Air Canada is slashing six major routes out of Calgary this winter, in part due to an industry-wide pilot shortage that the carrier says threatens its "overall operational stability." The country's biggest airline confirmed Wednesday it will no longer offer non-stop flights from Calgary to Ottawa, Halifax, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Cancun, or Frankfurt as of the end of October due to ongoing fleet and crew constraints. "The industry-wide shortage of regional pilots is expected to have a prolonged impact on Air Canada's regional network," said Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick in an email. "This has resulted in resource pressures as Air Canada has been required to operate certain routes with mainline aircraft that are normally served by its main regional partner." Fitzpatrick added the Montreal-based airline is also facing pressure due to supply chain challenges that are making it more difficult for the airline to obtain parts and complete airplane maintenance on time. "This has led to a review of the network schedule to ensure resources are deployed most efficiently and productively against these current, ongoing industry considerations," Fitzpatrick said. A pilot shortage has been brewing across the continent for several years due to a variety of factors including an aging workforce and the rapid proliferation of new discount airlines that are putting pressure on the labour supply.<br/>
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Portugal's flag carrier TAP said on Wednesday that it swung to a net profit of E23m in H1 2023 on strong revenue growth, boosted by booming tourism, and forecast a strong performance for the remainder of the year. The unlisted state-owned airline, which the government plans to partially privatise, was E202m in the red in the same period of 2022. It said its operating revenue jumped 44% to E1.9b from a year earlier, driven by increased fares and higher capacity as demand for travel returned in force after the lifting of COVID restrictions. TAP's recurring earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) jumped 57% to E361.7m and its EBITDA margin - a measure of profitability - rose to 19% from 17.4% a year ago. CEO Luis Rodrigues said the results showed the company's sustained trend of commercial and financial improvement and that "the operating margins and deleveraging path, above the targets of the restructuring plan, prove the group's financial sustainability". He noted that demand was still strong, with bookings for the coming quarters reaching "considerable levels, which indicates an intense second half of the year, for which TAP will be prepared". The airline, which is undergoing a restructuring under a Brussels-approved E3.2b rescue plan, has previously said it carried 7.58m passengers between January and June, a 30% increase from a year ago but still slightly below pre-pandemic levels.<br/>
China’s three largest airlines remained in the red in the second quarter, although losses narrowed significantly from the previous three months as a recovery in the domestic aviation market gathered pace. The ending of three years of COVID curbs has delivered a jolt to China’s tourism industry, with analysts predicting that the big three state carriers could return to profit in the second half of this year, halting a run of deep losses. Air China , the flag carrier of the country, posted a loss of 0.6b yuan ($82.32m) for the second quarter, down from the previous quarter’s 2.9b yuan. China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd cut its Q2 loss to 2.4b yuan, from 3.8b yuan in Q1. China Southern reported on Tuesday a quarterly net loss of 1.0b yuan, compared with a net loss of 1.9b yuan in the first three months, according to Reuters’ calculation. HSBC Global Research forecasts that the three state-owned carriers could log 10.4b yuan in profit over H2 2023, boosted by news China’s lifting of pandemic-era restrictions on group tours for more countries, as the recovery in international travel has been far more sluggish than domestic travel. That is in large part due to staffing issues for many global airlines that have limited the flying of more routes, slow visa issuance for Chinese travellers amid backlogs in many Western countries, and a sputtering domestic economy that is discouraging many holidaying Chinese from spending big. In comparison, domestic flight volumes have rebounded quickly in the first half, exceeding pre-COVID levels in 2019.<br/>
The Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended the licence for Air India's Boeing simulator training centre in Mumbai over an unspecified regulatory lapse, the PTI news agency has reported. While the details of the shortcoming were not disclosed, sources said a routine DGCA audit revealed discrepancies in the certification of instructors who operate the simulators. All training, including recurrence checks, at the facility have since been halted. Air India did not respond to ch-aviation's request for comment. The Mumbai training centre is the smaller of two simulator facilities owned by Air India, with the larger one being the Central Training Establishment (CTE) in Hyderabad.<br/>