Dozens of services to and from London cancelled, and strike action hits TransPennine Express routes
Rail passengers face a “disastrous weekend” of disruption as engineering works and strikes hamper one of the busiest Easter getaways in years.
Dozens of services to and from London have been cancelled as Network Rail carries out 530 engineering projects across the bank holiday weekend.
Continue reading...Unions say aviation industry cannot cope with Easter travel crush after effects of Covid leave workforce depleted
Baggage handlers have been so short-staffed that entire flights have departed without luggage as the Easter travel crush peaked at Australian airports, with unions warning the pandemic-depleted aviation industry is now structurally incapable of coping with pre-Covid-like levels of travel demand.
While unloaded baggage and long queues affected travellers across the country on Thursday, unions have claimed that in Brisbane, so few service workers were available that female cleaners were sent in to clean male toilets while travellers were using them, and male cleaners into bathrooms with female patrons.
Continue reading...Some passengers stranded amid travel chaos at some of UK’s biggest airports
EasyJet cancelled more than 200 flights over the weekend with disruption expected to last into this week, leaving some passengers stranded amid travel chaos at some of Britain’s biggest airports.
The airline blamed the problems on high levels of sickness among employees caused by Covid, with at least 222 trips axed since Friday.
Continue reading...Edinburgh-based firm agrees to £571m offer that will create world’s largest airport services firm
Executives at the British aviation services company John Menzies have accepted a £571m takeover deal from a Kuwaiti rival, after rebuffing three previous offers.
A subsidiary of Agility Public Warehousing had made the bid more than a month ago, which was conditional at the time, although the John Menzies board said it would accept the offer.
Continue reading...Airline could set distance record by rerouting its New York to Hong Kong service over the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, covering more than 16,600km
Cathay Pacific is planning the world’s longest passenger flight by rerouting its New York to Hong Kong service over the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, the airline has said, in a new path that steers clear of Russia.
The flight path will cover “just under 9,000 nautical miles” (16,668km, or 10,357 miles) in 16 to 17 hours, Cathay said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.
Continue reading...Action comes as Lloyd’s of London returns to profit but warns Ukraine war will present ‘major claim’
• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
Lloyd’s of London has said it is working with the UK government to implement sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine as fast as possible, including cancelling Russian firms’ insurance cover.
Announcing a swing back to an annual profit as it recovers from the pandemic, the world’s biggest insurance market warned that the war will present a “major claim” for the insurance market this year, but said it was “manageable”.
Continue reading...Qantas chief says airlines have no choice but to increase prices and believes travel will be impacted
Travellers are facing steep air fare hikes as bans on Russian oil cause jet fuel prices to surge, Australian aviation experts warn.
Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, has said the average fare would increase by 7% as a result of the increased crude oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but others predict the price rises could be higher.
Continue reading...Airline says cyber-attack is not responsible for problem affecting its website and airport operations
British Airways has said “significant technical issues” resulted in a number of flight cancellations and disruption across its operation on Friday.
The airline said the problem, which was affecting its website, app and airport operations, had not been caused by a cyber-attack.
Continue reading...In the damning new Netflix documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, the errors and oversights that led to two crashes are examined
For the vast majority of travelers, stepping foot on an airplane entails a tremendous act of near-blind faith. We control our own cars, trains operate on set tracks at ground level, but flying requires us to put total trust in the expertise of a complete stranger to operate a machine too complex for us to understand. Every time these gargantuan hunks of metal don’t plummet screaming from the sky towards a certain fiery doom, it feels like a miracle, even if that’s how the majority of flights play out. Rory Kennedy’s damning new documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing takes a close look at two incidents included within the small number of flights when things go wrong, and shows us the tragedy that strikes when that sacred compact between passenger and airline is violated.
“I fly a good deal, and the truth is I’ve got a bit of a fear of flying,” Kennedy tells the Guardian from behind the wheel of her car, talking transit in transit. “I like to think that when I walk down that jetway, the manufacturer of that plane is invested in keeping it up in the air, that the regulatory agencies focused on safety are doing in their job, and that at least in our country, the government is making sure the regulatory agencies enforce those safety measures. In this case, it seems that all of those agencies failed us.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Thousands of near-empty planes flown since March 2020, new figures reveal
Almost 15,000 “ghost flights” have departed from the UK, according to newly revealed official figures.
The ghost flights, defined as those with no passengers or less than 10% of passenger capacity, operated from all 32 airports listed in the data. Heathrow was top, with 4,910 ghost flights between March 2020 and September 2021. Manchester and Gatwick were the next highest. There were an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the period, although the data covered only international departure and not domestic flights.
Continue reading...Requirement to take lateral flow test will end from 4am on 11 February, cheered by airlines as a ‘landmark’
Coronavirus testing for double-vaccinated travellers arriving in the UK will be scrapped from 4am on 11 February.
In a boost for travel firms and families planning trips abroad, eligible passengers will no longer have to take a post-arrival lateral flow test (LFT). The change will save families about £100 a trip. The industry body Airlines UK said it was a “landmark day”.
Continue reading...Shane McInerney allegedly refused to wear a mask, threw a can at another passenger and mooned at a flight attendant
An Irishman who refused to wear a Covid mask during a flight from Dublin to New York and exposed his rear end to a flight attendant faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of assault, the US justice department said on Friday.
Shane McInerney, 29, from Galway, was alleged to have caused the disturbance on a Delta Airlines flight on 7 January.
Continue reading...Report from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows domestic flights were down by almost 60%
Air travel in and out of the UK slumped by 71% in 2021 as the second year of the Covid-19 crisis took its toll on international flying, according to a report.
Just over 406,000 international flights operated from the UK up to 22 December this year compared with almost 1.4m in 2019 before the pandemic struck and travel restrictions were imposed, the aviation analytics firm Cirium said. UK domestic flights were found to have declined by almost 60%.
Continue reading...Passengers returning home for festive season face disruption as Omicron leaves airlines short-staffed
Passengers travelling home for Christmas have been hit with disruption worldwide after airline companies cancelled more than 3,000 flights on Friday, according to a flight tracking website.
The surge of Christmas Eve cancellations came as the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant meant carriers were unable to staff their flights.
Continue reading...The ‘unspecified breach’ in Frankfurt led to 150 other employees being quarantined for three weeks under Hong Kong’s strict rules
Cathay Pacific Airways has sacked three cargo pilots for becoming infected with Covid-19 during a layover in Frankfurt, citing an unspecified “serious breach” of crew rules while overseas.
“The individuals concerned are no longer employed by Cathay Pacific,” the company said in a statement issued on Thursday.
Continue reading...Months after Mohadese Mirzaee became Afghanistan’s first female commercial airline pilot, the Taliban took Kabul. Now a refugee in Bulgaria, she is determined to fly again
Sitting alone in her small flat in Bulgaria, Mohadese Mirzaee contemplates the future. Three months ago, she left behind her family, and her dream job, in Afghanistan. At 23, Mirzaee was the country’s first female commercial airline pilot.
“Today, I don’t know where to go, but I’m not giving up. I’ve started applying for pilot jobs anywhere because I know I need to get back to flying,” she says by phone from the capital, Sofia.
Continue reading...‘Significant milestone’ paves way for families of 157 victims of 2019 crash to seek compensation, say lawyers
Boeing has admitted full responsibility for the second crash of its 737 Max model in Ethiopia, in a legal agreement with families of the 157 victims.
Lawyers for the families said it was a “significant milestone” for families to achieve justice.
Continue reading...British Airways flight BA001 and Virgin Atlantic flight VS3 performed a synchronised departure from Heathrow on Monday heading for New York JFK for the first time since the US travel ban was introduced due to pandemic
Continue reading...In deserts in Australia and the US, engineers are dusting off aircraft, testing engines and ridding them of rattlesnakes and insects
In the red dust of the Australian desert, more than a hundred shiny planes are lined up nose to tail, an aviation long-term parking lot.
Hundreds more form geometric patterns in California’s Mojave Desert, where engineers whack the wheel hubs of Qantas A380s to scare off rattlesnakes.
Continue reading...Airline, which even barred some people who sought redress, commits to refunds within five working days
Ryanair has promised to start refunding customers for cancelled flights within five working days, after criticism of its reimbursements policy during the pandemic.
The Dublin-based carrier, which has previously described itself as a “no-refunds airline”, has also announced significant improvements to the way it treats customers whose flights are delayed or cancelled.
Continue reading...