Two passengers duked it out on a Southwest Airlines flight headed to Hawaii on Monday. In video footage that NBC News obtained and shared on its Instagram account, two male passengers are seen getting into a heated argument while onboard a flight departing from Oakland, California, before things turn physical. As seen in the clip, one passenger sporting a baseball cap is shown hitting a man multiple times as the plane’s crew and other passengers step in to separate the dueling pair. Instagram users sounded off about the unruly passenger’s behavior in the comment section of the video. “Quickest way to ensure you never step foot on a commercial flight ever again,” one user wrote. “Vacation ruined before it started,” another said. “How could someone get mad on a flight to Hawaiiiiii?!?” someone else commented. The scuffle began about an hour into the flight, which was going to Lihue Airport on the island of Kauai. It’s unclear what led the two to get into the fistfight, according to NBC Bay Area. In a statement shared with Hawaii News Now, Southwest said, “We commend our Crew and Customers for their professionalism in diffusing this situation. The flight landed safely at its scheduled destination, and local authorities met the flight upon arrival.”<br/>
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Air Transat's 2,100 flight attendants in Montreal and Toronto will once again be asked to vote, this time on a recommendation from the mediators involved in the case, and not on a tentative agreement. They do not intend to strike. These flight attendants, based in Montreal and Toronto, are members of a local chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) affiliated to the FTQ. A first agreement in principle to renew their collective agreement was reached in mid-December, when a strike was threatened for early January. But the members rejected it by 98.1%. No strike was called. The parties returned to the negotiating table in early January. A second agreement in principle was reached on Jan. 7. It was again rejected, this time by 81.9%.<br/>
Ryanair Holdings Plc is nearing a deal to provide flights for package holiday giant TUI AG, according to people familiar with the matter, striking a fresh blow in its battle against online travel agents. A Ryanair partnership with the German travel company could be announced as soon as Thursday, one of the people said, asking not to be named before a deal is final. The talks with TUI follow an agreement Ryanair reached in January with online travel firm Loveholidays, under the condition that no mark-ups were allowed on the Irish discounter’s flights, the person said. A spokesperson for TUI, which draws more customers from the UK and Germany than any other markets, declined to comment. Ryanair, the third most-active carrier in both countries, also declined to comment. A deal would give travelers another way to bypass online agents and arrange holidays on Ryanair flights. The low-cost carrier’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, has branded sites such as Booking.com and Lastminute.com as “pirates,” and called on regulators in UK and the European Union to halt their practice of adding fees for services such as changes to a Ryanair itinerary. The online aggregators act as middlemen arranging for flights, hotels, car rentals and other travel services. They have accused Ryanair, Europe’s largest discount airline, of abusing its market dominance by disrupting their services. In December, many of the sites unexpectedly dropped Ryanair flights from their listings.<br/>
Israir Group is to consider raising debt through issuing convertible bonds, to assist with financing the purchase of an Airbus A320. The Tel Aviv-based operator has entered a tentative agreement – through a letter of intent – to purchase the jet from one of its lessors, after receiving a proposal to buy it after the lease expires this year. Israir Group estimates the value of the transaction at $25-30m and the company’s management is looking into options to finance the agreement. It says the acquisition is an opportunity to improve the carrier’s earnings and cash-flow over the course of 2024. The company has detailed the possible bond issue in a draft document. This document lists a February 2030 maturity date for the unsecured bonds, which will have a 5% interest rate, and states that bonds with a face value of 2.3 shekels ($0.63) will be convertible into a single company share.<br/>