Air Transat unveiled its summer schedule on Monday, relaunching "a significant" number of routes to Europe and the United States as COVID-19 restrictions ease and demand ramps up. The Montreal-based airline and tour operator said it is seeing high demand for travel ahead of the busy summer season. "The outlook for the summer season is favourable, and our abundant air offering, which includes the vast majority of our pre-pandemic destinations as well as exciting new routes, is enabling us to respond to the significant pent-up demand," Transat's chief sales and marketing officer Joseph Adamo said. "This surge in demand has also allowed us to increase capacity on certain key routes between now and the end of the winter season." Transat said it will gradually resume flights to 25 European destinations, including the six it currently flies to, starting in April. The airline will fly to 16 destinations from Montreal, 15 from Toronto and two from Quebec City. The airline will also expand its service to the US, flying to California for the first time since the carrier launched. Transat also said it will begin operating flights to from Montreal to Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Toronto to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, and Quebec City to Fort Lauderdale on a year-round basis given "the unfaltering popularity of Florida."<br/>
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The Supreme Court has provided guidance concerning defamation damages in an important judgment awarding an Aer Lingus pilot E202,500 over defamatory and false emails sent about him by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA). By a four to one majority, the court granted Captain Padraig Higgins’ appeal against a decision by the Court of Appeal (CoA) which slashed to E76,500 a High Court jury’s award to him of E387,000 damages. The judgment concerns existing defamation law and does not address the Government’s proposals for reform of the law, including to abolish juries in defamation cases, but the judges observations may inform the amendment of the law. The observations include comments about defects, particularly the absence of time limits, with the ‘offer of amends’ procedure set out in the 2009 Defamation Act which was aimed at avoiding litigation. The majority court concluded Capt Higgins was entitled to E175,000 general damages and E50,000 aggravated damages over three emails sent by the authority in 2013, which it admitted were defamatory. Having applied a 10% discount in light of an offer of amends from the authority, the total award came to E202,500.<br/>
Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba harshly criticized El Al Israel Airlines for accepting payments via the Russian banking system 'Mir' in order to evade the sanctions slapped on Russia's international financial systems. He attached a screenshot from El Al's website proving his claim, deeming the actions immoral and a blow to Ukrainian-Israeli relations. "While the world sanctions Russia for its barbaric atrocities in Ukraine, some prefer to make money soaked in Ukrainian blood. Here is @EL_AL_ISRAEL accepting payments in Russian banking system ‘Mir’ designed to evade sanctions. Immoral and a blow to Ukrainian-Israeli relations," he tweeted. El Al released a statement denying the foreign minister's claims, stating that 'Mir' has been blocked by the Israeli airline since February 28. "We are saddened that a simple check was not conducted prior to publishing the tweet," the statement reads.<br/>
FlyDubai on Monday reported a $229m profit last year as the state-owned budget carrier saw its business rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and as regulators allowed it to again fly the Boeing 737 Max. FlyDubai nearly doubled its revenue in 2021 to over $1.4b, compared to just $773m the year before in the thick of pandemic restrictions and after two crashes saw the 737 Max grounded. In 2020, the airline saw a loss of $194m. The sister airline to long-haul carrier Emirates also carried 5.6m passengers, up from 3.2m in 2020. “FlyDubai’s business model remains strong and has served us well through the pandemic,” said Ghaith al-Ghaith, the airline’s CEO. ”As demand returned these strong fundamentals have translated into a significant improvement in our financial performance.” The airline’s revenues still aren’t back to its pre-pandemic 2019 results of $1.6b, with profits of $54m. Emirati regulators allowed the 737 Max to return to the sky in February 2021. <br/>
Middle Eastern carrier Flydubai is preparing for a large influx of Boeing 737 Max jets, with 20 due to be delivered to the airline this year. The deliveries will begin in March, and help to raise Flydubai’s capacity as it recovers from the pandemic. Flydubai has a fleet of 60 737s, a mix of 34 737-800s, 23 Max 8s and three Max 9s. “[This year] we will see the largest number of aircraft delivered in any year since the launch of the airline,” says chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith. “With the lifting of restrictions across our network and increasing demand for travel, we are cautiously optimistic about the year ahead notwithstanding the geopolitical situation and its potential effect on the pricing of commodities.” Although it cut back 737 orders, the airline still has a large backlog awaiting delivery. The carrier agreed last year to cut back its aircraft orders with Boeing, removing 65 jets. At the end of 2021 it had taken delivery of 25 from the backlog with another 161 due. Its business model has enabled the airline to turn in a full-year profit of Dhs841m ($229m), after generating revenues of Dhs5.3b. Flydubai opened 22 routes last year including 13 to unserved destinations from its base at Dubai.<br/>
Kuwait's Jazeera Airways will increase fares to all destinations from March 22 due to higher oil prices, it said Monday, The airline said fares for Gulf Arab destinations have increased by 5 dinar ($16.47) per flight, while those for other destinations involving more than 3 hours' flight time have increased by 10 dinar per flight. "We hope that oil prices will stabilize and fall again with additional supply in the market, at which point we intend to immediately reverse these changes," the company said.<br/>
Wizz Air said on Monday it was using hedges to protect itself against soaring oil prices, which have hit their highest since 2008 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wizz Air has capped its fuel-cost exposure for the next four months with zero-cost hedges, it said. <br/>
Pilots at cargo airline AeroLogic, a joint venture between Lufthansa and Deutsche Post DHL, have voted to go on strike, the German pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit said. Pilots had voted in favour of industrial action as a means of bringing AeroLogic to the table for talks on a collective labour agreement, the union said. Vereinigung Cockpit added that so far the company, which operates a fleet of 20 aircraft, has not reacted to any efforts to enter into a discussion. Air cargo has boomed during the pandemic, with Lufthansa’s own cargo airline, Lufthansa Cargo, posting record operating profits of nearly E1.5b last year.<br/>