Southwest Airlines has reached a tentative five-year agreement with a local unit of the Transport Workers Union that represents nearly 18,000 operations, provisioning, ramp and cargo agents, the company said on Thursday. The agreement, which is subject to a ratification by the members of TWU 555, includes average pay increase of more than 18% on the date of ratification and a 3% annual wage increase beyond that. In the past two years, unions representing pilots, flight attendants and maintenance workers have sought higher wages, better scheduling and other benefits against the backdrop of a tight U.S. labor market. The agreement constitutes a wage rate of $38 per hour at the top of the wage scale, which is 6.6% above United Airlines’ current industry leading rate, TWU said. The deal also allows workers to reach the top of the pay scale after 10 years of service from 11 years currently. “This tentative agreement provides much needed raises and quality-of-life benefits for our hardworking members at airports across the country,” TWU International Executive Vice-President Alex Garcia said. Southwest, which is in talks with its cabin crew members, has ratified contracts with nine worker groups since October 2022. The cabin crew members approved a strike mandate in January after rejecting a tentative contract. Last month, Southwest pilots approved a labor contract, which will offer about a 50% raise over a five-year period. Bumper pilot contracts have driven up operating costs across major airlines and have also encouraged other groups to demand similar gains.<br/>
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JetBlue Airways expects to have an average of 11 Airbus narrowbody aircraft grounded during 2024 due to inspections of the jets’ Pratt & Whitney (P&W) PW1100G geared turbofan (GTF) engines. The New York-based carrier’s CFO Ursula Hurley, speaking at an investor conference on 22 February, said that at the peak, the company will have 12-15 A320neo-family aircraft sitting idle due to the defective-disc problem identified by P&W last summer. The engine issues will cut into the company’s 2024 growth plans and are not expected to improve soon. “One of the biggest challenges [this year] is having a significant amount of aircraft on the ground,” Hurley says. The groundings will represent “close to 3.5 points of capacity, which is one of the main reasons that JetBlue is not growing this year”. The inspections are now expected to take the aircraft out of service for ”360 to 365 days” each, Hurley adds. In August, P&W disclosed a powered-metal problem that can lead disks in the engines to fail. At the time, the manufacturer said each engine will likely be in the shop for 250-300 days. Hurley also says that since the carrier introduced GTF engines it has been having “reliability challenges”, even prior to last year’s recall, and those will likely continue into next year. In 2025, “JetBlue will continue to be challenged with the GTF,” Hurley adds. “I don’t necessarily believe that the situation will improve.” In the meantime, the company is attempting to fill anticipated capacity gaps by keeping older aircraft flying longer than previously planned.<br/>
Lynx Air, a Calgary-based airline that launched less than two years ago, says it will cease operations on Monday. The news came as the low-cost airline announced it had sought and obtained an initial order for creditor protection from the Court of King's Bench of Alberta. "Over the past year, Lynx Air, has faced a number of significant headwinds including rising operating costs, high fuel prices, exchange rates, increasing airport charges and a difficult economic and regulatory environment," said the company. "Despite substantial growth in the business, ongoing operational improvements, cost reductions and efforts to explore a sale or merger, the challenges facing the company's business have become too significant to overcome." The airline said it has made the decision to cease operations as of 12:01 a.m. MT on Monday, "with flights continuing to operate until that time." The company said passengers with existing bookings are advised to contact their credit card company to secure refunds for pre-booked travel. It also directed customers to its website.<br/>
LATAM Airlines on Thursday posted a 95% year-on-year fall in net profit in Q4 to $84m, as its operations stabilized after exiting bankruptcy in late 2022. The sharp drop for the final three months of 2023 reflected a normalization for LATAM after it was boosted a year earlier by an $8b restructuring plan, finance chief Ramiro Alfonsin told reporters. LATAM's passenger traffic, as measured in the metric of available seat kilometers (ASK), grew 14.7% in the quarter, just under 2019's growth rate. The carrier, which currently operates a 333-plane fleet, plans to add eight narrow body planes in the year while shedding one wide body and a cargo aircraft. LATAM's need for narrow body aircraft recently put it in hot water with Brazilian carrier Gol, which accused its competitor of trying to poach its planes as Gol undergoes bankruptcy proceedings. "It's not news that we grew a lot in 2023 and will continue to seek growth in 2024," Brazil head Jerome Cadier told journalists. "We've been in constant contact with lessors and suppliers looking for narrow body planes." LATAM will extend leases for some Airbus A319 and A320 planes this year which it had originally planned on retiring from the fleet, Alfonsin said. The airline's adjusted EBITDAR - earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization and restructuring or rent costs - increased in the quarter by 29.9% year-on-year to $675m.<br/>
Aurigny has relaunched its London City route which was pulled in 2017 after it failed to make money. The airline will operate a day and evening flight and three daily flights on a Friday, starting in March. Flights to the airport were pulled after three years in 2017, due to what the airline described as a "lack of demand" at the time. Aurigny CEO Nico Bezuidenhout said the new route would "benefit" the island's business community. Guernsey's government-owned airline, Aurigny, first announced a route to London City in 2014, which was designed around business commuters. The decision to pull the route was made in 2017 - then CEO Mark Darby described it as a "loss maker" with planes that were "half empty on most days". It followed recommendations made by Guernsey's government at the time, aimed at improving the airline's efficiency and financial performance. Aurigny had gone through a two-year period of substantial losses, which included having its debt written off in 2015.<br/>
The Dubai-based budget carrier FlyDubai saw record profits of $572m in 2023, boosted by carrying the most passengers ever across its network, the company announced Thursday. The state-owned carrier, based in the business and tourism hub of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, reported revenue of $3b, compared to $2.5b the year before. It also carried 13.8m passengers, beating its prior pre-pandemic record of 11m in a year. It saw a profit of $327m in profit in 2022. “Building on the momentum from our previous strong performance, we continued to grow surpassing all pre-pandemic levels to achieve the most profitable year in the history of the airline,” Ghaith al-Ghaith, FlyDubai’s CEO, said in a statement. FlyDubai is the sister airline to long-haul carrier Emirates, both based out of Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel. The airport just announced that it beat its own pre-pandemic figures for 2023, though it remains just shy of its all-time-highest figures of 89.1m passengers in 2018. FlyDubai had been one of the biggest customers of the 737 Max. The Boeing 737 is a workhorse for the airline, which along with long-haul carrier Emirates is owned by the government’s Investment Corporation of Dubai. The two carriers also operate code-share flights, increasing traffic on FlyDubai routes.<br/>
Emirates Group is adding “deputy president” to the job titles of two of its senior executives, suggesting potential succession options for long-serving Emirates Airline president Tim Clark. Clark was due to retire from his role in mid-2020 but postponed that plan when Covid-19 hit. He is yet to name a new retirement date but acknowledged in November last year that he cannot stay “indefinitely”. Emirates Airline chief operations officer Adel Al Redha and CCO Adnan Kazim will both have “deputy president” added to their titles from 1 March, Emirates Group said on 22 February, as it announced a string of new job titles for long-serving executives. Al Redha joined Emirates in 1988 while Kazim joined in 1992, with both working under their current titles since 2019. “Keeping pace with Dubai’s vision for growth and prosperity, the Emirates Group has also set clear and ambitious plans for fleet, network and business growth for the next 15 years,” says Emirates Group CE Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum. “To effectively execute these plans, the group is strengthening its executive bench, together with internal business and operational alignment.” Of the 19 executives named as having been “promoted”, Emirates notes that six are women and eight are UAE nationals. Among the changes, Emirates Group CFO Michael Doersam will become chief financial and group services officer, while most of the other changes involve executive vice-president and senior vice-president positions. Dnata CE Steve Allen is listed among the promoted staff, although his job title appears to be unchanged. <br/>
Low-cost group AirAsia is converting a number of its Airbus A321neo orders into A321LRs, as it prepares to resume new aircraft deliveries from the middle of the year. The order swap will see 62 A321neos converted, one for one, to the longer-range variant. AirAsia, which has operations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, has 326 A321neos on order. In January, group advisor Tony Fernandes, who is also the CEO of parent Capital A, said AirAsia was “looking at” whether to convert some of the A321neo commitments into A321LR orders. AirAsia also has 20 A321XLR and 15 A330neo aircraft on order. In June, the airline group will resume deliveries of A321neos, with the first jet likely to go to its Malaysian unit. The new aircraft will gradually replace its fleet of A320s, as AirAsia transitions to become an all-A321neo operator. Fernandes states: “These new specification aircraft will enable greater flexibility on existing short to medium-haul routes and network expansion to places we have never flown before, including to exciting secondary markets such as North Asia, Australia and Central Asia from Southeast Asia.” <br/>