unaligned

The 1986 Air Carrier Access Act requires airlines to provide a wheelchair to passengers with disabilities at the airport. The problem: Many travelers are faking it, Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle says. “There is massive, rampant abuse of special services. There are people using wheelchair assistance who don’t need it at all,” Biffle said at a Wings Club luncheon on Thursday in New York. He said he had seen Frontier flights where 20 people were brought to the plane with wheelchairs, but only three wheelchairs were used upon arrival. “We are healing so many people,” he joked. Biffle wasn’t talking about travelers’ personal wheelchairs but rather the service airlines provide when travelers arrive at the airport. It costs the airline between $30 and $35 each time a customer requests a wheelchair, Biffle said, and abuse of the service leads to delays for travelers with genuine need for assistance. “Everyone should be entitled to it who needs it, but you park in a handicapped space they will tow your car and fine you,” he told CNBC. “There should be the same penalty for abusing these services.” Biffle isn’t the only executive to complain about travelers falsely claiming they need a wheelchair at the airport. In July 2022, John Holland-Kaye, then the CE of London’s Heathrow Airport, told LBC Radio amid staffing shortages, that some travelers were “using wheelchair support to try to get fast-tracked through the airport. “If you go on TikTok, that is one of the travel hacks people are recommending,” he said. “Please don’t do that. We need to protect the service for people who need it most.” John Morris, a triple amputee who founded WheelchairTravel.org, said that there are reasons why some travelers might need wheelchairs on their outbound leg but not upon arrival. For example, they could need the help get through a large airport like in Atlanta or New York but not at smaller ones. “Disability impacts people in a lot of different ways,” he said. “I think there’s a good case to be made that abusers should face some consequence but I’m not sure how we do that in a society when our disabilities aren’t [always] visible,” he said.<br/>

Wizz Air Holdings Plc expects the aircraft-engine issues that have led to widespread jet groundings to start improving, saying it’s at a peak of the disruptions that have weighed on the low-cost carrier’s operations for the past year. The airline had 47 Airbus SE A320 family aircraft on the ground because of engine issues as of May 17, it said in a company filing. Wizz said it expects about 50 aircraft grounded by the end of the first half of fiscal 2025. “We are peaking as we speak,” CEO Jozsef Varadi said in an interview. “We are starting to see the engine issues as more of an upside because the situation is bad enough.” Wizz rose as much as 6% in London trading, narrowing the decline this year to about 5.9%. The carrier will receive aircraft without the engine issues starting next month while Pratt & Whitney has cut down engine shop visit times from 300 days to about 180 days, the CEO said. Varadi expects to have 35 jets grounded next summer and said he’s confident he can put the issue to rest entirely in the next few of years. Capacity won’t advance in the fiscal first half and the full year as the Hungarian budget airline continues to grapple with geopolitical instability and the groundings, Wizz said in the filing. The company said it has secured compensation from Pratt and expects more payments “on similar terms” for the final quarter of the fiscal year “and beyond.” Trading in the financial year “has been encouraging, with sustained demand and positive booking momentum for the summer,” Wizz said. The company predicted net income for the full year of E500m ($541m) to E600m, compared with a Bloomberg estimate of E515m. Net income attributable to shareholders last year reached E376m, beating estimates.<br/>

IndiGo announced plans to launch a premium product within months to woo India’s first-time business travelers after announcing a quarterly profit that beat analysts’ forecast. The country’s biggest airline will introduce a “tailor-made” product for India’s “busiest and business routes” by the end of the year, it said in a filing Thursday. The product is aimed at those who want to “travel business, perhaps for the first time in their lives,” Indigo said, adding that it will release details about the premium offering and routes in August. The announcement underscores the low-cost carrier’s ambitions to pivot beyond its no-frill offerings and tap high-paying fliers among the country’s growing aspirational class. It’s also gearing to become a long-haul carrier, moving beyond its specialization in short-haul trips that has underpinned its growth. Those ambitions got a boost by a larger-than-expected quarterly profit. Net income almost doubled to 18.9b rupees ($227m) in the three months ended March 31 from a year earlier, topping an average analysts estimate of 11.99b rupees. This is the sixth straight quarterly profit posted by the airline, boosted by a 14.4% rise in seat capacity. Revenue surged 26% from a year earlier to 178.3b rupees, also beating estimates. Total costs rose 22% to 167.4b rupees during the period, while fuel costs advanced 6.6%. Load factor — which measures the utilization of available seat capacity — was at 86.3% versus 84.2% in the same period last year. IndiGo is expecting a “similar revenue environment” in Q1 as the previous year, CFO Gaurav Negi said in a post-earnings call. The airline will likely struggle to grow earnings in the fiscal year 2025 after it clocked a record profit of 81.7b rupees in the twelve months through March, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analysts Tim Bacchus and Eric Zhu said in a note. It will be difficult for IndiGo to break that record this year as “costs mount and competition from merged Air India strengthens.”<br/>

Senior pilots at Virgin Australia have alleged fatigue is widespread in their ranks and raised safety concerns about a roster system some claim is working them “to the limits”. Guardian Australia has obtained correspondence from senior pilots pleading for action to address worker fatigue as Virgin Australia and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) remain in a standoff over a proposal to strip pilots of six days’ annual leave during negotiations for a new enterprise agreement The correspondence seen by reveals: Multiple senior pilots say the rostering system used by Virgin is adding to fatigue levels; The system routinely schedules pilots to work maximum shift lengths – 11-12 hours and longer in the event of delays – on back-to-back days, while allowing for just the legal minimum rest period of 12 hours; Pilots have raised concerns with management about the roster software and claim that the private equity owners of the airline, Bain Capital, have not followed through on a promise to replace it; and frustration at what they claim is management’s failure to recognise these issues, or respond to staff warning of a resulting “clear, present and increasing safety risk”. In an internal pilots’ messaging group discussing rostering and fatigue issues, one asked: “Would they like to see blood?” The practice of rostering to the limits, ‘because we don’t expect anything to go wrong’, is absolutely crap.” <br/>

Bonza’s administrators are seeking a two-month extension to their appointment as they continue to search for a buyer for the grounded low-cost airline. Hall Chadwick has filed documents with the Federal Court asking to continue as administrators for Bonza until at least 29 July, with a second creditors’ meeting to be held prior to 5 August. The move comes as Bonza’s parent company 777 Partners indicates interest in restructuring the airline. An extension of the administration would leave Bonza staff without pay for two more months, as they cannot claim certain benefits until the company is wound up, but would give the airline a better chance of ultimately finding a buyer and returning to the sky. “[The] main purpose of the extension is to provide the administrators with further time to conduct a sale process for the companies’ business and assets,” Hall Chadwick told Bonza creditors. In the court documents, seen by The Australian, Hall Chadwick noted Bonza’s most valuable asset is its air operator’s certificate (AOC). The airline had leased all its planes, with all but one – VH-UJK “Sheila” – now having left the country, and its AOC would risk being cancelled if the company is liquidated.<br/>