Gol sweetened a debt restructuring offer Monday, extending the deadline to July 1 and reducing the proposed discount to lure more investors, the company said in a securities filing. Gol improved the terms of its May 3 offer as much as 84% for notes maturing in 2020, 2022 and 2023 and 79% for its perpetual bonds. The airline also offered bonus payments based on the company's performance and any possible takeover. CFO Edmar Lopes said the new offer is Gol's final, non-negotiable proposal, aimed at resolving concerns expressed by creditors in recent weeks amid tepid interest for the airline's original offer. Despite Gol's repeated extensions of the offer this month, investors tendered by Friday just US$135m of bonds in the deal aimed at restructuring $780m of outstanding debt, <br/>
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The TSA’s expedited screening program, called Precheck, is receiving fresh attention this season as long lines around the country push passengers to consider alternative paths through airport security. Though the program had over 2m members as of earlier this year, the rate of enrolment had since dropped, making the number of registered travellers far lower than the agency had originally projected. New subscriptions to the Precheck program come from Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines. Frontier plans to unroll its Precheck participation in August of this year while Spirit’s plan calls for integration in late 2016. So far, budget carriers like Frontier and Spirit have been resistant towards enrolling in the Precheck program because of the cost of integration versus adoption in the budget travel market. <br/>
Ryanair charges passengers for everything from checking in at the airport to printing a boarding pass to paying with a credit card to correcting the name on a boarding pass. Britain’s aviation industry watchdog, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), is investigating the airline for the practice. A CAA spokesman said that they plan to investigate whether Ryanair are “being open, clear and transparent about what additional charges they impose in relation to tickets and make sure that consumers are aware of what they are paying for.” This investigation comes on the heels of a class action lawsuit filed last month by more than 5,000 disgruntled Ryanair passengers who claim they were forced to pay “unfair hidden charges.” They are seeking GBP400m (US$587m) in damages. <br/>
When the US DoT announced recently which airlines could fly the first scheduled flights to Cuba in more than 50 years, most of carriers selected were familiar to travellers. But the biggest winner was a carrier most Americans don’t know – Florida-based Silver Airways. It won the rights to serve 9 destinations from Fort Lauderdale and it plans to fly to all the cities with 34-seat Saab 340B turboprops. Like other airlines, it is still waiting to learn if it will be able to fly to Havana. Silver, which expects to operate its first Cuba flight Sept 1, could be the most unique US airline. In the past, it operated like most other small regional carriers. Instead of selling tickets directly to travellers, it usually flew as United Express. But in 2013, 2 years after it was bought by Chicago investment firm Victory Park Capital, Silver switched course. <br/>
Start-up airline Canada Jetlines has asked the federal govt for an exemption to the 25% limit on foreign investment in Canadian carriers, setting up an early signal of how Ottawa will respond to a report recommending that foreign investors be permitted to own up to 49% of a Canada-based airline. Canada Jetlines, which wants to be an ultra-low-cost carrier, said it has identified an investor or investors prepared to help get the airline off the ground, but the limit on foreign investing needs to be raised. The airline does not have permission to identify the group publicly, Canada Jetlines CE Mark Morabito said Monday. A report on Canada’s transportation sector presented to the govt earlier this year by former federal cabinet minister David Emerson said there is room for more competition in the airline business. <br/>
Fiji Airways has launched a new San Francisco–Fiji service to complement its existing Fiji-Los Angeles and Honolulu schedules. The 2X-weekly service will fly from Fiji’s Nadi International to San Francisco International using Airbus A330 aircraft. Fiji Airways CE Andre Viljoen said the new schedule would help expand the carrier’s network into the growing Pacific-Australasia-US market. “As we continue to grow the airline, [this service] will extend our reach into North America allowing onward connections to most US and Canadian cities,” he said. The carrier intends to initially operate the route on a seasonal basis to coincide with peak US holiday periods, and will run flights from June through August, and again at the end of the year from December to January. <br/>