Air Transat has released its flight schedule 2024-25 winter season featuring, at peak, 300 non-stop flights per week from seven Canadian cities. In addition to Toronto, Ottawa, and London, it will also offer flights from Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, and Moncton, to more than two dozen destinations covering the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, and Europe.
It wasn’t a normal Tuesday for staff at an Iqaluit airport gift shop when 260 passengers were unexpectedly stuck in the airport terminal for nearly 11 hours last week. The passengers made their unplanned arrival at the airport when their Air France flight from Paris, bound for Seattle, Wash., made an emergency landing in Iqaluit after a “heat smell” was detected inside the plane.
Canada’s Competition Bureau says it will begin a market study looking into the state of competition in the Canadian airline industry and how governments can make improvements. In a market study, the bureau examines barriers to competition, such as regulations or policies, within a specific sector.
The union representing WestJet Encore pilots says its members rejected the tentative deal reached last month, with just over half voting the agreement down. The union says despite improvements to compensation and scheduling, the pilots wanted to see more action from WestJet to address ongoing issues with pilot recruitment, retention, and morale.
Canada’s airlines have agreed to make changes to improve the travel experience for disabled passengers, says the government, following last week’s national summit on air accessibility – a gathering that followed several high-profile incidents that placed the spotlight on problems in the industry.
Air Vanuatu filed for bankruptcy protection late last week after the South Pacific state-owned carrier cancelled all international flights, stranding thousands of travellers. But despite the filing, the carrier is looking to resume operations as soon as possible.
With up to 176 daily flights to 27 destinations from the city’s two airports, Porter Airlines is promising its most substantial summer schedule to date from Toronto. And by August, the carrier says it will be the third-largest carrier flying from Toronto Pearson International Airport, with up to 74 daily flights to 16 destinations across Canada and the United States.
Qantas Airways agreed to pay AU$ 120 million Australian dollars (CA $104.2 million) in compensation and a fine for selling tickets on thousands of cancelled flights. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sued the Sydney-based airline in the Federal Court last year. The commission alleged that Qantas engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by advertising tickets for more than 8,000 flights from May 2021 through to July 2022 that had already been cancelled.
A British Airways transatlantic flight bound for London from Bermuda had to abort take-off due to a bomb threat to the aircraft. The threat was emailed to LF Wade airport just as the flight with 197 people on board was due to leave Sunday night. Passengers disembarked and were accommodated in Bermuda overnight.
Travellers on Air Transat heading to Brussels from Montreal-Trudeau International Airport on May 5, were treated to a Wonka-themed flight celebrating the arrival of the movie on the airline’s in-flight entertainment system. The whimsical experience was the result of a first-time collaboration between Air Transat, Warner Bros. and Quebec-based Chocolats Favoris.
In the latest round of their decades-long battle for dominance in commercial aircraft, Europe’s Airbus established a clear sales lead over Boeing even before the American company encountered more fallout from manufacturing problems and ongoing safety concerns.
A potential strike between WestJet and its mechanics union appears to have been avoided. A statement from the Calgary-based airline Sunday night says a tentative deal between it and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association has been agreed to. WestJet had issued a 72-hour lockout notice on Saturday to the union, saying it was response to AMFA announcing a strike vote.
WestJet has issued a 72-hour lockout notice to the union representing its mechanics, and warns a work stoppage could happen as early as Tuesday. The Calgary-based airline says in a statement that the decision follows an announcement of a strike vote by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which represents approximately 670 aircraft maintenance engineers and skilled trade groups with the carrier.
Southwest Airlines is studying changes to its quirky boarding and seating policies as it searches for ways to raise more revenue. Airline officials say they are studying possible changes but won’t have anything to announce until September. That tease is leading to speculation about whether Southwest might ditch some longstanding traditions, including the practice of passengers picking their own seats only after they board a plane.
Canadians’ diminishing appetite for post-pandemic travel helped nudge Air Canada to an $81-million first quarter loss, though the company boosted passenger revenues by nearly 11 percent year over year in the quarter ended March 31. The airline also says it is seeing “very strong signals” on business travel on the horizon.
In visit to Halifax this week, WestJet Group CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech detailed the airline’s efforts and growth strategy in the region, including the resumption of transatlantic service, increased service to popular sun destinations in the winter, and enhanced east-to-west domestic air service to connect Canadians from coast-to-coast.
Air Canada has launched new – and free – motorcoach service connecting southern Ontario’s Hamilton-Wentworth and Kitchener/Waterloo Regions to Toronto Pearson International Airport, at the same time enabling customers to create a single itinerary when booking travel with Air Canada through YYZ.
Air Canada as pressed pause on a new seat selection fee a mere couple of days after it implemented the policy. For years, customers with economy fares have been able to change the seat automatically assigned to them at check-in free of charge. However, travel agents received notice from the company this month that lower-tier passengers who had not purchased a seat in advance would have to pay a fee to change their automatically designated spot, starting April 24.
Another round of labour trouble is threatening to disrupt Air Transat, with the company’s 28 airline dispatchers in a position to strike, having voted for a strike mandate to protest what the union says is “disappointing progress” in labour talks. No Air Transat aircraft can depart without the approval of a flight plan by a flight dispatcher, though no strike date has been announced.
Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, will move its operations to the city-state’s second, sprawling airfield in its southern desert reaches “within the next 10 years” in a project worth nearly US$35 billion, its ruler said Sunday. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s announcement marks the latest chapter in the rebound of its long-haul carrier Emirates after the coronavirus pandemic grounded international travel.
Food service workers are returning to return to work at Pearson Airport after reaching a tentative agreement with airline caterer Gate Gourmet nearly two weeks after walking off the job, meaning travellers through Toronto may soon find a full menu option on flights once again.
Preventing passenger screening technology using automated face matching technology is misguided and dangerous and will only serve to undermine security and disgruntle travellers by creating longer customs line-ups and delays, the US Travel Association is warning.
Calling Alberta’s capital “the heart of our ambitious growth strategy,” WestJet’s chief executive told Edmonton’s business and community leaders Wednesday that the airline is intent on being the city’s top airline and cementing its “well-deserved position on the global stage, making it one of the most connected cities of its size in North America.”
The US government issued final rules Wednesday to require airlines to automatically issue cash refunds for things like delayed flights and to better disclose fees for baggage or cancelling a reservation. The Transportation Department said airlines will be required to provide automatic cash refunds within a few days for cancelled flights and “significant” delays, which it defines as three hours for domestic flights and six hours for international ones.
As airfares continue to surge, travellers are increasingly turn to “skiplagging” for more affordable options – a practice frowned upon by airlines. But it’s travel advisors who often pay the price, says the World Travel Agents Associations Alliance (WTAAA), which is urging airlines to stop penalizing agents when clients break the rules.
Flight simulator maker CAE Inc. says it has signed an agreement with Nav Canada to help train flight service specialists and air traffic controllers beginning this fall. In July, IATA called out air traffic control organizations in North America, which include Nav Canada, for staffing shortages that “continue to produce unacceptable delays and disruptions.”
US authorities are investigating after a video that surfaced on social media showing a man who appears to be Colorado Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens sitting in the pilot’s seat “at cruise altitude” while bound for Toronto. The Instagram post, which has been taken down, included a caption that said “the captain and the first officer” of a United Airlines charter flight had allowed the poster to sit in the cockpit during the flight from Denver.
Jay Sorensen flies both business class and economy. While the differences between the two have always been stark – priority boarding and free alcohol are decades-old features of first-class travel – lately the gulf seems to have widened, says the consulting firm president. Economy-class trips are defined by shrinking legroom, narrower cushion space, diminishing rewards for frequent fliers and, especially, the myriad fees that can pile up like thunderclouds as airlines increasingly offer top-up options on their tickets.
WestJet guests will gain access to six additional cities across four Asian countries from Incheon International Airport (ICN) through an expansion of WestJet’s codeshare agreement with Korean Air, one of the world’s only 5-star airlines as awarded by Skytrax. The new service will begin on May 17, corresponding with the previously announced launch of seasonal service between YYC and ICN.
WestJet reports that it has purchased the first Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) supplied in Canada by Shell Aviation, marking another milestone in the company’s mission to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and signifying another step forward in making Canada’s aviation industry more sustainable.