A California man accused of assaulting crew members and threatening to kill everyone aboard a Frontier Airlines flight was arrested Wednesday on federal charges, prosecutors announced. Charles Angel Salva, 30, of Fremont, Calif., faces federal charges of interference with flight crew members and attendants, prosecutors said on Thursday. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The disruption happened on Monday evening shortly after Frontier Airlines Flight 3581 had taken off from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif., bound for San Francisco International Airport and resulted in an emergency landing at Ontario International Airport, about 30 miles northeast of Santa Ana. The plane had not yet reached 10,000 feet when flight attendants noticed the that oxygen masks above seats in Row 18 had deployed, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in the criminal complaint. Flight crew members who went to assess the situation found Salva with his hand in the overhead compartment. A passenger sitting in Row 19 told investigators that Salva had appeared claustrophobic and had seemed to want to get off the flight before he pulled down the oxygen mask from the overhead compartment and got his hand stuck in the process, the affidavit said. The passenger helped Mr. Salva get his hand unstuck. One flight attendant who responded to the situation described Salva as being sweaty and out of breath and reported that he was yelling obscenities and saying, “We are all going to hell,” and “This plane is going down,” according to the affidavit. The flight attendant tried to restrain Salva as he tried to “violently grab” at other passengers, it says. Salva then ran to the back of the plane, where he tried to choke the flight attendant using the lanyard around the attendant’s neck, the affidavit says. Story has details.<br/>
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BCP Securities has been gauging investor interest about participating in financing to help support troubled Brazilian airline Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA’s largest shareholder. The package would include both bonds and loans, according to people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. They added BCP is looking for investors to participate alongside investment firm Castlelake LP, which entered into a $1.3b commitment to refinance the debt of Abra Group Ltd. Gol in January filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US, and Abra has been working to stave off bond-default risks. Documents released to investors last month, when Abra disclosed the commitment letter with Castlelake, said a $1.3b term loan could be reduced by as much as $500m if bonds were sold. <br/>
Shares in Azul rallied the most since early 2023 following a report that the Brazilian air carrier is nearing a deal with lessors that would entail a debt-for-equity swap. The stock rose as much as 21% in Sao Paulo after the report by Reuters, which cited three people it didn’t identify. It later pared gains. Under the new plan, the lessors would get an equity stake of around 20%. A majority of lessors have already signaled they would approve the plan, according to the report. Dollar notes due 2030 fell under 2.9 cents to trade at 56.6 cents on the dollar, according to Trace data. Azul declined to comment. Representatives for the lessors couldn’t be reached. The deal would come as Azul grapples with higher debt levels and expenses inflated by a weaker Brazilian real, including dollar-denominated lease payments and fuel costs tied to the greenback. Investors have dumped the airline’s stock this year, with shares slumping about 67%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company’s debt level has climbed to more than four times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, from three times previously, according to its latest published guidance. It blamed the rising debt on a weaker currency and catastrophic floods that paralyzed the state of Rio Grande do Sul’s main airport in Porto Alegre.<br/>
EasyJet has called on the board of the UK’s air traffic control provider to sack chief executive Martin Rolfe over his handling of repeated bouts of disruption over the past two summers. Johan Lundgren, the low-cost airline’s CE, wrote this week to the board of National Air Traffic Services (Nats) to demand a leadership change. He accused Rolfe of downplaying problems at the company, a lack of transparency and giving “misleading information” about disruption. Lundgren joins Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, who has repeatedly called for Rolfe’s departure over the past year. “I am deeply concerned by the ongoing failure of the CEO to recognise the scale of the problem and to communicate honestly about it,” Lundgren wrote in the letter, a copy of which was seen by the Financial Times. However, Nats chair Warren East expressed support for Rolfe, and said he had arranged to meet Lundgren. “The Nats board is confident that Martin Rolfe and his team have done everything they can to address the issues,” he said. Nats is a public-private partnership and owned by the British government, pension funds and a group of airlines including easyJet and British Airways. The provider runs the airspace over the UK and the eastern part of the Atlantic, and also provides air traffic control services at many of the UK’s busiest airports. An easyJet executive sits on the board as a representative of Nats’ private shareholders, which together own 42% of the company. EasyJet alone holds a stake of about 6%. Nats has come under severe pressure from airlines for its performance over the past 18 months.<br/>
Ryanair Group CEO Michael O'Leary said on Saturday a prolonged Boeing workers' strike may cut the number of aircraft it receives by next summer to 20 from an anticipated 25. O'Leary said his low-cost Irish airline, one of Boeing's largest customers, was supposed to receive 30 737 MAX aircraft before summer 2025 but Boeing's operational issues had already brought that number down to 25. But now, with this week's Boeing's workers' strike further threatening the airplane maker's turnaround, O'Leary said Ryanair might only receive 20 planes if the strike continues for three to four weeks. "I have no doubt that Boeing will fix this strike," O'Leary told Ireland's Newstalk Radio. "It may take a number of weeks." Workers have been protesting all week in Boeing factories in the Seattle area that assemble Boeing's MAX, 777 and 767 jets. Boeing has pledged to grow output by the end of the year, after wrestling with supply chain snags and operating a slower assembly line since a Jan. 5 in-flight blowout of a door plug on a 737 MAX 9 jet that heightened regulatory scrutiny. O'Leary said it would likely take Boeing two to three years to get back on track. Boeing and union negotiators will return to the bargaining table early next week as the two sides try to end a strike.<br/>
It’s one of the worst kept secrets in aviation - but Jetstar has confirmed three new trans-Tasman routes from Dunedin and Hamilton. The new routes take off from Hamilton to the Gold Coast and Sydney, and from Dunedin to the Gold Coast from June 2025. It’ll be the first international flights from Hamilton in 13 years, when Virgin Australia stopped flying. Dunedin hasn’t had an international flight since 2020. The announcement signifies a major expansion for Jetstar into New Zealand, with the airline saying it unlocks “more than 190,000 new low fare seats every year and injecting millions of dollars into the country’s tourism economy.” Jetstar accidentally teased the Dunedin trans-Tasman flights in August, when a promo teaser briefly appeared on Dunedin Airport’s Facebook page.<br/>
A problematic airline passenger has been hit with an unusual form of punishment – he has to pay back the airline for the cost of fuel. According to the Australian Federal Police, a then-32-year-old man from Western Australia was disruptive on a flight headed from Perth to Sydney. As a result, the plane had to turn around and go back to Perth, which meant that the pilot was forced to dump some fuel to land. Now, the passenger has been ordered to pay $8,630 AUD ($5,806 USD) back to the airline to cover the cost of the wasted fuel. The Perth Magistrate Court also fined him $6,055, meaning that his mid-air misbehavior has a total price tag of $11,861 – likely many times higher than whatever he spent on the ticket. “This incident should serve as a warning that criminal behavior on board can come at a heavy cost to the offender,” Shona Davis, the AFP’s Acting Superintendent, said in a statement. “It’s far simpler to obey the directions of airline staff than cause unnecessary issues, which can end up hitting you in the hip pocket.” Although the flight happened on September 25, 2023, it has taken about a year for the case against the unruly passenger to work its way through the Australian legal system. Neither the man nor the airline was publicly named, nor was it specified exactly what he did to earn such a hefty penalty. The passenger pleaded guilty to one count of disorderly behavior on an aircraft and one count of failure to comply with safety instructions. While charging a disruptive traveler for the cost of fuel is not a typical penalty, other kinds of fines are more common.<br/>