unaligned

A joint venture between eastern Canadian carriers Air Transat and Porter Airlines began in earnest on 5 June, kicking off the first phase of the airlines’ commercial collaboration. The carriers have officially begun coordinating flight schedules and routes, allowing air travellers to use either company’s platform to book direct and connecting flights with the other. From a strategy perspective, Porter’s growing domestic and transborder network will feed into Air Transat’s ocean-crossing operations to Western Europe, North Africa and Latin America. “Air Transat now offers an extensive range of destinations operated by Porter across Canada – from St Johns to Victoria – and select US cities including Boston, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Tampa and Washington,” Transat says. ”Porter now provides nonstop flights operated by Air Transat to Europe from Toronto Pearson, Montreal-Trudeau and Quebec City, as well as connecting flights to Europe from anywhere in Canada.” Air Transat and Porter revealed their intended partnership in November 2023, outlining a collaboration that would accelerate growth of their respective networks and provide a viable challenge to the effective duopoly of Air Canada and WestJet Airlines. Operating an outsized international network, Transat has long sought an effective means to feed passengers from within Canada and the USA to its international flights. Meanwhile, Toronto-based Porter has been extending its reach across North America<br/>

Pilots at Aer Lingus are balloting for industrial action in a dispute over pay, the Irish Air Lines Pilots’ Association (IALPA) said on Wednesday, while the Irish airline dismissed the action as "entirely unnecessary." The ballot follows the rejection by pilots of an Irish Labour Court recommendation that would have increased pilot pay by 9.25%, the union said. The union said it was recommending that members vote in favour of industrial action, "up to and including strike action," in a vote that will run until June 12. Aer Lingus, part of the IAG group, which also owns British Airways and Iberia, said it was surprised that IALPA had initiated the ballot before meeting directly with the airline. In a statement the airline said pilots were looking for a pay increase of 27%. IALPA said some measures introduced by management during the COVID pandemic have not been reversed. Pilots last received a pay increase in July 2019 while data showed Irish workers on average had received an increase of 24% in that period, the union said.<br/>

While Saudi Arabian budget operator Flyadeal has just announced a step-change order by signing for 51 Airbus A321neos, new chief executive Steven Greenway is considering a future move for the carrier into low-cost, long-haul operations. Fast-growing Flyadeal currently has a fleet of 32 Airbus A320s – a mix of Neos and Ceos – and has just signed an order for 51 more Airbus narrowbodies including 39 larger A321neos as part of Saudia’s recent comitment for 105 aircraft. While the addition of A321neos from 2026 marks an upgauge that will help on unit costs and to add capacity on routes into more congested airports, Greenway also says long-haul operations are under consideration. ”For us we are certainly thinking about it,” he tells FlightGlobal during an interview on the sidelines of the IATA AGM in Dubai. Greenway, who took the helm of Flyadeal at the start of the year, has experience of the low-cost, long-haul model, having been head of commercial when Singapore Airlines unit Scoot was launched more than a decade ago. ”I would argue long-haul, low-cost doesn’t work everywhere,” Greenway says. ”It works on selected markets. We’ve got a lot of high-volume, low-yield markets; southeast Asian workers, Filipinos coming over to work in the region; pilgrims again from southeast Asia and the sub-continent. So it blends it well. You’ve got the volume and then you’ve the low-yield. In theory it should work quite well."<br/>

Indian low-cost carrier Spicejet plans to raise $250m in the next two months in a new funding round, Chairman Ajay Singh told the CAPA India Aviation Summit on Wednesday. SpiceJet had announced three fundraises in 2023 to help clear unpaid dues and restore its fleet as it looked to return to full capacity and struggled to repay leasing companies. It has raised at least 7.44b rupees ($89.2m) since then, according to an exchange filing from January. The company has reached settlements over the last few months with multiple leasing companies, including AerCap, the world's largest aircraft lessor. Singh did not specify the method of SpiceJet's fundraise or for what it would raise capital. He also called for aviation turbine fuel to be brought under the goods and services tax. "(The government) can't keep taxing aviation as a rich man's product and expect low-cost services," Singh said at the summit. Aviation turbine fuel is currently taxed under the Central Excise Act and accounts for a large swathe of airlines' costs.<br/>

Indian carrier Akasa Air expects deliveries of Boeing's 737 MAX 10 planes by the summer of 2027 and also expects the aircraft to be certified by then, Akasa's chief executive officer Vinay Dube told Reuters on Wednesday. Akasa Air, the newest entrant to the Indian aviation industry, began flying internationally in March, with the Boeing orders boosting its global flight plans. The carrier had ordered 150 737 MAX narrow body planes in January, including the MAX 10 and MAX 8-200 versions. It had not specified how many of each type were ordered. Akasa Air had a market share of 4.5% in the March-quarter, smaller than rivals IndiGo, SpiceJet, Vistara and Air India, but higher from 3% a year earlier, per the Indian aviation regulator's website. The carrier currently operates a fleet of 24 aircraft, all of which are 737 MAX planes.<br/>The U.S. civil aviation regulator had raised concerns regarding the certification of the MAX 10 model following an incident in January in which a door plug blew off a 737 MAX 9 plane mid-flight. The U.S. FAA had adopted a new aircraft certification policy in November last year. Delta Air has said it does not expect MAX 10 deliveries for "quite some time" without specifying a timeline, while United Airlines has converted a portion of its MAX 10 orders to MAX 9.<br/>

A bidder for Pakistan International Airlines has suggested the government seek a partner rather than sell stake in the carrier. Businessman Arif Habib, part of one of the six groups that have been shortlisted to bid for the carrier, has told Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration that the government should dilute its stake and attract a partner. It can then sell its share at a higher price after the revival of the airline is complete. “We have advised that the bid amount, as a capital, should go into the core company. In other words, new investors should be invited, they invest and take a stake in the company,” he said at a briefing in Karachi. “The potential buyers requirement will be less and company will be healthy.” Apart from injecting funds back into the airline, he suggested creating a payment schedule for the 200b rupees ($718m) owed to lessors and oil companies among others. <br/>