Southwest Airlines said on Monday its pilots approved a new labor agreement, which will offer about a 50% pay raise over a five-year period. About 11,000 pilots affiliated with the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association had been negotiating for better pay, retirement benefits, disability insurance and a revised scheduling process after the contract ended in September 2020. About 93% of the votes cast were in favor of the new $12b contract, the union said in a statement. Pilots at the Dallas-based carrier will get a 29.15% pay raise immediately and a hike of 4% each in 2025, 2026 and 2027. The agreement provides for a 3.25% gain in wages in 2028. Carriers are offering bumper contracts to attract and retain pilots as travel rebounds after the pandemic. Last year, pilots at United Airlines Holdings ratified a contract with cumulative increases in wages ranging between 34.5% and 46% over four years, as well as other benefits, following deals at American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.<br/>
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LATAM Airlines, opens new tab widened its advantage last year as the market leader among companies flying domestically and internationally in Brazil, data from Brazilian regulator Anac showed on Monday. Chile-based LATAM has been leading the domestic segment in Latin America's largest economy since 2021, when it overtook local rival Gol. LATAM closed 2023 with a domestic market share of 37.8% as defined by revenue passenger kilometers, which measures traffic. That was followed by Gol with 33.3% and Brazilian firm Azul with 28.4%, according to data from Anac, which regulates the airline sector in the country. LATAM's lead over Gol rose to a 4.45 percentage points in 2023, up from 2.76 percentage points the previous year. Late in 2022, LATAM came out of pandemic-related bankruptcy proceedings with an $8b reorganization plan. Gol and Azul also have struggled financially in recent years, with the latter concluding a broader restructuring in 2023.<br/>
A Virgin Atlantic flight from Manchester to New York was cancelled after a passenger noticed several bolts were missing from the wing. The transatlantic flight, VS127, was called off just moments before liftoff on 15 January even though the airline said there was no risk to passengers. Phil Hardy, 41, a British passenger on the plane, alerted a flight attendant to the parts he noticed were missing. “I’m a good flyer, but my partner was not loving the information I was telling her and starting to panic, and I was trying to put her mind at rest as much as I could,” he said. “I thought it was best to mention it to a flight attendant to be on the safe side.” Engineers were called in to address the issues, with photos showing one of them on the plane’s wing using a screwdriver. Flight staff reportedly reassured Hardy that this was not a safety issue, which Virgin Atlantic later reiterated in a statement. Still, the flight was cancelled to “provide time for precautionary additional engineering maintenance checks, which allowed our team the maximum time to complete their inspections,” Virgin Atlantic said.<br/>
The US Treasury said on Monday that it would sanction an Iraqi budget airline, Fly Baghdad, for ferrying weapons, cash and fighters on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and allied armed groups. The Iranian military force and the other armed groups, which include Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the US Treasury. In a statement, the US Treasury said that Fly Baghdad, in addition to its commercial flights, also ran a regional transport service on behalf of the IRGC and allied groups in Syria and Lebanon ferrying weapons, including machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and several kinds of missiles. It also provided fighters with transportation from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, and recently transported Iraqi militants from Iranian-linked groups to fight against Israel in unspecified locations, the U.S. Treasury said. “Iran and its proxies have sought to abuse regional economies and use seemingly legitimate businesses as cover for funding and facilitating their attacks,” said Brian E. Nelson, the treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Fly Baghdad strongly denied the allegations, saying in a statement that the charges were baseless and that the company had “operated for years under the direct supervision of the Iraqi government represented by the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Transportation.” It said that flights would continue on schedule. Fly Baghdad is unrelated to Iraq’s state-run airline, Iraqi Airways, which has been in existence for more than 75 years.<br/>
On January 21, 2024, Hainan Airlines resumed scheduled passenger flights to Cairo, marking its return to the Egyptian capital after nearly 13 years. The airline's return to Cairo also marks the launch of its first non-stop route to Africa since before the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, there are now six direct connections between Egypt and China. Hainan Airlines announced the introduction of non-stop flights between Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport (SZX) and Cairo International Airport (CAI) on December 13, 2023. The inaugural flight, HU471, was operated on January 21, marking the carrier's official return to North Africa.<br/>