Airlines make decision for safety reasons as MPs and families call on UK to evacuate nationals from Gaza
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have suspended all flights between the UK and Tel Aviv in Israel, as countries around the world scramble to evacuate citizens amid the mounting crisis.
BA earlier had to divert a flight to Tel Aviv back to the UK because of security concerns, and said it took the decision after “the latest assessment of the situation”.
Continue reading...Hack attributed to criminal gang hit MOVEit software used by third-party payroll provider Zellis
British Airways, Boots and the BBC are investigating the potential theft of personal details of staff after the companies were hit by a cyber-attack attributed to a Russia-linked criminal gang.
BA confirmed it was one of the companies affected by the hack, which targeted software called MOVEit used by Zellis, a payroll provider.
Continue reading...IAG expects to fly almost the same passenger numbers this year as before Covid pandemic
The owner of British Airways has upgraded its full-year profit expectations thanks to strong demand for holiday travel, as the airline group said it expected to fly almost the same number of passengers this year as it did before the coronavirus pandemic.
International Airlines Group (IAG) reported a first-quarter profit for the first time since 2019, before the travel industry was plunged into chaos by Covid lockdowns. It made an operating profit of €9m (£7.9m) in the first three months of the year.
Continue reading...Airport security staff due to hold 10 days of strikes over pay, forcing airline to axe 5% of its schedule
British Airways is to cancel more than 300 flights to and from Heathrow over the Easter holiday period due to strikes by airport security staff.
The airline is axing about 5% of its schedule, with 16 return short-haul flights cancelled daily. It said the majority of affected customers would be booked on to alternative flights within 24 hours, or could be fully refunded.
Continue reading...Airline blames technical issue for disruption at airports including Denver, New York and Miami
British Airways has apologised after a technical issue triggered a wave of flight delays across the US and the Caribbean.
The airline said problems with its third-party flight planning supplier were behind the delays, as customers reported disruption in departing cities including Denver, New York and Miami.
Continue reading...Airline group says demand is strong despite ‘historic challenges’ at Heathrow and elsewhere
British Airways has returned to profit for the first time since the start of the pandemic, with its owner International Airlines Group saying demand was strong despite “historic challenges” still facing the industry.
IAG said that there was no sign of bookings tailing off in the autumn and beyond – in the face of pessimistic forecasts from its main airport base, Heathrow – and that demand for the most lucrative transatlantic routes was continuing to grow.
Continue reading...Planned action by the airline’s Spain-based cabin crew over working conditions will increase disruption for holidaymakers
British holidaymakers are braced for fresh travel chaos across Europe this summer with staff at Ryanair on Saturday becoming the latest to threaten strike action.
As striking airport workers in Paris forced the cancellation of dozens of flights on Saturday and promised more industrial action later in July, Spain-based cabin crew at Ryanair revealed they now plan to strike for 12 days in July.
Continue reading...Low-cost carrier makes ‘pre-emptive cancellations’ of about 40 flights a day to ensure no repeat of half-term disruption
EasyJet has reduced its flight schedule for the rest of June in a bid to overcome the travel chaos seen in the school holidays when staff shortages meant thousands of people were hit by last-minute cancellations.
Britain’s biggest carrier has come under fire for its handling of the disruption which also saw passengers endure long delays. In a message to staff on Friday, its chief operating officer, Peter Bellew, said the carrier was making pre-emptive cancellations for the “coming days and weeks” to “increase resilience across the network”.
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...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...Ambassador warned Foreign Office an Iraqi invasion was under way but this was not passed on to airline
Hundreds of British passengers might have avoided being taken hostage by Saddam Hussein in 1990 if a call by a British ambassador regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had been relayed to British Airways, the Foreign Office has disclosed.
The revelation of the phone call and the decades long cover-up was made on Tuesday under the 20-year disclosure rule, but was known to ministers and diplomats since 1990. The current foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has apologised for the omission.
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...Holidaymakers say they were given just hours to pay back cash claimed through credit cards
Ryanair has been accused of barring passengers who pursued chargebacks against the airline during the pandemic from taking new flights this year – unless they return their refunds.
An investigation by MoneySavingExpert (MSE) has found that holidaymakers who sought refunds from their credit card provider have faced last-minute demands of up to £600 if they want to board a Ryanair plane.
Continue reading...Airlines may have broken law by refusing refunds for flights customers could not legally take
British Airways and Ryanair are being officially investigated over whether they treated customers unfairly during the pandemic by failing to offer them flight refunds.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was looking to see if the two airlines had broken consumer law, and indicated it was on the side of consumers on this issue. It has opened enforcement cases into both companies.
Continue reading...EasyJet boss Johan Lundgren accuses government of tearing up ‘its own rulebook’ as tourism industry feels pain
Tour operators and airlines lost more than £2bn in value after the government removed Portugal from the “green list” of countries exempt from significant travel restrictions, prompting dismay and anger within the hard-hit tourism industry.
Less than a month after Portugal became the first big destination to be granted green list status, prompting a much-needed boom in holiday sales, the government reversed the decision.
Continue reading...American, Delta and United bosses join BA and Virgin Atlantic in saying US-UK vaccination levels mean routes should reopen
Major US airlines have weighed in alongside UK carriers to urge the reopening of transatlantic travel, calling on governments in Washington and London to arrange a summit as soon as possible.
The airlines said safely reopening borders was essential for economic recovery and asked the nations’ leaders to meet before the G7, and take a decision with sufficient time for airlines to plan and restart services.
Continue reading...Investors’ summer optimism gives way to insecurity as curfews and lockdowns return
Stock markets in the US and Europe fell sharply oas investors focused on signs that rich countries’ efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic were foundering.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 index lost 1.8% after heavy falls in German blue-chip stocks. In the US the Dow Jones industrial average closed 2.3% down at 27685.38, while the benchmark S&P 500 fell 1.9% to 3400.97.
Continue reading...Coronavirus has hit few sectors harder than air travel, wiping out tens of thousands of jobs and uncountable billions in revenue. While most fleets were grounded, the industry was forced to reimagine its future
When an airline no longer wants a plane, it is sent away to a boneyard, a storage facility where it sits outdoors on a paved lot, wingtip to wingtip with other unwanted planes. From the air, the planes look like the bleached remains of some long-forgotten skeleton. Europe’s biggest boneyard is built on the site of a late-30s airfield in Teruel, in eastern Spain, where the dry climate is kind to metallic airframes. Many planes are here for short-term storage, biding their time while they change owners or undergo maintenance. If their future is less clear, they enter long-term storage. Sometimes a plane’s limbo ends when it is taken apart, its body rendered efficiently down into spare parts and recycled metal.
In February, Patrick Lecer, the CEO of Tarmac Aerosave, the company that owns the Teruel boneyard and three others in France, had one eye cocked towards China. Lecer has been in aviation long enough to remember flights being grounded during the Sars epidemic in 2003. This year, when the coronavirus spread beyond Asia, he knew what was coming. “We started making space in our sites, playing Tetris with the aircraft to free up two or three or four more spaces in each,” he told me.
Continue reading...Quarantine measures for people travelling from Spain may be applied to other countries
Holidaymakers have been warned the government could impose “handbrake restrictions” on more countries beyond Spain in order to stop the spread of coronavirus – with travellers unlikely to be given much warning if further quarantine measures need to be enforced.
The restrictions on travellers returning from Spain after the measures were announced overnight threw summer holiday plans into disarray for British tourists, and will raise fears among those travelling to other European countries that they could face a similar turnaround at a moment’s notice.
Continue reading...As airline moves to cut 12,000 jobs, senior crew told they will get 80% of current basic pay
British Airways has started carrying out its threat to fire and rehire thousands of workers – days after unions joined talks with a plan to save jobs.
Long-serving cabin crew were served notice this week to either accept an enhanced redundancy package within three weeks, or risk losing it by reapplying for a similar job at much lower pay.
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