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Canadian carrier WestJet Airlines’ recently released winter schedule includes year-round flights from Calgary to St John’s, capital of the eastern province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The carrier said on 24 July that the twice-weekly, year-round service – set to start 2 November – reaffirms its “commitment to provide air access to St John’s”. WestJet currently operates seasonal flights between the two Canadian cities. WestJet also plans to restore “popular service to sunny Florida” during the upcoming winter travel season in the Northern Hemisphere with once-weekly flights from St John’s International airport to Orlando and Tampa. The St John’s-Orlando route will launch 16 October and run through June 2024. WestJet’s flights from St John’s to Tampa will begin 17 March and terminate on 26 May, seemingly in a bid to capture the spring break market. Andrew Gibbons, WestJet’s vice-president of external affairs, says that WestJet’s growth plan is based on connecting Eastern and Western Canada and warm-weather international destinations. “We have proudly invested in Newfoundland and Labrador for over two decades and we are delighted to be here today alongside our valued partners to share this news and reaffirm our commitment to the region,” he adds. The moves were welcomed by the provincial government, with Newfoundland and Labrador premier Andrew Furey noting that the routes would “aid business and trade and benefit the travel and tourism industry”. Parent company WestJet Group says that, between WestJet and recently acquired low-cost competitor Sunwing Airlines, the carriers will ”provide the largest number of seats from across Canada to popular sun destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America this winter”. <br/>

Higher ticket prices and booming demand helped Ryanair post record profits at the start of the summer, but the low-cost airline was forced to trim its passenger forecasts because of Boeing delivery delays and warned of an uncertain winter ahead. Ryanair on Monday reported profit after tax of E663mn for the three months to the end of June, nearly four times higher than in the previous year and well above its previous record for the quarter of E397mn in 2017. The low-cost airline followed UK-listed easyJet in delivering record profits, as airlines cash in on strong demand and passengers’ willingness to pay higher air fares despite the weak European economy. Ryanair said its year-on-year comparisons in the quarter were boosted by a strong Easter and an extra bank holiday in the UK, as well as a weaker performance in 2022 because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Revenues increased 40% to E3.65b in the period, more than offsetting a 23% rise in costs, thanks to higher fuel and staff bills. Average air fares rose 42% year on year to E49, but Ryanair reported a “softening” of fares booked by people close to their time of travel in late June and July. It forecast fare rises would ease to “a low double-digit percentage” in the current quarter. CE Michael O’Leary said the airline had little visibility into travel demand heading into the winter, but added “consumers may require some fare stimulation . . . following months of rising mortgage rates and consumer price inflation”.<br/>

Ryanair is seeing no sign of a change in booking habits due to a heatwave in parts of Europe and if anything expects wet weather in other parts of the continent to boost Mediterranean holidays, CE Michael O'Leary said on Monday. The Irish airline, Europe's largest by passenger numbers, reported record profits for the April to June period on Monday and said demand looked robust for the rest of the summer as people continue to prioritise leisure travel after the pandemic. That is despite temperatures soaring across southern Europe this month, with wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes, a popular tourist destination, forcing the evacuation of 19,000 people over the weekend. "Are we seeing any changes in demand patterns? No. In fact, if anything over the last two or three weeks we've seen stronger demand ex-Ireland, ex-UK, of people trying to get the hell away from the unseasonably high rainfall we've had," O'Leary told an analyst call. "If anything, it gives me even more confidence for sustained growth in Mediterranean holidays over the next decade as we grow to 300m passengers a year (from 169m last year)." Finance chief Neil Sorohan said there was also no sign of customers cancelling trips due to the higher temperatures and that people just tend to go on holidays regardless. That echoed comments last week from rival easyJet that travellers have not been deterred from going to their usual sunny holiday spots.<br/>

Ryanair is considering buying apartments in Dublin to help staff struggling to find accommodation due to a severe shortage of housing, the Irish airline’s chief financial officer said on Monday. Ireland is struggling to fix a years-long supply and demand mismatch in housing that the government has said is stopping some large companies from expanding and could curtail a post-pandemic economic boom. The most recent data from Daft.ie, Ireland’s main property listings site, showed there were just 959 homes available to rent across the whole of Ireland for a population of 5.1m people. Like other firms that have had to block book hotel rooms for new starters, Ryanair recently rented student accommodation at nearby Dublin City University for some staff that transferred to Dublin airport, finance chief Neil Sorohan told Reuters. “It is something that we’re very cognisant of, something that we’re looking at. We’re looking at apartments and other bits and pieces over the next number of months, we may actually buy some,” Sorohan said in a telephone interview. “Moving into actually buying property is something new. I think it’s possibly the right thing to do, it’s a good long term investment.” Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passengers numbers, employs 3,128 people in Dublin, including engineers, pilots, cabin crew, ground staff and workers at its headquarters near the airport. Sorohan added that tighter labour markets across Europe had not made it much more difficult to hire staff and that job cuts by tech multinationals with Irish operations had made it easier to add workers in its Ryanair Labs digital hub in Dublin. <br/>

Belgian Ryanair pilots have called for a new strike on July 29 and July 30 as management failed to address their demands of higher wages and better working conditions, union representatives told the Rtbf broadcaster. The pilots already went on strike on July 15 and 16 but "there was no round of negotiations," Didier Lebbe, a representative of the CNE union said. The mid-July strike resulted in 120 cancelled flights at Brussels South Charleroi Airport, Belgian media have reported.<br/>

Aer Lingus Regional pilots have informed the company of an escalation of industrial action in a dispute over pay, conditions and union recognition. Members of the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association (IALPA) in Emerald Airlines voted in May on whether to take industrial action, including a strike, at the airline that flies the Aer Lingus Regional network. The union said the industrial action is response to the airline’s failure to engage with IALPA to form a collective labour agreement for pilots. Emerald pilots have been engaged in a strict work-to-rule policy since June 24th. The action includes a refusal to work overtime or out-of-duty hours. The escalation of the industrial action will mean that pilots will not be contactable by the company outside of working hours and will not accept changes to their rosters with fewer than 24 hours’ notice. The escalation takes effect from Tuesday. Fórsa official Ian McDonnell said the escalation of industrial action is likely to disrupt flight services and said pilots now had “no choice but to step up their action”.<br/>

British travel company Jet2 said it would operate four extra flights on Monday night to bring more of its customers back to the United Kingdom, after wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes left them stranded. Jet2 said repatriation flights to Manchester, Leeds Bradford and Birmingham would bring home about 800 people who had been forced to evacuate hotels, adding extra services on top of the 50 Rhodes to UK services it already has scheduled this week. The company said it was also flying out more staff to help assist customers who had to flee their resorts and are now camped out in evacuation centres or waiting at the airport. “We have a significantly expanded presence in Rhodes, with a huge team of experienced colleagues providing all the support we can for our customers,” Jet2 said Monday. There are about 7,000-10,000 Britons on Rhodes currently, according to a junior minister, and like Jet2, airlines TUI and easyJet are both putting on additional services. easyJet said it would have two repatriation flights on Monday and another on Tuesday, on top of its usual schedule of departures, and would keep under review whether it needed to add more.<br/>

The estimated $1b annually spent on the maintenance of aircraft outside the country by indigenous airlines may drop following the completion and use of Ibom Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facilities, George Uriesi, the COO of Ibom Air has said. This is as the Federal Government has been called upon to domesticate aircraft maintenance and training in a bid to reduce the pressure on foreign exchange. Speaking with Nairametrics, Uriesi said that the Ibom MRO could occupy two Boeing 747 aircraft side by side, while the facility could contain about eight aircraft at a go. He regretted that most Nigerian airlines carry out maintenance of their fleet in other African countries like Ethiopia, South Africa, Europe and America, thereby further depleting the value of the naira. Statistics released recently by the Aviation Round Table (ART), indicated that there are about 104 aircraft among 11 scheduled Nigerian operators. The brands comprise Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, ATR, Q400 and others. The 104 aircraft are however apart from the private jets, which are Bombardier, NetJets, Gulf Stream, Cessna and Dassault Falcon, which are equally about 100 nationwide. <br/>

New Delhi has approved grounded Go First’s plan to resume services, but requires the carrier to meet several conditions. Go First submitted an initial resumption plan on 28 June, and this was subsequently amended on 15 July, according the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The DGCA granted its approval in a 21 July letter that was posted on social media. The letter lists several conditions that Go First must meet before it can resume services. The low-cost carrier must secure “required interim funding,” and ticket sales can only recommence once the DGCA has cleared the carrier’s flight schedule. In addition, Go First – which has been grounded since 2 May – needs to prove its airworthiness compliance, and no aircraft can be deployed for operations without a “satisfactory handing flight.” The letter also indicates that Go First’s resumption is also contingent on legal petitions and applications concerning the carrier. A report from news agency Reuters, quoting unnamed banking sources, suggests that creditor claims against Go First amount to Rs240b ($2.9b). Of the Rs240b claimed, Rs180b is from lessors and Rs50b from lenders. Earlier in July, administrators for Go First launched a call for expressions of interest in the airline. The tender was published in several Indian newspapers today and sets a 9 August deadline for submissions of interest; administrators aim to publish a list of potential authorised bidders 10 days later. The airline is owned by Indian conglomerate Wadia Group and had previously been looking at a listing on the Mumbai stock exchange. Go First had revenues of INR41.8b ($506m) for the year ended March 2022 and has around 4,200 employees.<br/>

Traveling to Maldives – the 1,000-island archipelago off the western coast of India that’s one of the world’s most glamorous beach destinations – is always a special occasion. Now, a new airline aims to make it even more so. Beond – pronounced “beyond” – aims to create a “private jet” experience by using narrow-body aircraft (rather than the wide-body often used on routes to the Maldives), and offering an all-premium cabin with lie-flat seats which share components with Ferrari cars. “We want to do something completely new,” Beond’s chief commercial officer Sascha Feuerherd said. “We deliberately chose to go for a luxury destination, which is a little paradise by itself, where people travel to relax and spend quality time. We want to ensure that they can travel there also in comfort, so that they are arriving fully relaxed.” Based in Malé and set to start flying in fall 2023, Beond will initially operate a small fleet of Airbus A319 aircraft, before switching to the larger Airbus A321. Dubai and Delhi are the first two confirmed destinations. About three dozen airlines currently offer service to Velana International Airport, Maldives’ main airport near the capital island Malé. To compete against them, Beond plans to choose its destinations carefully and fly customers directly to the island, rather than going through a connection in a hub, as the likes of Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines do. “We’re going for the airports with big catchment areas, with a certain wealth behind it, and then fly people directly,” says Feuerherd. So in Germany, for example, Beond wouldn’t target Frankfurt – a business hub with plenty of competition. Instead, they’d go for Munich, which has less competition and a higher incidence of leisure travelers.<br/>

Jetstar is set to hire more than 140 new pilots this year in a major recruitment drive. The low-cost carrier is undergoing what it says is one of its biggest-ever pilot intakes, which will support new routes including Sydney to Rarotonga, Brisbane to Seoul and Melbourne to Fiji, as well as its push to improve reliability. It is part of Qantas Group’s plan to bring in 8500 new operational roles over the next 10 years, and comes amid an ongoing talent shortage in the industry. “As we approach 20 years of Jetstar, it’s an exciting time to be joining our airline and the industry, and it’s fantastic to see so many new team members coming on board this year,” said Jetstar’s Chief Pilot & Head of Flight Operations, Captain Jeremy Schmidt. “With our ninth state-of-the art A321neo LR about to arrive and nine more of the aircraft expected before the end of 2024, we need more pilots to support our growing fleet and network. The new NEOs have allowed us to increase the number of services we put on existing routes including between Brisbane, Adelaide and Bali and also allows us to redeploy our Boeing 787 fleet onto exciting new routes like Brisbane to Seoul.” The pilot recruitment drive accompanies a larger hiring blitz for Jetstar cabin crew, with the airline looking to employ up to an additional 700 cabin staff by year’s end.<br/>