Aviation has been under the microscope this year with a series of high-profile incidents raising concerns about safety across the industry. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby sent a letter to customers Monday acknowledging recent issues at the airline. “Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, our airline has experienced a number of incidents that are reminders of the importance of safety. While they are all unrelated, I want you to know that these incidents have our attention and have sharpened our focus,” the letter said while pledging action to increase safety at the carrier. “Our team is reviewing the details of each case to understand what happened and using those insights to inform our safety training and procedures across all employee groups. This is in addition to some changes that were already planned, including an extra day of in-person training for all pilots starting in May and a centralized training curriculum for our new-hire maintenance technicians,” Kirby’s statement continued. Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration, meanwhile, are working to improve oversight and renew the regulatory focus on aviation safety. Story includes timeline of the most notable air travel incidents so far in 2024. <br/>
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A year after introducing Green Fares, the Lufthansa Group has seen over a million passengers choose this eco-friendly option, representing an average of 3% of its travelers and marking a significant step towards sustainable travel. In Business Class, Green Fares account for eleven percent of bookings through the Lufthansa Group online platforms. These fares have seen particular popularity on routes like Hamburg-Munich, Zurich-London, and Frankfurt-Berlin, with increasing demand across all classes, highlighting the initiative’s success. Since their inception, these fares have contributed to offsetting over 77,000 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to the emissions from over 12,000 Hamburg to Munich flights on an Airbus A320neo. Green Fares are available across Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, SWISS, Edelweiss, Discover Airlines, and Air Dolomiti, covering over 730,000 flights annually within Europe and to destinations in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The initiative has also expanded to select long-haul routes since November 2023.<br/>
Hopefully, there have been a few champagne corks popped at Singapore Airlines' headquarters this week, as after a few years of heartache and so much determined effort, the group has, for the second month, surpassed 2019 numbers. It has been a slow and steady recovery interspersed with inspired strategic routes and capacity choices that have seen the group emerge stronger than ever and with an extremely bright future ahead. In February, the Singapore Airlines Group, which includes full-service carrier Singapore Airlines and low-cost dynamo Scoot, carried 3.06m passengers at a load factor of 86.3%, close to 10% ahead of the 2.79m it carried in February 2019. Even more remarkable is the year-on-year comparison to the 2.38m it carried last year, which shows the group had increased passenger numbers by 28.2% in the intervening twelve months. Digging a little deeper into the year-on-year comparison, the results show that the Group's disciplined approach to adding capacity has paid off, with 2024 capacity, as measured by available seat kilometers, at 13,643.5m compared to 11,302.1m last year, while revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) was 11,779m this year compared to 9,782.7m in 2023. That balance is an important metric and shows how the capacity growth (20.7%) is matched by a similar increase (20.4%) in demand.<br/>
Air New Zealand has issued an apology to two passengers who say they were kicked off a flight because of their size. Angel Harding told 1News of the “trauma” she had experienced from a flight attendant on the Napier to Auckland service on March 8. She was returning back to Northland with friends after a hui in Hastings. Harding said the plane was taxiing when she felt a pain in her left arm as a crew member was forcing the arm rest into her arm. “I was kind of was in shock and I moved forward, and she started yelling to me that the pilot can’t take off unless all the arm rests were down, and she was quite aggressive to me. She was speaking to me in an aggressive manner. I just couldn’t believe what was happening to me,” Harding told 1News. She was told she should have booked two seats. There had been no issues on the flight down to Napier from Kerikeri to Auckland, and then Auckland to Napier. The plane soon turned back to the gate and all passengers were told they would have to leave due to an “inconvenience”. However Harding and a friend of hers were not allowed to reboard. “My thoughts are they took me off because of my build, because of my size. As to myself and our build, our size had a lot to do with it. They didn’t say it [was], they said it was an inconvenience.” Air NZ reportedly offered them accommodation and meals, and the airline paid for their seats, but the next flight wasn’t until two days later. However seats became available on a later flight on the Friday.<br/>