United Airlines plans to speed up its boarding process by having passengers in economy class who have purchased window seats get on the plane before people in the middle and aisle seats. The change, which is set to take effect on Thursday, could cut up to two minutes from boarding time on each flight, according to an internal memo shared with The New York Times. It will affect domestic flights and some international ones. Airlines, which have recovered from a drop in travel during the coronavirus pandemic, regularly tinker with boarding processes to try to save time and boost profits. Under United’s new seating plan, known as Wilma, a loose acronym for window-middle-aisle, people in economy class with window seats will board first, followed by people in middle seats and then those in aisle seats. Families travelling on the same flight will board together. The boarding process will not change for passengers in first class and business class, and the preboarding group will still include people with disabilities, unaccompanied minors, active-duty military and families travelling with children two years old and under. United has tested the Wilma method, which it first tried in 2017, at five airports and found it to be effective at reducing boarding times, according to the internal memo.<br/>
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For six months, the disappearance of $17.2m in gold bars and cash from a warehouse at Toronto Pearson International Airport has remained a mystery. Now a lawsuit has given the public a glimpse into the victim’s view of the heist. In April, the Peel Regional Police, who are responsible for the airport, announced that a special container holding the valuable goods was unloaded from an airplane, placed in a warehouse and then disappeared. The police force seemed baffled at the time and offered no other information, such as whom the container belonged to or even the name of the airline that flew it into the country. While the case remains unsolved, a lawsuit has now filled in several of the blanks surrounding the robbery with still unproven allegations. The lawsuit was brought by Brink’s, the armored car company hired to move the cash and gold bars from Switzerland to Canada, against Air Canada, which flew and stored the high-value cargo container. According to a statement of claim that Brink’s and two of its subsidiaries filed with the Federal Court of Canada, the cash and the gold were two separate shipments traveling together. The 53 kg of cash worth $1.9m were sent by a Swiss bank to a Vancouver-based currency exchange. The 400 kilos of gold bars worth 13.6m Swiss francs, or $15.3m, were going to Toronto-Dominion Bank from a precious metal refinery in Switzerland. (The value of the cargo is slightly higher than the initial police estimate.) Brink’s said that it was responsible to the shippers for covering any losses if the gold and cash went missing. Brink’s paid a premium, as a flat-rate handling fee and a percentage of the cargo’s value, to send the shipment through a special Air Canada service called AC Secure that, according to the airline, provides greater security and gives the shipment priority for loading and unloading. Story has more.<br/>
Lufthansa and all its airlines have extended the suspension of flights to Israel to Oct. 31 due to security concerns in the region, the company said on Friday. The suspension includes all flights to and from Tel Aviv as well as Beirut, the company, which also include Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines, said.<br/>