Several institutional investors are backing Ryanair to bounce back from a pilot rostering mess-up and a decision to recognise unions that jolted confidence in the airline. The mishandling of staff holidays caused thousands of flight cancellations, angered passengers and helped pilots to secure union recognition for the first time in Ryanair's 32-year history, sending the share price down 9% in one day in December. The holiday rota errors were a rare serious slip-up by CE O'Leary. O'Leary had said hell would freeze over before he would welcome unions into Ryanair. The company now says dialogue with organised labour will help the business. Analysts say it will inflate its costs and could reduce the flexibility that helped it steal chunks of business from traditional airlines. <br/>
unaligned
Passengers made to sit on the tarmac at Boston Logan International for around 2 hours say they were forced to delete videos of the incident from their phones by an airline staff member, who also threatened to have them arrested if they didn't comply. After would-be passengers of the Toronto-bound Porter Airlines flight learned that their trip would be canceled due to a mechanical malfunction on the aircraft, they were ordered to leave the plane and wait in the terminal building. After being told that the gate's public address system was not working, passengers had to line up to get information individually from Porter staff. Things became heated, however, when frustrated passengers began to pull out their phones and video-record Porter staff delivering information. <br/>
Wizz Air announced plans Tuesday to enter the Austrian market in April, betting on rising demand for flights to eastern Europe after the insolvency of 2 carriers has left a gap in route networks there. Wizz Air will invest US$331m and create 120 new jobs to connect Vienna with cities including Gdansk in Poland, Tuzla in Bosnia Herzegovina and Varna in Bulgaria, the carrier said. "This is the biggest single market announcement we ever made," CE Jozsef Varadi said. Vienna is one of Europe's main air traffic hubs for eastern European destinations. The airport saw the number of passengers travelling from Vienna to destinations in eastern Europe increase 11% in the first 9 months of 2017. Passenger traffic to western Europe was up 4.2% in the period. <br/>
Austria is in talks with all parties involved in the insolvency of Air Berlin unit Niki but will not comment further on those discussions for the time being, chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Wednesday. The administrator of Niki said Tuesday he would press ahead with an agreed sale of the insolvent airline to IAG after a German court ruling fanned concern that the deal could unravel. "Yes we are in talks with the various players but we will definitely deepen these discussions before we comment to the media," Kurz said, adding that Austria was interested in securing jobs in Austria and providing clarity for the airline's staff quickly. <br/>
Emirates is talking to banks about raising as much as US$1b through an Islamic bond sale that could happen in the first half, people familiar with the matter said. The carrier joins a list of regional issuers seeking funding from international debt markets before higher US interest rates push up borrowing costs. International bonds are particularly popular as cheap oil limits local banks’ ability to underwrite large debt sales or to extend loans. Emirates has been a regular borrower in the aircraft-financing loan market. Another reason the company is seeking a sukuk is that it wants to diversify its funding, the people said, asking not to be identified. Emirates raised $913m through a sukuk issue with a 10-year lifespan in 2015, with the proceeds funding the acquisition of 4 Airbus A380-800s. <br/>