More than 5.4m passengers travelled through airport in January, double the 2.6m from 2022
Heathrow airport had its busiest start to the year since before the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in 2020 as travel restrictions continued to ease, according to data published on Monday.
More than 5.4 million passengers travelled through the UK’s and Europe’s busiest airport in January, double the 2.6 million from 2022, Heathrow said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
Continue reading...Disability royal commissioner writes to company bosses after hearing of people dropped on the floor and discrimination against assistance dogs
The chair of the disability royal commission has written to Australian airline and airport chiefs about improving their treatment of travellers with disabilities, after the inquiry heard stories of people dropped on the floor and discrimination against assistance dogs.
The royal commission has so far heard that people with disabilities are routinely subject to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation when flying domestically, with participants telling the inquiry they felt airlines were “dehumanising” them and that complaints were rarely followed up. Advocates have told Guardian Australia that complaining through the Australian Human Rights Commission is often the only way to seek recourse.
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Continue reading...Some people due to fly with regional airline had booked tickets just hours before firm collapsed
“I got an email asking me to check in, and 10 minutes later they had gone into administration.”
Andrew Gibbins was one of hundreds of passengers across the UK who have expressed frustration at regional airline Flybe, which abruptly announced its collapse on Saturday morning, telling any passengers expecting to travel with it not to go to the airport.
Continue reading...Alabama crew had ‘safety huddle’ about how to move around the plane and employee who was killed received warning to stay back
A worker at an airport in Alabama who died after being sucked into a jet engine this past New Year’s Eve had been warned repeatedly about the dangers of going near it, federal investigators revealed this week.
The Montgomery regional airport employee, along with other colleagues of the facility’s ground crew, had undergone a “safety huddle” about how to move around the plane at the center of the case 10 minutes before it arrived at the gate on 31 December, and there was another similar briefing just before the aircraft arrived at the gate, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a report Monday.
Continue reading...Second distress signal in a month for airline after Singapore to London flight made emergency landing in Azerbaijan in late December
A Qantas flight from Auckland has landed safely in Sydney after issuing a mayday call mid-flight due to an “extremely rare” engine failure that meant the pilot had to land with one engine.
Qantas flight 144 landed at Sydney airport about 3.30pm on Wednesday. The Boeing 737 had left Auckland an hour late about 2.30pm local time.
Continue reading...Airline to continue aggressive post-Covid expansion, offering 10% more seats in the UK this summer compared with 2022
Ryanair took record numbers of bookings in January, the budget airline has announced, passing 2m sales in a weekend for the first time.
Its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said there was no sign of a slowdown in demand despite the economic uncertainty.
Continue reading...Federal Aviation Administration looks into close call on Friday evening between American Airlines and Delta aircrafts
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a close call at JFK international airport on Friday evening in which two planes nearly collided on the runway.
The incident took place between a Delta Air Lines aircraft bound for the Dominican Republic and an American Airlines flight.
Continue reading...Ruan Calum Crighton was onboard the Yeti Airlines flight which crashed on Sunday with at least 68 fatalities
A British man was among dozens of people killed in Nepal’s deadliest air crash in decades.
Ruan Calum Crighton was among 72 people onboard the Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara in the Annapurna mountain range when it crashed without warning on Sunday.
Continue reading...Harrowing footage shows passengers had no idea plane was in danger before crash
In the moments before Nepal’s deadliest air crash in decades on Sunday, four friends from India who were onboard began excitedly recording the descent on a Facebook live video.
They were heading to Pokhara for the trip of a lifetime, visiting temples and paragliding in Nepal’s famed Annapurna mountain range. “It’s really fun,” one of the men can be heard on the video surveying the city below as the plane began its descent. The friends can be heard laughing and joking as the camera is turned on a smiling Sonu Jaiswal, a 29-year-old father-of-three, who ran a small business back home in India.
Continue reading...So-called ‘black boxes’ are in good condition, says official investigating deaths of at least 68 people when Yeti Airlines flight plummeted into a gorge
The black box and cockpit voice recorder from the Yeti Airlines plane that crashed in Nepal have been located, as the country observed a day of mourning on Monday for the victims of its deadliest aviation disaster in three decades.
Teknath Sitaula, a Kathmandu Airport official, said the so-called black boxes were “in a good condition now. They look good from outside.”
Continue reading...Plane was unable to change course within seconds, investigation finds, leading to 25 people injured
A cloud shot up vertically like a plume of smoke in a matter of seconds before a Hawaiian Airlines flight last month hit severe turbulence and 25 people on board were injured, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The captain of the 18 December flight from Phoenix to Honolulu told investigators that flight conditions had been smooth with clear skies when the cloud shot up in front of the plane and there was no time to change course, the report said.
Continue reading...‘Interspecies communicator’ consulted to track down cat lost in transit, prompting criticism of country’s state companies
Bolivia’s state airline has enlisted an “interspecies communicator” – or animal psychic – to track down a lost cat, after a passenger’s pet went missing in transit.
The incident has prompted pointed questions over the performance of Bolivia’s many state companies, a continual source of debate between the leftist government and its opposition.
Continue reading...Industry hopes China’s reopening might bring wider benefits for travellers with more airfare price competition
Chinese airlines are ramping up flights to Australia as Covid restrictions ease, boosting the prospects for a rapid rebound in travel between the two nations.
Airports said the market was dynamic with carriers large and small restarting routes dormant during the pandemic years, with more flights likely to be added as demand picks up.
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Continue reading...Neil Hansford says operators around Australia face pressures after a fall in patronage during pandemic
Investigators will likely examine the number of helicopter joyrides operating at Sea World after a mid-air collision killed four people, an expert says.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is investigating the cause of the crash which occurred when one helicopter was landing and the other had taken off at the Gold Coast theme park on Monday afternoon.
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Continue reading...Mid-air collision near Sea World on the Gold Coast also left three people critically injured
Two British people were among four killed after two helicopters collided in mid-air near a marine theme park on Australia’s Gold Coast, it has been confirmed.
A UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of two British nationals who died in Australia and are in contact with the local authorities.”
Continue reading...Ground crew worker employed by American Airlines subsidiary involved in accident while aircraft parked at gate in Montgomery
A US ground crew worker has died after being “ingested into the engine” of an aircraft while they worked a shift at an airport in Montgomery, Alabama.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement to Insider that the tragic accident happened while an American Airlines Embraer 170 was parked at the gate with at least one engine on.
Continue reading...Queensland police say one aircraft landed but ‘there are injuries in the other helicopter with emergency services working at the scene’ near Sea World
At least 13 people are being assessed by the Queensland ambulance service after two helicopters collided on the Gold Coast in a “major incident”.
Newswire AAP reported “it is believed three people have been killed and two injured”.
Continue reading...Airline says it will also reimburse related expenses as other carriers are capping fares to assist stranded travelers
Southwest Airlines has promised to refund tickets and reimburse passengers for hotels, car rentals and other expenses after its mass cancelations left thousands of people stranded across the country.
The airline’s chief commercial officer, Ryan Green, told reporters on Thursday that it would take several weeks to repay customers, but that the airline would cover costs people incurred when they were forced to make alternative travel arrangements, including paying for meals and gas. The company said it would also pay to ship people’s baggage to them.
Continue reading...General secretary Mark Serwotka predicts ‘coordinated and synchronised’ action from January
The head of the largest civil servants union has warned ministers that “coordinated and synchronised” strike action across the economy will “significantly escalate” from January.
Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), was speaking as his members employed in passport control for Border Force set up picket lines at Britain’s largest airports on Wednesday, in a four-day strike set to continue until New Year’s Eve.
Continue reading...The airline cancelled about 8,000 flights, stranding customers and leading to hours-long queues to speak with overworked staff
The US Department of Transportation will examine thousands of flight cancellations by Southwest Airlines over the holiday weekend, a massive disruption which left thousands of holiday travelers grounded, even in areas of the country not suffering from winter storms.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Joe Biden said: “Thousands of flights nationwide have been canceled around the holidays. Our administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable.”
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