Aviation

  Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co executives are pushing back against a rising chorus of analysts who say the company’s days as the airline industry’s disruptive force are over, reined in by higher wages and tougher operational challenges. The carrier known for its no-frills aesthetic and competitive prices is under pressure because its model is being put to the test, 50 ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong businessman Sam Wong, 60, has scrapped his holiday plans. An executive director at China Renewable Energy, Wong was booked to fly to the US to spend Christmas with his two children who are studying there. He hasn’t seen them in six months. One week before his flight, the Hong Kong government declared that travellers returning from ...

  Bloomberg Ghana will charge airlines $3,500 for every passenger flown in the country who isn’t fully vaccinated against Covid-19, part of a push by the West African country to avoid a fresh wave of infections. Carriers that take vaccinated passengers without negative PCR test results into Kotoka International Airport will also be fined starting from Tuesday, the Ghana Health ...

  Bloomberg Airbus is closing in on a deal to supply Dutch airline KLM with single-aisle jets, unseating incumbent Boeing, according to people familiar with the matter. The planemakers are competing on an order for as many as 160 aircraft for KLM and low-cost carrier Transavia, as parent Air France-KLM refreshes the brands’ medium-haul fleets. The contest remains in flux, ...

  Bloomberg PT Garuda Indonesia is entering a court-supervised debt restructuring process after a Jakarta court accepted a debt petition filed against the airline in a test of how far Indonesia’s government will go to rescue a state-owned company. Garuda amassed $9.8 billion in debt and judges in the Central Jakarta Commercial Court accepted a petition to suspend debt payments ...

    Bloomberg Indian regulators are investigating a Boeing Co 737 Max incident, operated by SpiceJet Ltd, which caused the plane to turn back to Mumbai shortly after departing for Kolkata and its pilots to shut down an engine due to a technical issue. While the plane landed safely and nobody was injured, the incident is sensitive as it involved ...

    Bloomberg The union for American Airlines Group Inc pilots said the carrier will violate its contract by scheduling “graveyard shift” flight simulator training sessions as it works to ready 440 pilots being added this year. American detailed plans for the sessions, which would begin after midnight, in a message to pilots, saying the temporary measure starting in January ...

  Bloomberg Boeing Co has promoted supply-chain chief Elizabeth Lund to oversee production of its commercial jetliner programs, including efforts to bolster manufacturing quality and resolve production lapses that have halted 787 Dreamliner deliveries. She succeeds Mark Jenks as senior vice-president and general manager of airplane programs. The move is effective immediately, Stan Deal, chief executive officer of Boeing’s commercial ...

Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co is frustrated by the slow pace of federal certification of Boeing Co’s smallest 737 Max jet, an issue that could delay the carrier’s commercial debut of the aircraft late into next year. The concern stems from changes by the US Federal Aviation Administration and lawmakers giving regulators a larger role in the certification, drawing out that ...

Bloomberg London’s Heathrow airport said passenger numbers are likely to recover to barely half of pre-Covid levels next year as the pandemic continues to ravage long-haul travel markets. The number of travellers in 2022 is likely to reach 45 million, Heathrow said in a statement. That compares with a record 81 million in 2019, when the hub ranked as Europe’s ...