If you’ve ever had a crying baby seated near you during a flight, you know how disruptive it can be. This past April, a man had an outburst on a Southwest flight when a crying baby woke him up. One airline is trying to avoid that by being the first in Europe with dedicated seating zone for passengers 16 years or older. Turkish-Dutch Corendon Airlines is testing the “Only Adult” zones on flights between Amsterdam and Curaçao starting in November, according to a press release. This area will be located at the front of the Airbus A350-900 aircraft and consists of nine XL seats with additional legroom and 93 standard seats. There will be walls and curtains separating the “Only Adult” zone from the rest of the plane, making it ideal for travelers without children and business travelers who “want to work in a quiet environment,” according to a press release. With the new seating arrangement, families can also breathe a little easier knowing they won’t be disturbing childless passengers. Unfortunately, sitting away from children will cost you a little extra. For a one-way ticket, the zone will cost an extra 45 euros, or just under $49. For an XL seat, it’ll be an extra 100 euros, or about $108. <br/>
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AirAsia X expects a three-fold jump in flights to China by the end of the year, amid optimism of the market’s “massive potential”, and as the carrier posts its fourth consecutive quarterly profit. The medium-haul, low-cost operator says plans are “already in motion” to ramp up operations to China, with airline chief Benyamin Ismail noting that traffic is “gaining momentum” since Beijing scrapped most of its onerous zero-Covid strategy earlier this year. It currently flies to Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, as well as Chengdu, from its Kuala Lumpur hub. The disclosure comes as the airline - the sister unit to the AirAsia group of carriers - remains profitable for the second quarter. For the three months to 30 June, AirAsia X posted an operating profit of MYR38.2m ($8.2m), reversing the MYR654m loss in the year-ago period. Operating revenues rose nearly five-fold year on year to about MYR513m, amid a jump in passenger traffic. AirAsia X carried close to 622,000 passengers during the quarter, 70 times more than a year earlier. “AirAsia X continued to advance its network recovery strategy, launching flights to Bangkok, Beijing and the Gold Coast, on top of establishing increased frequencies of up to seven times weekly to Sydney, between Sydney and Auckland, to Melbourne as well as to Osaka to meet the significant demand for these sectors,” the carrier adds. Net profit for the quarter stood at MYR5.5m, compared to a net loss of MYR652m last year. Ismail notes that the airline is “on track” to operate 16 Airbus A330s by the end of the year, up from 11 jets as at end-June. AirAsia X is also seeking to add one more A330 to its fleet, though it did not state when it expects to induct the aircraft. <br/>
Jetstar is holding around A$100m in unused COVID-19 flight credits, a Senate inquiry has revealed. Speaking before the Senate Select Committee on the Cost of Living on Monday, Jetstar CEO Stephanie Tully (pictured) admitted that the airline still has a substantial amount of unused flight credit over and above the approximately $370m in credit Qantas holds for its own flights. “About 50% of that credit [that’s] held by people [is] less than $100. So you can imagine the context of contacting those customers to use that amount,” she said. Additionally, when pressed, the Qantas executives present admitted that there are also tens of millions of dollars in credit from Qantas overseas bookings that have not been counted in the $370m figure, though could not give an exact amount. Tully said that various factors, including changes to customers’ credit card details and complex bookings, had prevented Qantas Group from refunding all of the credits immediately, but said the group intends to have all unused credit returned or used by the December 31 deadline. “When COVID occurred back in March 2020, a lot of those trips that were put into credit were half-taken trips and the way you price a half-taken trip is a whole trip. The actual amount of the refund is not clear,” she said. “We had a lot of codeshare flights that were partly Qantas tickets, partly another airline ticket. We had interline tickets, and… over time people’s credit card details change as well. So, we have always given the option for customers to have a refund and… I think, as [Qantas head of corporate affairs Andrew] McGinnes said, $3b worth of refunds have happened.""<br/>