A passenger on a Tuesday JetBlue flight was restrained with help from other passengers after acting “erratically and aggressively toward his travel companion and members of the inflight crew,” according to a statement from the airline. The incident occurred on flight 1926 from London to New York. Flight crew “discovered an opened bottle of liquor the customer had brought on board and indications of intoxication,” JetBlue said. “For everyone’s safety, the customer was restrained with the assistance of other customers who were witnessing this threatening behavior.” Video posted online shows several people struggling to restrain a male passenger. The flight was met by law enforcement at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, the airline said. New York’s Port Authority confirmed it received “a report of a disturbance” onboard the Tuesday flight. “The plane landed safely with no further incident or reported injuries and no arrest was made by Port Authority police,” according to a Port Authority spokesperson.<br/>
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Both engines of an Allegiant Air Airbus A320 were damaged during a bird-strike on departure from Phoenix Mesa Gateway airport, the US FAA has disclosed. The aircraft took off as flight G4693 to Des Moines on 26 January. But as it rotated from runway 30C, a preliminary notification from the US FAA states that its crew reported “multiple” bird-strikes. The crew informed a Mesa Gateway tower controller that the aircraft would return to the airport, and was advised to contact Phoenix departure control to conduct the turnback from the aircraft’s instrument flight rules clearance. The aircraft climbed to around 6,000ft and returned to land on runway 30L about 10min later. According to the FAA notification, a post-flight inspection revealed the aircraft sustained “damage to both engines”.<br/>
Sun Country Airlines’ model of mixed operations – scheduled passenger, charter and cargo – is shielding it from many of the industry forces that are impacting other US carriers. That was the message from company executives during Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Sun Country’s Q4 earnings call on 1 February. “We are not subject to the major challenges – particularly on the fleet side – that the rest of the industry is dealing with,” says CE Jude Bricker. “We don’t have geared turbofan [engines]. We’re not subject to new aircraft delivery delays. We don’t expect to do any engine performance restoration, so we we aren’t subjected to OEM escalation in 2024. We don’t have the Max 9.” “There’s just not that much pressure on our costs relative to the industry,” he adds. Sun Country reports company-record revenue of $246m during the final three months of 2023, up more than 8% from $227m of revenue generated during the prior-year period. The leisure carrier made a modest $5.6m during Q4, compared with $7.3m the previous year. ”With one exception, we’ve been profitable in every full quarter since going public in March of 2021,” Bricker says. <br/>
SkyWest Airlines is benefiting from favourable trends in pilot training and retention but is still 2,000 pilots short of market demand. That is according to CE Chip Childs, who provided an update on the Utah-based carrier’s ongoing pilot shortage during SkyWest’s Q4earnings call on 1 February. ”When we were in pre-pandemic volumes, we had up to 5,400 pilots on property at SkyWest,” he says. “As of today, we are still about 1,000 pilot short of that number… and the demand that we see long-term is that we could use 1,000 pilots on top of that.” “We have to dig ourselves out of this hole,” he continues. “This is not going to take one year or two years.” During the Regional Airline Association Leaders Conference in September, Childs said the airline was 1,200 pilots short of pre-pandemic levels, suggesting recent progress. However, SkyWest still isn’t producing enough captains. “Throughout 2024, we’re going to evaluate additional programmes to make sure that we’re vertically integrated with our partners to expand that captain production even further,” Childs says. The carrier disclosed on 1 February that it has acquired a 25% stake in charter carrier Contour Airlines, partially due to interest in the company as a potential pilot pipeline. SkyWest has a massive fleet of roughly 500 regional jets, flying on behalf of major airline partners such as Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines. <br/>
US regional carrier SkyWest Airlines has acquired partial ownership of Tennessee-based Part 135 operator Contour Airlines. The Utah-based carrier now has a 25% stake in Contour, SkyWest revealed during its 1 February quarterly earnings call. Additionally, SkyWest has agreed to provide Contour with Bombardier CRJ airframes, engines and parts, but has not disclosed financial terms of the deal. CCO Wade Steel says SkyWest owns roughly 150 CRJ200s – and as many as 60 of those are not currently contracted to fly with one of SkyWest’s major airline partners. ”Our CRJ700s and -900s, the vast majority of those are under contract, and we have very high demand for those,” he says. SkyWest is also interested in Contour as a potential source of pilots, with captains in particularly short supply. “We’re working very diligently with partners on creative ways in which we can produce captains faster than what we’re producing today,” says CE Chip Childs. The FAA’s Part 135 guidelines apply to non-scheduled commercial passenger service, such as air taxis and charters. Flying under Part 135 rules allows carriers to operate in a less strict regulatory environment. For example, those operators can use pilots with fewer than the US standard of at least 1,500h of total aviation time and pilots older than the usual mandatory retirement age of 65. Critics of the operating model – including major pilots’ unions – allege that Part135 carriers are exploiting a loophole that allows them to skirt safety rules. <br/>
Air Transat flight attendants rejected a new tentative agreement with the Canadian leisure carrier, their union said on Thursday, as North American cabin crews are demanding steep pay gains at a time of strong travel demand. About 82% of the votes cast opposed the new agreement, rejecting an Air Transat proposal for a second time, according to CUPE, the union representing 2,100 cabin crew members at the Montreal-based airline. Unions in the aerospace, construction, airline and rail industries have pressed over the last two years for higher wages and more benefits amid a tight labor market. Flight attendants at Alaska Airlines are voting through Feb. 13 on whether to give authorization for their union to strike for the first time in decades. Transat flight attendants have voted in favor of renewing a strike mandate that had expired on Jan. 23. No strike or lockout notices have been issued yet by either party. Montreal-based Transat said negotiations will resume in the next days and operations will continue as planned. "We are disappointed it was rejected for a second time," said Julie Lamontagne, a Transat spokesperson. "We are returning to the bargaining table and our objective remains to find a mutually satisfactory agreement as soon as possible.” Cabin crews at carriers in Canada and the United States are demanding to be paid for more of their hours at work - a fundamental change from how the industry currently compensates them by paying largely only when the aircraft is in motion. Remuneration for hours worked on the ground before takeoff and after landing as well as the question of onboard staffing were the main sticking points, CUPE said.<br/>
El Al Israel Airlines plans to add five weekly flights to Israel in the coming months from Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles and Boston. Ahead of Passover, which begins on the evening of April 22, the airline intends to add two new weekly flights to Israel from Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport in South Florida. (El Al also operates flights out of Miami International Airport, some 30 miles to the south.) “El Al is expanding its service in South Florida to accommodate the local community, whose travel to Israel is constantly increasing,” Simon Newton-Smith, vice president of the Americas for El Al, told JNS. “Fort Lauderdale is also a great transit option for those traveling to Israel from other cities in the United States.” The new schedule is part of a phased plan that the airlines announced last year to increase its weekly flights from the region. El Al announced in May 2022 that it was relocating its U.S. headquarters to Miami. Florida is the only state in which the airline operates in two cities.<br/>
Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, has announced the resumption of its flights to four destinations during the upcoming summer season from June to September. The four destinations are Nice in France, Sharm El Sheikh and Alexandria in Egypt and Bodrum in Turkey, each destination will be operated with two weekly flights by Airbus A320 and A321.<br/>
Ahead of elections next week, Pakistan's caretaker administration is making binding plans for a new government to sell loss-making Pakistan International Airlines, according to the minister in charge of the process and other officials. In the past, elected governments have shied away from undertaking unpopular reforms, including the sale of the flag carrier. But Pakistan, in deep economic crisis, agreed in June to overhaul loss-making state-owned enterprises under a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $3b bailout. The government decided to privatise PIA just weeks after signing the IMF agreement. The caretaker administration, which took office in August to oversee the Feb. 8 election, was empowered by the outgoing parliament to take any steps needed to meet the budgetary targets agreed with the IMF. "Our job is 98% done," Privatisation Minister Fawad Hasan Fawad told Reuters when asked about the plan to sell the airline. "The remaining 2% is just to bring it on an excel sheet after the cabinet approves it." Fawad said the plan, drawn up by transaction adviser Ernst & Young, will be presented to the cabinet for approval before the tenure of the administration ends following the election. The cabinet will also decide whether to sell the stake by tender or through a government-to-government deal, Fawad said. "What we have done in just four months is what past governments have been trying to do for over a decade," Fawad said. "There is no looking back."<br/>