Air Canada says a mother and her newborn child are believed to be in good health after the woman went into premature labour and gave birth mid-flight. In a written statement, the airline says the flight from St. Lucia to Toronto last week diverted to Bermuda when a passenger went into premature labour. Before the plane could land, the airline says the woman delivered her baby with the help of two doctors who happened to be on board and volunteered their help. The statement says the Air Canada Rouge flight was met by medics who brought the customer and her baby to a local hospital in stable condition. The airline says, “We understand the mother and child are in healthy condition.” Air Canada is thanking the doctors who helped and praising the crew’s professionalism.<br/>
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Lufthansa and regional unit CityLine are braced for fresh strike disruption on 12 and 13 March, this time as cabin crew represented by the UFO union have called a stoppage. The strike action, which will run from 4am to 11pm on both days, will impact operations from Lufthansa’s Frankfurt hub on 12 March and its Munich operations on 13 March. The union says it follows a ballot of members, after talks on a new collective deal covering the airline’s roughly 18,000 cabin crew, broke down earlier this year. Lufthansa says it expects the action to cause “significant impact” to its flight schedule. It comes after the airline has been recently hit by industrial action by ground staff represented by the Verdi union, together wider transport staff industrial action within Germany. The cabin crew action is compounded by a rail strike impacting travel to airports on 13 March. In disclosing an operating profit of around E2.7b for 2023 earlier this month, Lufthansa estimated it took a strike impact of around E100m over the first two months of this year. Speaking during Lufthansa Group’s full-year results call on 7 March, CE Carsten Spohr argued industrial action has a direct impact on growth prospects. ”So less growth, less promotions. This is what the staff understand to be the output of these strikes,” he said. ”They have learnt from previous labour conflicts that we are not just willing to give in just for a few more days of peace. As I said once at a pilot strike, rather a few days without Lufthansa than one day an aviation world without Lufthansa. I would see that they would rather fly and work than strike,” he says, adding: ”We are not that far apart, so there should be room for solutions.”<br/>
Air New Zealand said on Tuesday it plans to pause its Auckland to Chicago non-stop service from March 31 to Oct. 25 this year due to ongoing challenges with the availability of serviceable Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. The airline added that it does not expect an impact to its full-year results as it plans to re-accommodate most of the impacted customers to alternative services. "Air New Zealand continues to be impacted by challenges with availability of Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines ... we will now have up to three aircraft unavailable for an extended period," the company's Chief Customer and Sales Officer Leanne Geraghty said. The engines are used in Air New Zealand's Boeing 787 aircraft. Rolls-Royce has been unable to provide the company with spare or replacement engines, leading to a reduction in the amount of flying Air New Zealand can deliver via its 787 fleet, the carrier said.<br/>The airline's fiscal 2024 earnings before taxation forecast is in the range of NZ$200m ($123.3m) to NZ$240m, lower than the NZ$574m reported in fiscal 2023.<br/>