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WestJet plans to halt flights between Toronto and Montreal for the winter in a continuation of its retreat from short-haul routes in Eastern Canada to retrench in the West. The route will be cut from the schedule for six months, starting late October and resuming in late April, the Calgary-based company said. “This route was suspended as a result of performance and in alignment with our strategic direction to expand our presence in Eastern Canada this winter with increased non-stop connectivity to Western Canada, as well as providing more affordable leisure and sun travel opportunities across Canada,” spokeswoman Madison Kruger said in an email. The airline runs flights once a day along the busy Toronto-Montreal corridor, which currently sees four carriers - Air Canada, WestJet, Porter Airlines and Air Transat - operate more than 350 trips per week, according to aviation data firm Cirium. WestJet now flies 80% fewer trips between Canada's two biggest cities than in 2019 as the company has slashed routes in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada to refocus on the West - where it faces a growing raft of rivals, including Flair Airlines and Lynx Air. Meanwhile, Air Canada has been adding service to its main Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver markets and recently axed a number of regional routes in Western Canada as well as direct service to some larger Western Canadian cities, such as Regina and Saskatoon. In late August it cut six major routes out of Calgary from its winter schedule.<br/>

The Canadian Transportation Agency has granted ultra-low-cost carrier Lynx Air (Y9, Calgary) ten international licences for scheduled passenger services with large aircraft, including to European Union member states, Iceland, and the United Kingdom, according to regulatory filings. Licences were granted on September 25 for the following regions and countries: European Union member states; Iceland; Barbados; The Bahamas; Colombia; Costa Rica; United Kingdom; Mexico; Jamaica; and Dominican Republic. No mention was made in the filings of the intended destination airports or choice of large aircraft to be used. The airline was not immediately available for comment. Lynx Air currently operates a fleet of nine B737-8s. It has another seventeen B737-8s and twenty-one B737-8-200s on order, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module reveals. According to the Boeing website, the B737-8 has a range of 6,482 kilometres. At a distance of 5,148 kilometres, this puts Reykjavik Keflavik within range of Calgary, whereas at a distance of 7,035 kilometres, London Heathrow would be too far away.<br/>

Malta’s government believes an eight-strong fleet together with a right-sized network and staff levels will enable its planned successor carrier to Air Malta to be profitable. Maltese prime minister Robert Abela on 2 October detailed plans to establish a successor carrier to Air Malta, taking over from the national airline from the end of March next year. That followed talks with European Commission regulators, who had baulked at plans for further a capital increase in the struggling carrier. ”What we are doing differently today is that we are doing one process that we started seriously with the Commission from beginning to end, and today we are giving certainty and stability in the long run,” Abela told the Maltese Parliament on 2 October. He says that, significantly, it has secured agreement for the airline to operate eight aircraft, in line with Air Malta’s existing fleet, and a network plan that would mean passenger numbers of the successor carrier would match current levels despite fewer routes. While similar successor carriers in Europe, such as ITA Airways replacing Alitalia in Italy in 2021, required trimming operations substantially to gain regulatory approval, Abela says Malta insisted that retaining a fleet of eight aircraft was the right size for the carrier. ”We know this from the way it has behaved in recent months, from the way the company has behaved when it had a fleet of ten, nine and eight,” he says. ”We also know the advice the technical experts gave us that the right size of this company is eight planes. We have arrived with the Commission to work with a fleet of eight planes.” The carrier will cut its network to 17 routes. Cirium data shows Air Malta currently operates 23 routes and has previously flown more than 40. ”We wanted to keep flying to the destinations that are the most crucial. That’s how it will be done in the schedule structured according to expert advice in the aviation sector, a schedule whose main feature will be that it increases the seat load factor from what was traditionally around 75%,” he says, noting this has already increased for Air Malta.<br/>

Saudi Arabia’s biggest airline is weighing options including a debut bond sale to fund new aircraft orders, as it prepares to almost double its fleet by 2030. “We will go out to the market, we are evaluating the options,” Ibrahim Alomar, director general of Saudi Arabian Airlines Corp., said in an interview. The potential size of the funding is still being considered, he said. Saudia, as the state-owned airline is known, is looking to boost its fleet from 177 aircraft to 317 as part of its plans to serve 30m religious tourists visiting Mecca by 2030, and the government’s wider strategy to attract 70m international visitors. It could announce new aircraft orders next year as it looks to hit that target, Alomar said. The airline already has financing in place to cover its needs until mid-2024, he said. Saudia partnered with Riyadh Air, a new airline being launched by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, in March to buy as many as 121 Boeing 787 Dreamliners between the two carriers. The airlines will operate independently but look to collaborate in areas like maintenance and other services, Alomar said. Saudi Arabia, which until 2019 was largely closed off to foreign holidaymakers, is spending huge sums building hotels and resorts along the Red Sea coast. That push is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambition to diversify the oil-dependent economy. The de facto ruler wants tourism to account for 10% of gross domestic product by 2030, and also to transform the country into a logistics hub.<br/>

Ambitious Saudi Arabian start-up Riyadh Air is likely to announce a number of key airline partnerships ahead of its planned launch in 2025. Details of the Riyadh-based new national carrier were first disclosed six months ago, including a commitment for up to 72 Boeing 787s. The carrier, under the leadership of former Etihad Airways CE Tony Douglas, has since unveiled its livery – showcased on a Dreamliner at June’s Paris air show – and flagged plans for a major narrowbody order. Speaking to FlightGlobal in Lisbon on 27 September at the World Aviation Festival, Douglas – who has of late been presenting the Riyadh Air project in a number of countries, including China – said that partnerships would be a part of its plans. "We are start-up, a very big start-up, but nevertheless a start-up. So by definition, on day one we only have one aircraft. We can’t even put a city pair on until we have three [aircraft],” he says. "So there is a journey that classically goes from infancy, through adolescence into maturity. And for us to get the level of connectivity that the Kingdom deserves, requires and demands; and for us to serve it in a way in which we can connect our citizens with the world, and the world with Saudi Arabia, we see that a series of very strategic and deep partnerships would be our primary route.” Douglas suggests the airline will focus on quality of partnership rather than numbers, and that these will be ”the ones that really matter in key geographies”. He says there has been strong interest from potential partners in working with Riyadh Air, which has ambitions to have a network of more than 100 destinations by the end of this decade. <br/>

Air Vanuatu says its sole jet has now returned to service, after its grounding saw a week’s worth of flights to New Zealand and Australia cancelled over the school holiday period. The airline said in a statement it has been operating all regular international schedules since Saturday, after a replacement mechanical part for the Boeing 737 was sourced. Final mechanical work would take place later this month to replace the loan auxiliary power unit that was currently fitted. This work would be conducted overnight, so it was not expected to affect any flights. The airline said the backlog of stranded customers had been resolved through recovery flights and assistance from other airlines, including Solomon Airlines, Nauru Airlines and Fiji Airways.<br/>