Airlines pledge to cough up for cross-border flight pollution

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Civil aviation accounts for perhaps only 2% of man-made carbon emissions today. Add in other pollutants, such as nitrous oxide, and its contribution to climate change might be twice that figure. That may not seem much, but the sector is expanding rapidly. Since the 1970s, global air traffic has doubled in size about every 15 years. Rising prosperity in developing countries and massive backlogs of aircraft orders mean that the industry's contrails will continue growing for decades. Without regulation, the world’s airlines will quickly choke its skies...

British Airways: To fly, to scrooge

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Back in the 1990s, British Airways, the nation’s flag-carrier, proclaimed itself to be “The World’s Favourite Airline” in a long-running and hugely successful advertising campaign. Watching its iconic TV commercials from sofas across the country, many Brits—a pint-sized, starry-eyed Gulliver among them—swelled with pride at what was, at the time, a genuinely treasured national asset. Were British Airways to run the same campaign today, it would probably stir a mixture of derision abroad and embarrassment at home...

Brexit: Flying into the unknown

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Despite predicting that a Brexit vote would not “have a material impact on our business”, International Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways, has seen its stock price plummet by one-third since Friday. Shares in easyJet, the London-based low-cost carrier that relies heavily on open skies across Europe, have crashed just as dramatically. Even airlines at the heart of the European project are suffering: Lufthansa, Germany’s flag-carrier, is worth 17% less than it was before the referendum. Traders seem convinced that Britain’s divorce from Europe is bad news for the entire industry, whether due to the gloomy economic outlook, currency volatility, resurgent travel restrictions or the prospect of a full-blown break-up of the European Union...

Not-so-open skies for Norwegian

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America's House of Representatives is considering a bill, HR5090, that aims to block further expansion by Norwegian Air Shuttle, the only low-cost carrier flying direct between Europe and America. Four lawmakers introduced the bill last month after the Department of Transportation (DoT) tentatively agreed to let Norwegian scale up its transatlantic operation. They accuse it of unfair commercial advantages, echoing concerns voiced by several airlines and trade unions.

Low-cost carriers like Norwegian place operational efficiency and cost-competitiveness at the heart of their business models...

Low cost, high stakes Eurowings

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Lufthansa is already Europe's largest group of airlines, counting the flag-carriers of Germany, Switzerland and Austria among its portfolio of subsidiaries. It may be about to get even bigger. Impressed with the results of consolidation in North America—now the world’s most profitable aviation market—Lufthansa’s chief executive, Carsten Spohr, is shopping for more airlines. Efforts to lift the group’s shareholding in Brussels Airlines to 100% were disrupted by terrorist attacks in its home city in March, but remain on-track. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), the shared flag-carrier of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and Condor, the German leisure carrier, are also now rumoured to be in its sights...

Ryanair's secret connections

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Three years ago, taking just one flight with Ryanair was enough to send a shiver down the spine of many a European business traveller. The prospect of back-to-back flights with the airline–planning your own connections with no insurance against delays–was positively harrowing. A lot can change in three years.

Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, has told The Irish Independent that the low-cost carrier, Europe's largest, will soon begin trialling airside transfers at London Stansted and Barcelona El Prat. The move marks a departure from Ryanair's point-to-point business model, bringing it closer into line with the hub-and-spoke operations of traditional network carriers...

The early bird catches no returns

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Few issues drive a wedge between airlines and their customers like the thorny matter of compensation. In Europe, anyone whose flight is delayed by more than three hours can claim between €250 and €600 ($270 and $650) for the inconvenience, provided the delay is not caused by “extraordinary circumstances”. Airlines, as you would expect, interpret force majeure more broadly than passengers, lumping all manner of disruptions under the get-out clause. Along with extreme weather, terrorism and industrial action—events that are universally deemed “extraordinary”—airlines have attempted to withhold payment over bird strikes and technical faults. Successive court rulings have come down on the side of passengers, forcing the industry to stump up compensation more often...

Another bomb is detonated aboard an international flight

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The extraordinary events that unfolded over the skies of Somalia on February 2nd have now become clearer. About 15 minutes after Daallo Airlines Flight 159 departed from Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, an explosive device carried by Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh, one of the passengers, blew a gaping hole just above the right wing of the plane (a spot identified in al-Qaeda literature as being the most effective place to detonate a bomb). Mr Borleh, who is suspected of being a suicide bomber, was sucked out of the aircraft and fell to his death. Everyone else survived. Had the incident occurred minutes later, once the plane reached cruising altitude, the resultant explosive decompression would almost certainly have killed all aboard. To say that the 73 innocent passengers on Flight 159 had a lucky escape is an understatement...

Bigger than Dubai?

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Aviation geeks love Iran Air, but for all the wrong reasons. Decades of sanctions have left Iran's flag-carrier with one of the oldest fleets in the world, featuring museum-vintage aircraft like a 39-year-old Boeing 747SP, the only passenger aircraft of its type still in service. Blocked from ordering Western-built jets for three decades, Iran Air and the country's 15 other carriers have extended the lives of their obsolete planes while scouring the black market for second-hand ones. The results are predictable: 37 crashes of Iranian aircraft since the turn of the century, claiming more than 900 lives...

Arab-Jewish tensions spill over on Aegean flight

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It started with a flickering of paranoia in the mind of one Jewish passenger; perhaps justifiable, given the recent surge of terrorist attacks in Israel; perhaps prejudicial, emblematic of the deep distrust between Arabs and Jews, who both see a homeland in the Holy Land. It ended with two entirely innocent customers being hauled off a commercial flight, and with senior Palestinian officials accusing their Greek counterparts of reviving "the worst years of the South African apartheid". The debacle unfolded on a routine Aegean Airlines flight from Athens to Tel Aviv...

The Yamoussoukro Indecision

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Airline passengers in the West are spoiled. For all our complaining about poor customer service and stingy legroom—grumbles that Gulliver is only too happy to partake in—we live in the golden age of affordable, accessible flying. If Ireland's Ryanair wants to launch an obscure route between Latvia and Slovenia, it is free to do so. The need to schmooze foreign officials and navigate a forest of red tape has been systematically eroded by decades of pan-European liberalisation. In this fully deregulated environment, passengers reap the spoils with cheap airfares. Not so elsewhere in the world. Especially not so in Africa...

Too far for comfort?

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WOW Air, an Icelandic low-cost carrier, will launch flights to Los Angeles and San Francisco next summer. The airline is the latest to bring the low-cost model to long-haul flying, as it tries to rekindle Reykjavik's historic role as a budget layover for flights between Europe and North America. WOW operated its first transatlantic flights this year, serving Boston and Washington Baltimore with a pair of narrow-body Airbus A321s. Having been profitable for the first nine months of 2015, Skuli Mogensen, the airline’s boss, says he has "proved the model works" and is now eager to scale up. WOW will also add two Canadian points, Toronto and Montreal, in spring 2016...

Qatar Airways begrudgingly moves with the times

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Given that trade unions are banned in Qatar, it should come as no surprise that the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) has never been the strongest supporter of Qatar Airways. The two sides have been at loggerheads since 2013, when the ITF obtained copies of an employment contract for the airline's cabin crew. It was not impressed. Clauses prohibiting staff from getting married or falling pregnant proved particularly irksome, as did wider reports of overbearing treatment. Two years on, the global union federation is stepping up its campaign by calling on Barcelona Football Club not to renew its €150m ($165m) sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways...

Transaero pushed out into the cold

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Things don't look good for Transaero, Russia's second largest airline. Weighed down by estimated debts of 250 billion roubles ($4 billion), the privately-owned carrier had been pinning its hopes for survival on a reluctant takeover by Aeroflot, Russia's flag-carrier, which is majority owned by the government. That mega-merger, announced in September, seemed to offer a last-ditch alternative to insolvency. But Aeroflot has since walked away from the deal and two major lenders have now started bankruptcy proceedings. Winding the company up is considered "the only possible option", according to Alexey Ulyukaev, Russia’s economy minister. He blames "ineffective management" for its demise...

Modi's bumbling aviation boom

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India is the fastest-growing aviation market on the planet, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an industry trade group. No thanks to government. Having been elected last year on a pro-business reformist ticket, Narendra Modi, the prime minister, is back-pedalling on his administration's pledge to modernise the sector. After 15 months in power, opined one columnist, "reforms have moved at a pace it takes … to travel from Delhi to Hyderabad by foot, rather than by an airplane."...

Cecil the lion: Airlines lighten their load

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Walter Palmer probably hollered with excitement when he pulled the trigger that killed Cecil, a 13-year-old Zimbabwean lion. A dentist from Minnesota, Dr Palmer is one the estimated 15,000 American tourists who visit Africa on hunting safaris each year. Their numbers may dwindle in 2016. Cecil, it turns out, was an illegal kill. His execution prompted a groundswell of revulsion around the globe, forcing Dr Palmer into hiding and reigniting the debate over trophy hunting. If social media voices are anything to go by, people don't much like the thought of rich whites travelling to Africa to kill things—licence or not. America's airlines, which have facilitated the trade for decades by allowing hunters to ship their trophies home, are taking note...

BA's throwaway runway

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Gulliver had to do a double take on Friday after reading that Willie Walsh, the chief executive of IAG, the group that owns British Airways, now opposes expanding Heathrow Airport in London. "We did not ask for it and we do not want it," he said of the hub's proposed third runway (see map), which was endorsed by the Airports Commission this summer. Funny that, given that Mr Walsh last year told the Independent: "The case was already being made before I joined BA in 2005, but a lot of my time [as chief executive of the airline] was spent arguing for a third runway...

Plane speaking after Iran's nuclear deal

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The long-awaited nuclear deal with Iran may have some bankers "licking their lips", as the Financial Times puts it, but in truth there is a long and complicated road to be navigated before most Western firms will be able to do business there. Among US exporters, only one sector already has an open invitation. It deserves it. For decades, Iranian airlines were forced into the black market when sourcing, and repairing, their planes. Elaborate paper-trails conspired to throw America off the scent of illicit transactions...

El Al: In it for the long haul

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There have been two developments of note for Israeli passengers in the past fortnight. Yesterday, Ryanair announced that it will begin flying to Eilat in southern Israel in November—its first ever Middle Eastern connection. The low-cost goliath will serve the city from three points in eastern Europe. One week previously, El Al, Israel's flag-carrier, added Boston to its American network. Though seemingly unrelated, these two events are emblematic of the shifting sands in Israeli aviation. Europe's low-cost carriers, for better or for worse, are making their mark on the Holy Land...

Pie-eyed in the sky

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It's one of the best adverts for abstinence you'll ever come across. On a brisk autumn morning in Manchester, an easyJet flight from Malta touches down, taxis across the apron, and comes to a halt. Passengers begin to disembark. One catches your eye. About 50 years of age and stocky in nature, he is disrobing. Quite why is not yet clear; perhaps the lack of clothing will assist him in his forthcoming duel with the pilot—a battle which, based on repeated asseverations, seems to be assured. Alas, the pilot never shows. The naked man instead staggers away, urinates against a terminal building, and is eventually downed by a policeman's Taser...