Southwest Airlines said on Tuesday it had reached a tentative agreement with the union that represents about 17,120 transport workers who handle ramp, operations, provisioning and cargo. The workers will now earn $36.72 per hour, higher than the hourly wages at United Airlines Holdings and Delta, based on the tentative agreement uploaded on Transport Workers Union Local 555's website. The contract also meets the union's other demands such as improvement in retirement medical coverage, increasing the company's 401(k) match and additional holidays at premium pay rates. In the past two years, unions across the aerospace, construction, airline and rail industries have put up fights for higher wages and more benefits in a tight labor market. Recently, pilots at rival Delta and American Airlines also reached new labor agreements with the companies, while Southwest is yet to strike a new deal with its pilots. In June, Southwest agreed to a tentative agreement with its more than 2,800 mechanics and related employees.<br/>
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Southwest plans to add a crew base at Nashville International airport in the second quarter of 2024 that will start with 150-250 pilots and eventually house 500-600 pilots. The Dallas-based carrier said on 14 August that the base – to be its 12th in the USA – will also initially house an estimated 500-700 flight attendants “with continued growth planned”. “Hundreds of Southwest employees who work in the air and on the ground already consider their home town to be in middle Tennessee, with our presence in Nashville remaining a key factor to our success, future growth and the reliability of our network,” says Andrew Watterson, COOx at Southwest. Southwest currently maintains crew bases in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Orlando and Phoenix. The airline has been flying to Nashville since 1986 and currently operates 166 daily departures to 57 cities from Nashville International, the carrier says. It has some 1,000 employees based in Nashville. The carrier also plans to add four gates at Nashville International – for a total of 20 – by the end of 2023 to support its planned growth at the airport. Some 22m air travellers passed through Nashville International during fiscal year 2023, up about 19% from its prior-year total. The airport averaged 300 departures and 300 arrivals during the fiscal year.<br/>
Pegasus has reinstated its strategic focus on boosting load factors and ancillary income as the post-Covid travel boom subsides in the second half of 2023, bringing unit revenues down from the highs seen last year. The Turkish low-cost carrier outlined that strategic “normalisation” on 15 August as it reported a “strong” performance in the second quarter of this year, during which it achieved a record EBITDA margin for the April-June period of 33.6%. Looking into the current quarter and the final three months of the year, Pegasus explains that year-on-year comparisons will turn “increasingly difficult” after the “exceptionally strong” unit revenue environment in the second half of 2022. That was driven by “the rebound in pent-up demand after the pandemic”, which had seen people flock back to air travel in a capacity-constrained environment, following two years of travel restrictions. Already, international yields fell slightly year on year during the April-June period, as demand lost some of that post-Covid momentum. Based on yield projections and fuel price trends, Pegasus expects the spread between its revenue per available seat kilometre and its cost per available seat kilometre to “normalise” across the rest of this year. Still, the airline – which offered capacity up 27% year on year in Q2, and up 60% versus the same period in 2019 – reiterates its guidance for a full-year EBITDA margin of more than 30%. That guidance came after Pegasus saw its Q2 EBITDA more than double year on year, to E221m, on revenue up 30% at E657m “thanks to traffic growth and continued uptrend in ancillary segment”. Revenue was 61% higher compared with the same three months in 2019, in line with its post-Covid capacity growth, which has been focused on international markets. Indeed, while Pegasus’ second-quarter domestic passenger count of 2.8m lagged its April-June 2019 level by around 1m, its 5.1m international passengers were way ahead of the 3.6m it carried in 2019. <br/>
An elderly couple have said they were "horrified" after being charged GBP110 by Ryanair to print their tickets at the airport. Ruth and Peter Jaffe said they had to pay airport check-in fees after mistakenly downloading their return tickets instead of their outgoing ones. It sparked a flurry of social media complaints about the airline's fees. Ryanair said the fees were in line with its policy, as the couple had failed to check-in online for the correct flight. But consumer rights expert Martyn James said the couple's experience had "touched a nerve" as many other people have also been hit by unexpected charges. The Jaffes, from Ealing, were flying from Stansted Airport to Bergerac, France, on Friday. Mrs Jaffe, 79, said she found Ryanair's website "very confusing" but despite this, she thought she had successfully managed to print their tickets the day before the flight. It was only when she got to the airport that she realised she had accidentally printed the wrong tickets. "I was then told that I had to go to the Ryanair desk to get a boarding card, and there they charged me GBP55 per person," she said. "[I was] horrified." She added it wasn't easy for her husband to walk from one bit of the airport to the other. "I was quite flustered and upset." Mr Jaffe, who's 80, said that they had no choice but to pay, as they had people expecting them in France. On Sunday, their daughter posted on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, saying her mother had made "an honest mistake".<br/>
EL AL Israel Airlines has announced the schedule for its two new weekly flights between Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv beginning April 15, 2024, a week before Passover. “This is another milestone in EL AL’s continued growth in Florida,” said Marc Cavaliere, EL AL’s senior vice president – The Americas. “Today we can announce the schedule for our service from FLL to TLV beginning next April. Travelers can begin booking these flights today at elal.com and with travel agents.”<br/>
The family of IndiGo's co-founder Rakesh Gangwal will sell operator Interglobe Aviation's shares worth up to $450m via a block deal on Wednesday, CNBC-TV18 reported on Tuesday, citing sources privy to the developments. The offer floor price for the sale by Rakesh Gangwal and wife Shobha Gangwal is set at 2,400 rupees per share - nearly a 6% discount on the current market price. IndiGo did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. In June, CNBC Awaaz had said in a report, citing sources, that the family was likely to sell between 5% and 8% of its stake worth up to 75b rupees. Rakesh Gangwal and Shobha Gangwal hold 13.23% and 2.99% respectively in InterGlobe as of March 31, while their Chinkerpoo Family Trust holds a 13.5% stake, according to exchange data from June. Shobha Gangwal had cut her stake in the company by over 4% in February. Rakesh Gangwal resigned from the company's board in February 2022 and had said he would cut his stake in the airline over five years.<br/>
Japanese carrier Skymark Airlines was loss-making in the first-quarter, despite seeing passenger volumes hit record highs amid strong domestic travel demand. The carrier reported an operating loss of Y1.4b ($9.6m) for the three months to 30 June, which it attributes to an “increase in variable costs such as aircraft fuels”, along with an increase in “outsourcing fees” for maintenance and equipment. Skymark did not provide a year-on-year comparison, as it did not release a financial statement for the same period a year ago. However, it was profitable in the year to 31 March, on the back of strong passenger revenue growth. Revenue for the quarter stood at Y22.1b, while costs amounted to Y22.5b. Skymark, which only operates domestic flights, carried close to 1.9m passengers during the quarter, up nearly 40% year on year. It also notes that the figure is the highest passenger volumes recorded for the April-June period. “[Passenger] demand has been robust amid the normalisation of social activities, and further demand expansion is expected because of a shift of travellers to domestic travel and increase in the number of tourists visiting Japan due to the weak yen,” the airline states. Skymark also confirms its full-year earnings forecast remains unchanged. It expects to report an operating profit of Y5.6b for the year ending 31 March 2024.<br/>