. They also mark an uptick from the previous weekend, despite an unexpected shortage of air traffic controllers at Nav Canada that snarled travel during that period. Posts and photos of snaking lines and bulging terminals at the main Toronto and Montreal airports popped up on social media over the past few days, as passengers vented their frustrations about late takeoffs and customer service in a throwback to scenes of post-pandemic airport chaos a year ago. The air travel sector is now in the throes of its summer peak, with 600,000 customers boarding Air Canada planes between this past Friday and Monday, the company said. Nonetheless, disruption figures have been trending upward over the past few weeks, said John Gradek, who teaches at McGill University's aviation management program. Crowded flight schedules and crew shortages play a role in peak season, he said, since it's harder to find a spare plane or pilot to fill a gap when each aircraft is flying more. “There's a lot of people flying, planes are full, and there's there's very little operational reliability or operational backup,” Gradek said. “If an airplane craps out, for whatever reason - mechanical things do happen - you've got to fix the airplane before you go. So you automatically take these monstrous delays or you cancel.” Air Canada pointed out that it may take longer to recover from a wrench in the gears, particularly when a network is running at full tilt. “As with any system operating at capacity, slowdowns can occur and there is ... less flexibility, which can result in delays and slow recovery from unplanned events,” spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said in an email.<br/>
star
Portugal hired Ernst & Young and Banco Finantia SA to carry out valuations of TAP SA as part of a plan to sell a stake in the state-owned airline. No details about timing were included in the emailed press release from Portuguese state holding company Parpublica. Finance Minister Fernando Medina had said in April that the decree that starts TAP’s privatization process could be approved “around” July. The government plans to retain a stake in TAP after the privatization to help ensure “strategic objectives,” including the goal of the airline keeping its hub in Portugal, Prime Minister Antonio Costa reiterated in March. The government regards TAP as strategic because its flights link a global diaspora of the country’s citizens — including the biggest transatlantic network serving Brazil — and also connect the mainland to the Madeira and Azores archipelagos in the middle of the Atlantic. Larger airlines Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, have said they may look at TAP. It won’t be the first time Portugal has sold a stake in TAP. In 2015, the government agreed to sell 61% of TAP to Atlantic Gateway, which grouped investors including airline entrepreneur David Neeleman. A few months later, Costa’s newly elected Socialist government partly reversed TAP’s privatization, increasing its holding to 50% from 34%.<br/>
EU competition regulators will again investigate Swedish airline SAS over a E1b recapitalisation by Denmark and Sweden after an EU court annulled a 2020 decision, the European Commission said on Tuesday. “The Commission will now carry out a more in-depth investigation in order to assess further the recapitalisation measure. The Commission aims at adopting a final decision on this case in the coming months,” the EU executive said in a statement. The Commission said its preliminary view is that the recapitalisation measure complied with EU rules, “with the exception of the absence of a step-up mechanism (or an alternative mechanism with the same effect as a step-up mechanism)”. “SAS welcomes the EU Commission’s decision to open a formal investigation following the General Court’s ruling on May 10,” the airline said. “It is important to reach a robust solution to the issue identified by the General Court as quickly as possible,” it added. The aid was granted to SAS in the midst of the pandemic. Most EU airlines also received state aid.<br/>
Oil importer Marsden Point could one day create millions of litres of sustainable aviation fuel out of water and gas. The Whangārei-based factory – which used to release more than a million tonnes of pollution from producing petrol and diesel – wants to become one of the world’s first manufacturers of a synthetic jet fuel. The proposed facility would use renewable electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The latter gas would be combined with carbon dioxide to create a fuel similar to fossil jet fuel. With funding from the Government, Marsden Point owner Channel Infrastructure and green hydrogen pioneer Fortescue Future Industries will investigate the feasibility of an “eSAF” factory. The study will evaluate the engineering requirements and economic viability of the project, the two companies said in a joint statement. If it was determined to be feasible, the factory could produce up to 60m litres of synthetic aviation fuel – a little more than 3% of the country’s pre-pandemic jet fuel use. It would be “one of the first at-scale projects in the world” to produce this type of fuel, the group said. For the fuel to have a lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels, the facility would need to use renewable electricity plus an organic source of carbon dioxide, according to Portuguese researchers. For example, pulp and paper mills produce lots of carbon dioxide – but since this was originally sucked in from the atmosphere by the trees, it doesn’t increase the concentration of greenhouse gases around the planet. Marsden Point already supplies fossil aviation fuel to Auckland Airport, via a 170km pipeline. The synthetic jet fuel could be blended with fossil fuel on site, before delivery. Air New Zealand is interested in the plan, signing a memorandum of understanding with the group.<br/>