American Airlines and aircraft parts manufacturer Spirit AeroSystems said on Wednesday they would meet a deadline set by US President Joe Biden to require vaccines for its employees by a Dec. 8 deadline for government contractors. The White House announced the Dec. 8 deadline for employees of federal contractors last month and the requirements are expected to cover millions of employees. American Airlines, the largest US carrier, told its 100,000 US-based employees they “must submit proof of full vaccination as soon as possible — no later than Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2021... To be clear, if you fail to comply with the requirement, the result will be termination from the company.” Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit said the mandate would cover its 10,500 US employees. ”As a federal contractor, testing is not an option for Spirit employees,” the company said.<br/>
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British Airways plans to rehire some of the thousands of staff laid off last year as the airline industry begins a tentative recovery from the pandemic. Unite, the union, says the airline is looking to rehire about 3,000 new cabin crew after cutting roughly 10,000 jobs, a third of its workforce, last spring and summer when the Covid-19 crisis had grounded most of its aircraft. BA did not confirm how many staff would be taken back, but it has begun offering new cabin crew jobs from next summer, according to an internal email. As the industry restarts flying at scale, staff who took voluntary redundancy last year but had asked to be put into a “talent pool” to be called upon when the industry recovered are now being contacted. The email to BA staff said the easing of UK-US travel restrictions had been a “major milestone” for the industry. “Finally we are beginning to see some real momentum as more countries open up for travel and consumer confidence grows,” the email said. But Unite sharply criticised the airline, which it said was acting “in bad faith”, offering to rehire staff on substantially lower pay than in their previous roles. “BA is championing its intention to recruit thousands of new staff, insultingly even asking those crew it sacked needlessly last year to reapply on substantially reduced terms and conditions,” the union said. <br/>
Qantas has officially completed its longest-ever repatriation flight connecting Buenos Aires to Darwin, which touched down last night after 17 hours and 25 minutes in the air. The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, VH-ZNH, took off from the Argentinian capital at 12:44pm local time on Tuesday as QF14, and travelled entirely in daylight for the entire near-18-hour trip. The flight crossed in Australian airspace at 5:28pm AEDT on Wednesday, and landed in Darwin at 6:39pm local time, after skirting the edge of Antarctica on its way from Argentina. The Qantas 787-9 Dreamliner travelled a total distance of 15,020km, making the trip 522km further than the airline’s longest regularly scheduled passenger service from London to Perth, and one of Qantas’ longest ever flights. The arrival of QF14 also marks the first time that Darwin has welcomed non-stop flights from every inhabited continent. There are few global hubs that are well-placed to accept non-stop flights from every continent, with others including Doha, Dubai and London.<br/>