British Airways reached a tentative labor agreement with unionized pilots, removing the threat of a walkout through 2027 as the flagship UK carrier cements a recovery from the Covid-19 era travel slowdown. Members of the British Airline Pilots’ Association will now vote on whether to ratify the agreement in principle, which builds on pay and working-condition changes made last year, BA said in an emailed statement on Thursday. The airline’s fortunes have improved since it imposed a pay cut on pilots during the Covid-19 pandemic. Parent company IAG SA announced better-than-expected second-quarter earnings in July, citing BA’s performance on North Atlantic routes from London Heathrow airport. Overall, IAG expects capacity to return to 97% of pre-Covid levels by year-end. The deal with pilots follows an accord in August with 24,000 other staff for a 13.1% pay rise over an 18-month period. Airlines have been proactive in securing new pay deals with staff as they seek to avoid a return to last summer’s travel chaos, which saw companies scrambling to recruit enough staff to deal with the post-Covid travel boom. The British airline came under fire for how it treated its staff during the pandemic, eventually rowing back on plans to dismiss and rehire all of its 4,300 cockpit crew. Questioned in Parliament last year amid travel delays, Corporate Affairs Director Lisa Tremble said the company was working to rebuild trust with staff and customers.<br/>
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The coordinated timing of two key letters sent by the federal government about its decision to block extra flights for Qatar Airways, released under freedom of information, raise fresh questions about the role an incident at Doha airport played in the rejection. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) was consulted over a letter that the transport minister, Catherine King, was preparing to send to five Australian women suing Qatar Airways, telling them the airline’s push for more flights had been rejected, FoI documents reveal. The transport department also sought advice from Dfat about the wording of a separate letter it was to send to the Qatari government formally rejecting the request for 28 extra weekly flights to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. The documents also reveal the Australian government heavily coordinated the timing of both letters when it formally rejected the request in July. The communications between the departments were obtained by Guardian Australia under a freedom of information request. The five women King wrote to in July had been among female passengers who in October 2020 were forced off planes at gunpoint at Doha airport and intimately examined without permission as authorities searched for the mother of a baby who had been abandoned in an airport toilet. The women are seeking damages from Qatar Airways and the Qatari government, and had lobbied King to reject the request for extra flights.<br/>
Regent, a startup developing electric seagliders to transport people and cargo, has raised a $60m round of venture funding and struck a partnership with Japan Airlines to figure out how to bring the company’s flying electric ferries to the waterways of Japan. Venture fund 8090 Industries co-led Regent’s series A round alongside Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, with Japan Airlines Innovation Fund and Point72 Ventures also participating among others. The new funding brings Regent’s total capital raised to $90m to-date, according to co-founder and CEO Billy Thalheimer. The funding follows two major milestones for the clean transportation startup. As CNBC previously reported, Regent built a quarter-scale prototype and completed a series of test runs on Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay late last year to prove that its seagliders, which are technically known as wing-in-ground-effect craft (WIGs) can “float, foil and fly” as expected. The prototype was able to repeatedly motor out of a harbor slowly, then launch from a speed of about 40 mph into the air, where it flew around 10 feet above the open ocean at a speed of approximately 50 mph in different, travel-safe weather conditions.<br/>
The Australian Federation of Air Pilots has confirmed it will meet Qantas management next week following yesterday’s 24-hour strike that affected FIFO flights in WA. The union’s senior industrial officer, Chris Aikens, said its members were simply asking for a new pay deal that is “affordable and sustainable”. “The AFAP remains committed to ensuring the views of our membership are clearly heard by Qantas and that we explore every possible opportunity to make progress towards agreement,” he said. “The AFAP remains open to meeting with the company to progress negotiations in good faith and reach an agreement.” It follows yesterday’s strike by pilots from subsidiary Network Aviation that grounded half of the Flying Kangaroo’s flights within WA, forcing Qantas to redeploy 737s and turn to other charter operators to fill the gap. Yesterday, Network Aviation COO Trevor Worgan attacked the union for going ahead with the strike. “Our offer provides Network Aviation pilots up to 25% pay increases immediately and other benefits, but the union is demanding unreasonable increases of more than 50%,” said Worgan. “It’s disappointing that they are continuing with their disruptive strike action, which has been timed to hurt travellers during the busy school holiday period. We’ve protected as much flying as we possibly can, but unfortunately, our contingency options can only cover part of our regular schedule and we have had to cancel dozens of flights.” Network Aviation operates more than 300 weekly flights, with regular services from Perth Airport and charter flights for mining, corporates, and emergency freight.<br/>