Andrew Douglas says he was just fighting for compensation when he took WestJet to small claims court — instead, the dispute has resulted in what's believed to be a landmark decision that can now be pointed to by all air travel passengers battling it out with the airlines. "Beware of seniors, they have a lot of time on their hands," the 72-year-old Ottawa man told Go Public, referring to the fact that his dispute with WestJet began more than three years ago. In her decision on costs earlier this month, the judge condemned WestJet's insistence that Douglas sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in order to get compensation the airline owed him after he was incorrectly not allowed to board a flight to Cuba. Nobody in Canada tracks how often NDAs are used, but experts in the airline industry say imposing confidentiality clauses in settlement offers is an increasingly common tactic, which is why this recent decision is so important. An advocate for air passengers says the decision sends an important directive to the airline industry. "Finally, a judge calls out an airline for trying to gag passengers," said Gábor Lukács, founder and president of the Air Passenger Rights group. "That is a stern warning … they cannot get away with it."<br/>
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Virgin Atlantic has reported a profit for the first time since the pandemic, but warned of early signs of a slowdown in demand for transatlantic flying from US consumers. The airline, which is majority owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, on Monday reported an annual profit before tax and exceptional items of GBP20mn for 2024, up from a loss of £139mn a year earlier. The airline last reported a profit in 2016. It has been slower to recover from the pandemic than its biggest rivals such as British Airways owner International Airlines Group, which has had two years of record profits built on high demand for travel across the Atlantic, particularly the most expensive seats. “2024 was a turning point for Virgin Atlantic,” said CE Shai Weiss. Like BA, it is highly reliant on lucrative transatlantic routes between the US and Europe. Oli Byers, CFO, said Virgin Atlantic had “started to see some signals that US demand had been slowing” over the past few weeks. “We think that is quite a natural reaction to general consumer uncertainty,” he said. Byers added that the declines were from a high base, and the airline still hoped to increase its revenue from US bookings in 2025. IAG shares closed down about 7% following the comments from Virgin Atlantic. Analysts have questioned whether the boom in transatlantic flying could be hit by the worsening economic picture in the US, as well as tensions between the US and Europe, including over tariffs. The biggest US airlines warned this month of a slowdown in domestic demand, but said it had not spread to international trips yet. Last week the CEs of Europe’s three biggest long-haul airline groups — IAG, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa — said they were monitoring booking patterns, but had not seen a decline in demand for transatlantic travel.<br/>
EasyJet has opened its 10th UK base at Southend airport, creating 140 jobs for pilots and cabin crew. The airline said basing three A320neo aircraft at the Essex airport will support a total of around 1,200 jobs. Some 122 flights per week will be operated by the carrier from the airport this summer, more than twice as many as last year, to leisure destinations across Europe and north Africa. The number of routes will double from 10 to 20. It will serve Barcelona, Lanzarote and Salzburg from October. EasyJet stopped operating flights at Southend airport in September 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. It resumed operations in May 2022 without basing planes there until Monday.<br/>
Icelandic budget carrier Play has secured a Maltese air operator’s certificate from the country’s civil aviation regulator. Play has been seeking the authorisation as part of a strategy to diversify its operations, and capitalise on fleet-leasing opportunities. The carrier is setting up a subsidiary – Play Europe – to which it will hive off part of its fleet of 10 Airbus A320neo-family jets. These will be used to operate services between European mainland cities, on behalf of other airlines. It has already transferred an initial A321neo (TF-AEW) which has been placed on the Maltese register as 9H-PEA. Play says it has reached an agreement under which it will lease three Maltese-registered aircraft to an Eastern European airline.<br/>
Both Aeroflot and Russian civil air transport regulator Rosaviatsia have dissented over investigators’ conclusions regarding the fatal hard landing and fire which destroyed a Superjet 100 nearly six years ago. Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee says the Aeroflot crew had “insufficient knowledge and skills” to control the jet in direct law, to which it had reverted after being affected by “atmospheric electricity” about 5min after take-off from Moscow Sheremetyevo on 5 May 2019. The crew returned to Sheremetyevo, conducting an approach to runway 24L, but the captain’s poor pitch control – including “repeated disproportionate alternating movements” of the side-stick – resulted in the aircraft’s bouncing and touching down hard three times. The second and third impacts caused structural failure, tank rupture and the ignition of spilled fuel as the aircraft slowed. Forty-one of the 78 occupants, including one of the five crew members, did not survive. Investigators attribute the crew’s lack of skill to the “ineffectiveness” of approved pilot-training schemes for handling emergencies, including the reversion to direct law – even though the training programmes met minimum federal regulations.<br/>
A flight carrying more than 200 people from Bali, Indonesia to Melbourne, Australia was forced to turn around after a passenger tried to force open a plane door as the aircraft flew over the Indian Ocean, low-cost carrier Jetstar said in a statement Tuesday. “We had an aircraft return to Denpasar (Bali’s airport) last night after a disruptive passenger attempted to open one of the aircraft doors and was abusive to our crew,” the airline said of the incident on Monday night, March 31. The passenger was removed from the aircraft by local authorities in Bali, it added. According to a video circulating on social media, a woman in the back of the aircraft managed to lift the door’s handle before a warning signal alerted the crew, the captain said over the plane speakers. Data from flight tracking site FlightRadar24 showed that the plane turned around over the Indian Ocean about an hour into the flight. Jetstar did not say exactly how many passengers and crew were on the plane traveling from Bali to Melbourne<br/>