EasyJet has announced the launch of what will be its longest route from England. The airline said it will operate flights between Gatwick airport in West Sussex and the island of Sal in Cape Verde from March 31 next year. The distance of 2,332 nautical miles exceeds the carrier’s current longest route serving an English airport, which is between Manchester and the Egyptian resort of Hurghada. EasyJet’s longest route across its entire network will remain between Belfast and Hurghada. Three return flights between Gatwick and Sal will operate each week using A320neo aircraft, and are scheduled to last up to five hours and 50 minutes. Sal, which has warm weather throughout the year, will be the first destination in sub-Saharan Africa served by easyJet, which is also offering package holidays through its easyJet Holidays division. Gatwick-Sal was among 26 new summer routes announced by easyJet, including 21 serving the UK.<br/>
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London Gatwick and UK budget carrier EasyJet are midway through a small-scale operational trial of a new AI-enabled remote gate-monitoring system which could boost airline efficiency through optimising turn times. Dubbed “SmartStand”, the system takes a host of existing technologies – AI image recognition, automated foreign object detection, and remote-controlled air bridges, for example – and knits them together into a single system, allowing turn co-ordination to be carried out from a central control station rather than at the gate itself. “It is a completely different way of managing the turn,” says Abhi Chacko, London Gatwick’s head of innovation. To date, the SmartStand concept has been tested on stand 101 at the airport’s north terminal, with the monitoring station located in the south terminal in a soon-to-be-inaugurated innovation lab overlooking the passenger check-in area. Chacko says the impetus for the concept came as the airport began to recover from the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. “We asked ourselves – how do we build back efficiently and make sure that the passenger experience is better, and that operational efficiency can be maintained?” he says. Alongside its technology partners – turnaround monitoring specialist Assaia and air bridge automation firm Dimaim Systems – EasyJet, and its ground handling partner DHL Aviation, were also recruited for the effort.<br/>
Ryanair has introduced a ‘discontinued approach’ procedure after a serious incident at London Stansted during which a Boeing 737 Max 8-200 breached its go-around altitude, leading the crew to push the jet into a steep descent. The aircraft pitched to 17.7° nose-down in instrument conditions, reaching a descent rate of 8,880ft/min, triggering ‘sink rate’ and ‘pull up’ alerts from the ground-proximity warning system. According to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the aircraft reached 295kt with ‘flap 5’ configuration – above the 250kt speed limit for this setting – and descended to 1,740ft above ground before recovering. The crew had planned an ILS approach to Stansted’s runway 22 on 4 December last year. As the pilots attempted to intercept the glideslope from above, however, the approach became unstable and the crew opted to execute a go-around 3.6nm from touchdown, at an altitude of 1,940ft. The autopilot disengaged and the captain manually pitched the aircraft nose-up, following the flight directors, while the autothrottle increased thrust and the first officer cleaned the configuration.<br/>
New York City FC’s $780m, 25,000-seat venue that it intends to open next to the Mets’ Citi Field in 2027 will be named Etihad Park under a 20-year agreement announced Thursday with Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. The Major League Soccer team’s controlling owner is City Football Group, the parent company of England’s Manchester City. The Premier League team’s venue was renamed Etihad Stadium in July 2011. NYCFC president Brad Sims said revenue from the deal will go to the MLS team and not the parent company or English club, which is under investigation by the Premier League for alleged violations of financial fair play rules. Etihad has been NYC’s shirt sponsor since 2014 and Manchester City’s since 2009-10, a season after the Abu Dhabi United Group took control. “It’s a 100% New York City FC deal,” Sims said. “Etihad Airways has been essentially our premiere, our principal and founding partner since Day 1 at the club here. ... We wanted to ideally stay with someone who is a current partner of New York City FC and or someone in the City Football Group family but Etihad was easily kind of the No. 1 focus that we’ve had all along.”<br/>
Bahrain's national carrier Gulf Air has announced its return to AlUla in Saudi Arabia as a seasonal destination from November 26 to February 25, 2025. Building on the success of Gulf Air's inaugural seasonal flights to AlUla International Airport in February this year, the airline will operate two weekly flights using an A320 aircraft. This move marks an important expansion of Gulf Air's network and offers more convenience and travelling options for Gulf Air passengers, said the Bahrain flag-carrier in a statement. The flight schedule to AlUla International Airport (ULH) includes two weekly flights from Bahrain International Airport every Tuesdays and Saturdays. On Tuesdays, Flight GF 191 will depart from Bahrain at 10:40am and arrive in AlUla International Airport at 1pm and on Saturdays, GF 192 will take off from Bahrain at 3:10pm and land in AlUla International Airport at 5.30pm. Gulf Air said this step further enhances its connectivity across its network, establishing stronger links between AlUla and key global destinations, including feeder routes from Bahrain, the GCC, and Europe.<br/>
Hong Kong Airlines will return to North America early next year by resuming its Vancouver route, the carrier’s chairman has said, hailing the move as part of its transformation into an international operator.<br/>Yan Bo, the chairman of Hong Kong Airlines, announced on Thursday the service to the Canadian city would return on January 18, with details to be unveiled later. “This strategic move signifies the airline’s transformation from a regional carrier into an international airline, with a focus on expanding its global route network amid the economic recovery,” he said. “Through strategic planning, the airline has demonstrated a strong recovery capability by optimising its route network and adjusting its fleet structure, which now covers more than 30 destinations.” The announcement followed an earlier confirmation from the carrier that it would resume direct flights between Hong Kong and the Gold Coast in Australia, the company’s first step back into the long-haul market amid an expansion of its network. The airline had said flights to the Gold Coast would operate seasonally from January 17 to February 15, with the four-times-a-week service running for five weeks over the Lunar New Year period. It will offer about 6,000 seats on an A330 widebody aircraft.<br/>
AirAsia co-founder Tony Fernandes has dismissed sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as an idea that “makes absolutely no sense”, arguing that new-technology aircraft and engines will help the aviation industry reach its sustainability goals. SAFs are synthetic alternatives to fossil fuels, made from renewable sources, such as waste cooking oils, vegetable fats and agricultural waste. The outspoken airline industry veteran said aviation will reach its net-zero goals by the 2050 timeline but questioned the pathways set out to achieve this target. “I feel the travel industry is taxed unfairly. I think sustainable aviation fuel is stupid, I think it makes absolutely no sense at all because there is not enough cooking oil in the world to fill the planes. Putting 1% or 2% of cooking oil into your plane is not going to change global warming,” Fernandes told the Skift Global Forum East in Dubai on Wednesday. The goal of net-zero by 2050 set out by the IATA is doable but “some of the suggestions coming out are just stupid”, he added. SAF is expected to account for 65% of the emissions reduction needed by the global aviation industry by 2050, according to Iata. It accounts for just 0.53% of the aviation industry’s fuel needs for this year, the global airlines lobby group said in June. While SAF production in 2024 is on track to triple to 1.5m tonnes, “exponential increases” in supply are needed, it added.<br/>