A white woman who was traveling with her 10-year-old daughter is suing Southwest Airlines after she claims she and her child — who she describes as mixed-race Black — were victims of racial profiling. An airline employee reportedly saw the two together and became suspicious that the child was being trafficked. The employee then called the police. Mary MacCarthy filed a suit on Thursday in Colorado, according to Newsweek. Police arrived at the Denver International Airport to investigate the trafficking claims on 22 October 2021. The mother and daughter were eventually allowed to leave, but not before they experienced "extreme emotional distress," according to the lawsuit. The litigation is requesting economic damages, compensatory damages, as well as punative and exemplary damages. MacCarthy told Newsweek that she felt the need to be "hyperaware" of any interaction between her and her daughter due to fears that someone else might call the police on them. She said being "on alert" about her "most basic behaviours" is "exhausting." Her attorney, David Lane, told the outlet that the lawsuit was intended to bring accountability to Southwest Airlines and force it to re-examine its training policies. "Just as the police are constitutionally not permitted to stop-and-frisk young men of color based upon their race, corporate America is similarly not permitted to resort to such profiling to use law enforcement to stop and question racially diverse families simply based upon their divergent races, which is what Southwest did," Lane told the outlet. Southwest said it did not have further comment on pending litigation.<br/>
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Canada’s Chorus Aviation reported a profit of C$20.3m during Q2 2023, boosted by aircraft leasing revenue, foreign exchange rates, parts sales, MRO activities and contract flying. For comparison, the company posted a loss of C$40.4m during the same three months of 2022. Halifax-headquartered Chorus owns Canadian regional airlines Jazz Aviation and Voyageur Airways, plus aircraft lessor Falko Regional Aircraft. Chorus generated revenue of C$397m during the period, slightly higher than last year’s C$392m during the same three months.<br/>The company’s quarterly expenses fell 11.4% year-on-year, to C$341m from C$386m. For the first six months of the year, revenue rose 10.5% over last year’s figures, and costs increased just 1.5%. “The market for regional aviation remains strong,” says CE Colin Copp. “In the second quarter, Falko had 20 aircraft transactions with nine distinct airline customers across six continents. In addition, as of June 2023, regional current market values and lease rates have shown signs of recovery from pandemic lows, reflecting a positive forward outlook.” Copp says the company continues to see “many opportunities to deploy funds in regional aircraft leasing”. However Jazz capacity is “currently constrained” as the company has lost more than 300 pilots to Air Canada under the existing pilot flow agreement, in addition to attrition to other airlines. That trend is expected to continue “in the near term”, he says. <br/>
An airline established by Ethiopian Airlines Group in partnership with institutional investors and the Nigerian government plans to start operations in the West African nation as early as October. The airline, named Nigeria Air, will start with a combination of two wide-bodied planes and six narrow-bodied aircraft, Mesfin Tasew, CE officer of Ethiopian Airlines said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. The proposed carrier will give Ethiopian Airlines, the continent’s biggest, a foothold in Africa’s most populous country, where about 23 domestic airlines compete for influence. Previous government attempts to start a flag carrier have failed. The Nigerian government will own 5% in Nigeria Air. Ethiopian Airlines will control 49% stake of the new company, while the remaining will be held by Nigerian institutional investors including MRS Oil Nigeria Plc, two companies in the aviation sector, “a big financial institution” among others, said Zemedeneh Negatu, global chairman of Fairfax Africa Fund LLC, which is helping the investors raise funds. Negatu declined to name the investors. Nigeria’s government won’t pay cash for its stake, he said. Carriers in the nation have struggled to stay viable. They have been plagued by lack of access to foreign exchange, high cost of aviation fuel and multiple taxation regimes. Only Air Peace, the nation’s biggest carrier, flies overseas. Erstwhile flag carrier Nigeria Airways stopped operations in 2003 and was liquidated. A partnership with Virgin Atlantic Airways to start an airline a year later collapsed after the UK-based company withdrew from the partnership over disagreements with the Nigerian government. Operating an airline in Nigeria is “not a simple task. It will be a big challenge,” Tasew said, adding that it has $82m of funds it needs to repatriate from the country. “We have people who know the business culture of Nigeria. We believe we can manage and develop the airline.”<br/>
Iraq’s prime minister has ordered an investigation into how a bear escaped from its crate in the cargo hold of an Iraqi aircraft as it was due to depart from Dubai airport, leaving passengers disgruntled over the delay and causing a stir on social media. Iraqi Airways said it wasn’t to blame for the bear’s escape and that the aircraft’s crew worked with authorities in the United Arab Emirates, which dispatched specialists to sedate the animal and remove it from the plane. A video clip circulating on social media showed the plane’s captain apologizing to passengers for Friday’s takeoff delay because of the bear’s escape from its crate in the cargo hold. Iraqi Airways said Saturday that procedures to transport the bear were carried out in accordance with the law and with procedures and standards approved by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The airline said the bear was being flown from Baghdad to Dubai. But a person speaking on the video clip making the social media rounds suggested otherwise, saying the aircraft was an hour late for its trip to Baghdad and that passengers were being asked to disembark until the issue was resolved. Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, declined to comment. An Iraqi Airways official confirmed to The Associated Press on Sunday that the bear was, in fact, being transported to the Iraqi capital. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, declined to name the animal’s owner.<br/>
State-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines has launched new direct flights connecting Riyadh and Jeddah with the Chinese capital Beijing, Saudi state news agency SPA said on Sunday. The inaugural flight from Jeddah to Beijing took off on Friday, with the Riyadh-Beijing flight scheduled to commence on Sunday, SPA said.<br/>
Bahrain International Airport (BIA), and Gulf Air have both registered a significant growth in the kingdom’s aviation sector during the first six months of the year. The airport and airline both recorded a steady increase in passengers and air traffic compared to the same period last year, reflecting the success of their respective strategies and the ongoing recovery of the global aviation industry, reported BNA. Over the past six months, Gulf Air welcomed 2.8m passengers, up 39.7% over 2.01m in 2022, and handled 38300 tonnes of cargo. Meanwhile BIA had welcomed 4.09m passengers during the six-month period, thus registering a 43.2% growth over 2.86m last year, and recorded 44,160 air traffic movements, up 19.8% over the last year's figure of 36,869, according to Bahrain Airport Company (BAC), the operator and managing body of Bahrain International Airport. Cargo tonnage handled reached 177,070, a 6.34% drop from 189,060 the previous year, it added.<br/>
Really Cool Airlines, a newcomer in Thailand’s aviation industry, is set to start flying soon after it gets an air operator certificate from the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand in December, its CE Patee Sarasin said on Friday. Patee, 60, added that it had earlier obtained an air operating licence from the agency. He said the Bangkok-based airline will be marketed as a full-service “lifestyle carrier”, aiming to offer a unique experience to passengers between luxury and budget carriers, under the slogan “We Fly the Future”. Really Cool Airlines will operate with three leased Airbus A330 planes with a capacity of more than 300 passengers each. With an investment of over 1b baht, it is aiming for inbound passengers who account for 70% of Thailand’s air travellers, Patee said. It will cover regional routes in the initial stage to such destinations as Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 2025, it will fly to Europe. According to Patee, Really Cool Airlines will focus mainly on international routes to avoid competition with well-established domestic carriers. Its parent company, RC Airlines, was founded in March this year with a registered capital of 200m baht. Patee is the founder and director while the other directors are his friends from other industries. Patee is a former CE of Thai budget carrier Nok Air, from which he quit in 2017 to set up a travel platform company called Really Cool. He still sees challenges for the airline industry, which was badly damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic and is still making a slow recovery to pre-pandemic levels.<br/>