Aviation

Porter Aviation Holdings Inc. (PAHI) is entering a partnership with Montréal Saint-Hubert Airport (YHU) to develop a new terminal capable of serving over 4 million passengers annually. Construction will begin in mid-2023, with a scheduled completion by late 2024, providing a second airport for Porter to serve the Montréal market.

Air Canada and United Airlines have announced that through their enhanced transborder joint business agreement they will offer more than 260 daily transborder flights and two new routes this summer.

Airlines are warning that travel to and from Central Canada may be affected by a winter storm sweeping in from the west. The blizzard conditions were expected to cause delays to flights into and out of airports in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal on Wednesday and Thursday. Meanwhile, brutal winter weather hammered the northern US Wednesday with “whiteout” snow, dangerous wind gusts and bitter cold, shutting down roadways, closing schools and businesses and prompting dire warnings for people to stay home.

With the addition of two aircraft to its fleet, interCaribbean Airways will offer an expanded flight schedule to service Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent & The Grenadines.

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says it intercepted a record 6,542 guns – nearly 18 a day – last year at airport checkpoints across the America. And while experts don’t think this indicates an epidemic of would-be hijackers – nearly everyone caught claims to have forgotten they had a gun with them – they emphasize the danger even one gun can pose in the wrong hands on a plane or at a checkpoint.

Calling the process, simple, seamless, and safe, Air Canada has launched digital identification for passengers, becoming the first airline in Canada with approval to use facial recognition technology to confirm identification. The pilot project is currently underway for select customers departing from YVR for Winnipeg, and entering the Air Canada Café at Toronto Pearson, but will be expanded to other locations.

The US National Transportation Safety Board says is investigating a December flight in which a United Airlines plane nose-dived to within less than 250 metres of the ocean surface after taking off from Hawaii. The NTSB said it expects to issue a preliminary report in about two weeks. The agency said that it had been asking United questions about the incident before deciding whether to launch a formal investigation.

Having carried 36 million passengers in 2022 and posting record passenger and operating revenues in Q4, Air Canada says it has a “positive outlook” for the start of 2023 and beyond. The carrier also reported achieving 83% of its pre-pandemic passenger revenue recorded in 2019.

The head of the US Federal Aviation Administration says he has taken steps to avoid a repeat of the technology failure last month that briefly halted all flights in the United States from taking off.

Germany’s air traffic control agency said Wednesday that it is diverting all flights away from the country’s busiest airport, Frankfurt, after a problem with Lufthansa’s computer systems caused major disruption at the German airline.

Air India is placing orders for 470 Boeing and Airbus aircraft to keep up with surging demand for increased mobility in a nation with a swelling middle class. It is Boeing’s third largest sale of all time, in dollar value, and its second of all time in quantity, and has India’s prime minister predicting that the country will soon be the third largest aviation market in the world.

WestJet has unveiled 20 new routes and three new destinations – Minneapolis, Detroit and Washington DC (Dulles) – to the airline’s summer schedule, which features what the carrier calls its “largest expansion in history” out of Edmonton. At the same time, Porter is launching Ottawa-Charlottetown service in May.

A senior executive of Southwest Airlines apologized to a US Senate committee late last week for a December meltdown and said the airline is upgrading software to help fix its inability to reassign crews after the winter storm. The president of the Southwest pilots’ union told senators that airline leaders ignored calls to improve technology for years, then botched the recovery from the storm – losing track of employees and operating more than 500 empty flights while passengers were stuck on the ground over the holidays.

The union that represents pilots at WestJet says it is asking for federal assistance after months of failing to reach a contract agreement with the airline. The official request begins a process that could result in a strike, or lockout, if the impasse is not resolved.

Against the backdrop of a global pilot shortage, hopefuls aspiring to a career in the skies say their Canadian licensing applications are taking far too long to process. Student pilots who have completed the training requirements for their private or commercial pilots’ licences say their credentials are being delayed due to what they say are unacceptably lengthy processing times at Transport Canada.

The US Congress began considering critical aviation legislation on Tuesday in the aftermath of recent close calls involving airline and cargo jets at airports in New York and Texas. Lawmakers celebrated the small number of deaths on airline flights in the United States since a 2009 crash that killed 50 people, but they noted the recent scary incidents.

The union representing WestJet pilots says contract negotiations with the airline have been unproductive and federal conciliation may be needed to avert a strike. ALPA Canada, which represents approximately 1,800 pilots at WestJet and its low-cost subsidiary Swoop, says it has been negotiating unsuccessfully with the Calgary-based company since September.

As carriers worldwide try to lessen their carbon footprint, Emirates says it has successfully flown a test flight with one of its two engines entirely powered by so-called sustainable aviation fuel.

A New York congressman wants to add some Zoom to the sluggish effort to clear a bilateral backlog of NEXUS trusted-traveller applications. Rep. Brian Higgins, a frequent champion of streamlined travel between Canada and the US, has introduced legislation on Capitol Hill that, if passed, would require the Department of Homeland Security to deploy video conferencing to replace in-person interviews.

A group of airlines including Air Canada and Porter is asking the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case after a lower court largely upheld the validity of Canada’s air passenger bill of rights.

Air France is continuing to increase capacity to Canada – the carrier’s second largest long-haul market – including new service between Paris and Ottawa; the resumption of seasonal service to Quebec City, introduced last summer; and increased frequencies to other gateways.

An Air Canada IT issue Thursday afternoon caused problems with flights at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. In a tweet around 1:30 p.m., the airport said Air Canada was “experiencing an intranet outage” that was impacting functions including check-in, baggage delivery and gating.

American President Joe Biden took swipes at airlines and hotels this week as he called on Congress to limit certain extra charges they impose on consumers. “These unfair fees add up,” he said, speaking just before a meeting of the White House Competition Committee.

Last weekend Canadian ultra-low-cost airline Swoop, operated the last of its seasonal restarts with Saturday’s non-stop flight from Hamilton to Montego Bay. This winter Swoop offers an expanded schedule of more than 100 sun flight options per week to destinations across the US, Mexico and the Caribbean.

The pre-pandemic ‘use it or lose it’ rule for airport slots is coming back. The UK government says that effective March 26 this year, airlines at British airports will have to maintain 80% of their take-off and landing slots to keep them.

The latest injuries from airplane turbulence were on flights to Honolulu and Houston, leading to a total of 41 people being hurt or receiving medical treatment in the week before Christmas.

The federal government has announced an investment of up to nearly $23.5 million for an expansion and sustainability project at John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport.