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Micheál Martin has vowed strategic support will be provided for airports and airlines once the EU 'traffic light' travel system for the Covid-19 pandemic is operational.The Taoiseach acknowledged serious concerns from both Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan over the impact the ongoing virus crisis was having on key regional airports such as Cork, Shannon and Ireland West-Knock.Airports have seen passenger numbers slashed by up to 95pc and the number of routes halved.Both Aer Lingus and Ryanair have warned they face closing their winter hubs at Cork and Shannon such is the scale of the crisis facing the global aviation sector.Ireland West-Knock said its passenger numbers would drop back this year to levels not seen since 2001 and warned urgent support by the Government was needed.The Taoiseach dismissed any suggestion the Government would allow strategic regional connectivity to be lost."Firstly, I will say that Covid-19 has been devastating for the travel industry and the aviation sector," he said."There is no doubt about that. Irrespective of regulations and guidance, people have not been travelling at all in the same numbers as they were last year or in the pre-Covid era."The Government has to help and support the aviation sector. There has been engagement between the ministers and the sector. We are conscious of that - we are a country that trades globally. We need international connectivity both in terms of indigenous companies and multinationals."Our companies export a lot and connectivity is key."However, Mr Martin said the Government must wait until EU member states know precisely what was possible in terms of aviation support measures."We are positively engaging with the European Commission's proposed 'traffic light' system in terms of travel and that, hopefully by mid-October, [...]

21 April 2020:  Virgin Australia Holdings Limited (ASX: VAH) (Virgin Australia Group or Group) has entered voluntary administration to recapitalise the business and help ensure it emerges in a stronger financial position on the other side of the COVID-19 crisis. The Group’s Board of Directors has appointed Vaughan Strawbridge, John Greig, Sal Algeri and Richard Hughes of Deloitte as voluntary administrators of the company and a number of its subsidiaries. Velocity Frequent Flyer, while owned by the Group, is a separate company and is not in administration. The decision comes as the Group has continued to seek financial assistance from several parties, including State and Federal Governments, to help it through the unprecedented crisis, however, is yet to secure the required support. Virgin Australia will continue to operate its scheduled international and domestic flights which are helping to transport essential workers, maintain important freight corridors, and return Australians home. The administrators will be supported by the Group’s current management team, led by Chief Executive Officer Paul Scurrah, and will work closely with team members, suppliers, and partners throughout the process. Administrator, Vaughan Strawbridge, said: “Our intention is to undertake a process to restructure and re-finance the business and bring it out of administration as soon as possible. “We are committed to working with Paul and the Virgin Australia team and are progressing well on some immediate steps. We have commenced a process of seeking interest from parties for participation in the recapitalisation of the business and its future, and there have been several expressions of interest so far,” said Mr Strawbridge. Virgin Australia Group Chief Executive Officer, Paul Scurrah, said: “Our decision today is about securing the future of the Virgin Australia Group and emerging [...]

Air France-KLM figures showing traffic on Asia-Pacific routes down a quarter in February provide the first clear passenger data illustrating the impact on European carriers of the coronavirus outbreak. The Franco-Dutch firm is the first of the big three European carriers groups to disclose February traffic data, the first full month in which routes to mainland China in particular were impacted by the outbreak. Air France and KLM in late January began suspending flights to China, where between them they serve Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan and Xiamen. Air France-KLM passenger traffic was down 24.7% on Asia routes in February compared with the same month in 2019. The fall in traffic far outstripped the group’s reduction in capacity in this sector by 15.8% - resulting in an almost 10 point fall in load factor on its Asian routes to 80.9%. While traffic increased across most of the rest of its long-haul network, its overall long-haul passenger traffic was down 1.4%. February figures also provide the first indication of the impact on short-haul traffic, as the outbreak in northern Italy started to impact demand during the month. Short-haul passenger traffic was down 1.8%. Again this outpaced efforts to trim capacity. The group’s short-haul capacity was increased fractionally in February, leading to a nearly two point fall in load factors in this sector. Overall group Air France-KLM traffic fell 1.4% on capacity increased 1.9%. As a result group load factor was fell almost three points to 83.6%. The drop in traffic is even larger than the monthly figures suggest, as February data includes an extra day of the same month in 2018 because 2020 is a leap year. ”The following months will be more impacted given the [...]

Planes diverted as huge winds hit Ireland https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/1249138/Dublin-Airport-latest-storm-jorge-chaos-winds-Ireland DUBLIN Airport has been a victim to Storm Jorge with brutal winds of up to 90mph seeing a vast number of flights forced to divert. One British Airways flight was shown on airline trackers to have made it from Heathrow to Dublin only to have to return to the London airport after two failed landings. Another flight from Ryanair was seen circling in the Irish Sea a number of times before seemingly giving up heading to Scotland. An Aer Lingus A320 was seen on charts looping Dublin three times before heading to England. Dublin Airport tweeted at 2.30pm: “Strong gusty winds may cause delays to the flight schedule this afternoon @DublinAirport. “Please check latest flight information with your airline before travelling to the airport. One responded: “Sitting on the runway for over an hour now. The app says we’ve departed for Gran Canaria.  Storm Jorge is causing travel chaos across Ireland with flooding, heavy rain and gusts hitting 100mph. Rain has been falling as sleet or snow in places, especially in the midlands and north for a spell. It will make driving conditions very dangerous. The showers will be mix of rain, hail and sleet according to Met Eireann. The strongest wind in the world today hit Ireland on the west coast at 102mph. ESB Networks says there are around 1,000 homes, farms and businesses without power mainly on the west coast of Ireland. Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/1249138/Dublin-Airport-latest-storm-jorge-chaos-winds-Ireland Source feature Image : https://www.newstalk.com/news/warnings-place-storm-jorge-hits-ireland-975379

The airline was originally founded in 2004 as Amira Air,  they provided charter flights for executive travel, serving European and international destinations. In 2016, Niki Lauda took over Amira Air and renamed the company Laudamotion. Over the next 3-years, Laudamotion partnered with other airlines Condor, Eurowings and Ryanair.    In January 2019, Ryanair revealed that it completed the purchase of 100% of Laudamotion from NL Holdings in late December 2018. It also revealed further fleet expansion plans, with 25 aircraft by end of 2019 and 30 by summer 2020. Although Ryanair operates only Boeing aircraft, Laudamotion’s fleet will remain exclusively Airbus. During a press conference in March 2019, Laudamotion announced plans to purchase at least 100 (50+50 options) Airbus A321neo for future expansions. In 2018, the airline changed its brand name from Laudamotion to just Lauda and they also partnered with Flightbuddy for their IROPS and disruption communications needs. Lauda like their parent company "Ryanair" needed an elegant automated solution to generate the large numbers of personalised communications through SMS and email channels during disruptions. Flightbuddy addressed this requirement and delivered delay SMS messages to passengers in multiple languages, this is the core of the Flightbuddy platform. With many years of experience in proactive customer contact, Flightbuddy has evolved the SMS platform to what we see deployed with Lauda, Ryanair, Frontier and Volaris.

Like all businesses, airlines strive to organise and create the correct operational environment to maximise commercial success. Disruptions and in particular unplanned disruptions, without exception, impact negatively on this goal. Once a disruption occurs, be it foreseen such as an ATC strike or suddenly in the case of weather or a tech issue, an airline immediately goes into damage limitation mode. Firstly, by making sure where possible, those operations and the serving of passengers not directly affected continues as planned and secondly by dealing with and limiting the effects of the disruption. Weather is the number one reason for delays As with any business, an airline can’t justify having vast resources on standby just in case. So when disruptions occur, a combination of technology, tried and tested procedures, hard work, stretching of already committed resources and imagination are the traditional methods employed to handle them, whether these are man-made, technical or weather-related. These methods look at disruption management from an economic and technical perspective. At Flightbuddy™ we believe that there is another element that needs to be looked at as well – this is the “psychology” of the disruption. By this, we mean, how a cancellation or a delay is perceived by passengers and staff. This needs to be factored into the overall efficient management of the situation. We look at how disruptions are perceived by both staff and passengers and what we learn helps guide us in terms of the technology we deploy and the capability we build into our platform. We combine technology, sound economics and psychology in order to address each disruption challenge swiftly, cost-effectively and with the best outcome in mind. The key to this approach lies in “information” and how [...]

New Disruption Regulations for Canadian Passengers  Canada’s regulations which cover flights to and from or within Canada were entered in a two-stage deployment.  The first of these regulations where the official Air Passenger Protection Regulations and came into effect in July 2019. The second regulation came into effect in December 2019.  The regulations are to govern all flights to from and within Canada and applies to all carriers of any sizes. Here are some points you need to know about the new bill could affect your flight. There are many exemptions for airlines meaning not all disruptions will be covered.  In a statement,(link below) the Transport Minister Marc Garneau reminded travellers that new rules for delayed or cancelled flights will kick in on Sunday(December 15 2019). The first set of passenger-rights rules were announced in July, and address issues like overbooking, tarmac delays and compensation for lost luggage. The second set of rules under the new Air Passenger Protection Regulations deal with delayed and cancelled flights to, from or within Canada that are within their control and not related to safety. All disruption payouts will be based on how the duration a passenger is delayed before arriving at their final destination. Large airlines, including Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transat and Sunwing, will have to pay a passenger $400 for delays between three and six hours and up to $1,000 if the flight is stalled more than nine hours. source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/air-passenger-rights-cta-delayed-flights-compensation-1.5384221 https://www.pexels.com/photo/alberta-amazing-attraction-banff-417074/