unaligned

Several thousand people have signed a petition urging Avelo Airlines to halt its plans to carry out deportation flights in cooperation with the Trump administration. This comes as the budget airline company recently said it had signed an agreement to fly federal deportation flights for the administration from Mesa, Arizona, starting in May. Andrew Levy, the CEO of the Houston, Texas-based airline, said in a statement to the Associated Press that the company is flying for the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agency as part of a “long-term charter program” to support the department’s deportation efforts. The flights, the company said, will use three Boeing 737-800 aircraft based out of Mesa Gateway airport. “We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic,” Levy said in a statement to 12News KPNX in Arizona. “After significant deliberations, we determined this charter flying will provide us with the stability to continue expanding our core scheduled passenger service and keep our more than 1,100 crew members employed for years to come.” Recent job postings from the airline appear to advertise positions based in Mesa, Arizona. In one job listing for flight attendants, Avelo states that the “flights will be both domestic and international trips to support DHS’s deportation efforts” and that “Our DHS charter service may consist of local day trips and/or overnights.” A petition was launched by the New Haven Immigrant Heritage Coalition and as of Tuesday afternoon, it has garnered about 4,200 signatures.<br/>

Gatwick Airport could be hit with major disruption over the Easter holidays as hundreds of workers are set to go on strike. Baggage handlers and flight dispatchers from Red Handling Staff will take industrial action at the UK’s second biggest airport over several issues, including unpaid pensions, late payments and “illegal” shift patterns, the Unite union has announced. Delta, TAP, Air Peace and Norwegian Airlines could be hit by the strike action, with around 50 flights a day are expected to be disrupted during one of the busiest periods of the year so far. Holiday goers travelling over the Easter weekend may face flight delays, cancellations, and long queues at check-in and baggage delays. Unite members are in dispute over numerous issues, with the most pressing being the continued mishandling of the company pension scheme which has been going on for over a year. The union has said that workers have found their payments have been missing or incorrect, while some employees have not even had pension schemes set up for them. Staff at Red Handling have also said they have been “routinely” paid late. Employees say they have been paid late three times in the last year, with some workers waiting for wages for up to two weeks.<br/>

The outgoing boss of airBaltic said he had been caught by surprise by his sudden ouster on Monday and hit out at the Latvian government's "nasty" handling of his departure, but hoped it would clear the air for the airline to pursue its growth strategy. Martin Gauss, who is German, has held the position of CEO since 2011. He was charged with helping the airline launch an initial public offering, which has been repeatedly pushed back. "I lost the trust of the government. They were not happy with last year's result," Gauss told Reuters over the telephone hours after the airline abruptly announced his resignation. He said the board read a statement saying they'd lost confidence in him at a shareholders' meeting. The airline recently sold a 10% stake to German airline group Lufthansa, as it said it struggled with engine delivery delays and sought to push back its planned IPO to 2026. "Our core objectives remain unchanged, and airBaltic continues to implement its strategy and move forward toward a potential IPO," said Andrejs Martinovs, the chairman of the primarily state-owned airline's supervisory board. Gauss told Reuters that this was the sixth Latvian government that he had dealt with and that he struggled with the most recent one. Pauls Calitis, the current chief operations officer, will take over as interim CEO, the company said in a statement. "I really hope that it's politics and that this now helps the company...(so) that they can get into that future I had envisioned for it," Gauss said.<br/>

Just a few years after coming close to bankruptcy, Israel's El Al Airlines became dominant in the country's aviation sector thanks to its near monopoly status during 18 months of war. Now, its challenge is to sustain that position. Following a ceasefire deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas in January, foreign carriers have begun to resume flights to Israel after halting them for much of the last year and a half, although with less capacity and frequency. But it could take time to earn the trust of travellers fearful of cancellations should the ceasefire collapse, which means Israel's flag carrier and its smaller rivals Arkia and Israir - hope to see the benefits for longer. El Al believes that even as foreign airlines slowly resume their flights, it will be able to compete by appealing to customers as "the Spirit of Israel". To that end it expects to receive five more 787s, while retrofitting older Boeing 777s. It also recently ordered 737Max aircraft to replace its short-haul fleet. "The tipping point for me is that with El Al, I know I'll get home," said Gary Sugarman-Sagiv, 60, CE of Israeli medical technology startup Motion Informatics, a frequent traveller who thought El Al was a "terrible" airline until its ownership change in 2021.<br/>

The pilots of Jeju Air Flight 2216 signaled three different plans for landing the stricken plane in the minutes before it crashed and killed 179 people in December, according to a partial transcript of their communication with air traffic controllers obtained by The New York Times. The transcript shows that the pilots reported a bird strike and radioed a mayday call as they approached Muan International Airport in South Korea on the morning of Dec. 29. They said they would turn left, then asked to turn right, intending to approach the airport’s sole runway from the south. When that failed, air traffic controllers asked if they wanted to land from the opposite direction, and the pilots said yes. The plane landed on its belly, overran the runway and struck a concrete structure that housed navigation aids, bursting into a deadly fireball. Only two people — flight attendants at the very back of the plane, a Boeing 737-800 — survived. The cause of the disaster, the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil, is still being investigated, and the exchange between the pilots and the control tower could be a crucial piece of the puzzle. That is because it covers a period of about four minutes during which both of the plane’s flight recorders, known as black boxes, had stopped recording. The transcript includes no information about the state of the jet’s two engines or its electrical supply, which are intense areas of focus for investigators. It is still unclear why the black boxes went dark or why the plane’s landing gear was not engaged. The transcript was read out on Saturday to relatives of the victims by a representative of a board that is investigating the crash. The official told them that the readout excluded parts of the conversation to protect the privacy of its participants, according to people who shared it with The Times. Officials have not publicly released the transcript, and the board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<br/>

Pakistan's national carrier has posted an annual profit for the first time in more than two decades ahead of a second attempt by the government to sell the airline, the country's defence minister said. The disclosure was made at a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) board meeting, the minister said late on Tuesday. "PIACL Board today has approved its accounts FY 2024, and after 21 years, it has achieved an operating profit of PKR 9.3b ($33.14mn) & Net Profit of PKR 26.2b (after deferred tax adjustment)," Defence and Aviation Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in a post on X, which was confirmed by the airline in a statement. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday termed it a "major turnaround after decades of losses" and said in a post on X: "The skies ahead looks brighter, God willing." Islamabad's attempt to privatise PIA last year fell flat when it received only a single offer, well below the asking price of more than $300m. Pakistan had offloaded nearly 80% of the airline's legacy debt and shifted it to government books ahead of the privatisation attempt. The rest of the debt was also cleaned out of the airline's accounts after the failed sale attempt to make it more attractive to potential buyers, according to the country's privatisation ministry.<br/>