Neha Jain: http://canadaaviationnews.blogspot.com/17

Chris Bosh blows a kiss to the crowd after Miami's win on Wednesday night.

Airlines are raising prices as demand and the price of fuel climb.

1. Feschuk: Bosh seals return with a kiss

Before he left the floor at the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night, a visitor named Chris Bosh raised both hands to the cheap seats while he stood in triumph, blowing kisses to a sellout crowd.

Was the gesture sarcastic? Was it sincere? By then, in the moments after the anti-climax that was the Miami Heat’s 103-95 win over the Raptors, there wasn’t much of a sellout crowd left to analyze intentions. The realists had pulled on their coats and made for the exits a long while before, even if they’d just witnessed what has been a rarity in Raptorland this season — that is, a decent basketball game in which the home team was ultimately outclassed.

Still, you could understand the hushed disappointment that enveloped the place on a night when the only long-anticipated game in a long-lost season never really delivered on its possibilities. In a city that’s become painfully accustomed to the boo-hiss ritual of caustic homecomings, a building with electric potential never betrayed much real menace.

Yes, the fans booed the guy they were expected to boo, from entrance to exit, and their collection of anti-Bosh signs weren’t bad. “Traitors Not Wanted in Toronto,” warned one. “CB4gotten,” deadpanned another. And there was Bosh’s face imposed over more than one image of a drag queen, an artfully illustrated reference to Shaquille O’Neal dismissal of the former Raptors all-star as the “RuPaul of big men.”

But this wasn’t the cauldron of hate that met Vince Carter in 2006, when Vinsanity made his first appearance as a member of a visiting team and played the masterful villain, scoring 42 points and nailing the winning three-pointer with a tenth of a second left in regulation. Five years on, and nearly 10 years since the franchise won a playoff series, this city’s basketball fan base, which is undeniably hardcore, is understandably having a harder time drumming up the disdain.

There’s been Carter and Tracy McGrady and Hedo Turkoglu, all of them doused in the familiar noise. And maybe, for the majority of the rabble, it’s still cathartic. But five years after Carter’s return, the club has yet to re-approach the heights to which Vinsanity led them in 2001.

Bosh, who fled for South Beach after a seven-year run in Hogtown, could never be as big a villain as Carter became here, mostly because he was never that kind of outsized hero.

And arena-wide negativity, let’s face it, really doesn’t faze the Heat, who saw far worse when LeBron James returned to Cleveland in December, and have seen lesser versions in nearly every stop on their road schedule.

“We’ve been getting booed, people have been saying all kinds of things, in all kinds of ways, everywhere,” Bosh said. “When people go talking at the mouth, or saying ignorant, crazy stuff, it makes us (play better).”

Lamented Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the Heat’s veteran 7-footer: “Everywhere we go it’s a lot of hatred. It’s not only the arena. It’s the restaurants that you go to eat, the streets that you walk in a different city. I don’t know why. For some reason, this team has become like a garbage can. Every time somebody has some kind of garbage, they just throw it at us.”

But on a night when the Raptors distributed soccer-style team scarves to the faithful, there was nothing approaching hooliganism in the works on Bay Street. By the time the second half commenced, with the folks in the courtside real estate still tucked away in their lavish bunkers and a humdrum lull in the roil, much of the anti-Bosh sentiment seemed to have dissipated.

“I think (Bosh) was great,” said Erik Spoelstra, the Heat coach.

“He handles these things very well . . . He thanked everybody in the locker room for the win, and now we move on.”

As the night wore on, they still booed Bosh every time he touched the ball, but with less force. And just when they were taking delight in his cold shooting hand — he missed all four of his field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter and finished with 25 points on 7-for-16 shooting — along came LeBron James to reel off 10 points in the final 5:28 to help seal both Miami’s 41st win and Toronto’s 41st loss.

So what did Bosh intend, blowing those kisses to the crowd?

“I miss ’em and I love ’em so much,” Bosh said.

Was he being sarcastic?

“What does sarcastic mean?” he said, sarcastically.

Then he elaborated: “It’s sarcastic to all the naysayers, and it’s real to all the good supporters . . . If people don’t support you now, they never supported you at any time . . . If things can change that quick, they were never with you in the first place.”

2. Air fares to go up as airlines test limits of passenger demand

CALGARY - Airline passengers will have more trouble finding cheap fares, with the price of flight continuing to climb on the backs of carriers capitalizing on growing travel demand and rising fuel prices, industry watchers say.

Canada's two major airlines are reducing capacity and increasing fares as they look to make more money from each passenger they fly, Rick Erickson says, with WestJet and Air Canada testing the limits of what they can charge as the economy continues to strengthen.

"These two carriers are smart enough to realize, by and large, they really are the only game in the country," Erickson, of RP Erickson and Associates, said. "They don't do what they do as a hobby. They charge as much as the market can possibly bear."

WestJet said earlier this month it twice boosted prices between $5 and $10 in January because of higher fuel costs, and also announced it was delaying delivery of six planes until later in the decade.

U.S. airlines this week raised their most expensive fares up to $120 for a round trip, the second hike for business and premier travellers in as many weeks, and following five price increases since December on leisure fares because of rising fuel costs.

Raymond James' analyst Ben Cherniavsky said in a note to clients Wednesday that while "at some point consumers and (less so) businesses will eventually balk at price increases...it appears that Canada's airlines are prepared to test these price sensitivity limits."

Its February fare index, a survey of lowest available fares, found WestJet's prices were up 46 per cent over the same period last year, while Air Canada's increased 34 per cent.

"Of course, we will still have to watch future load factors closely to see if these price increases stick," he said.

Cherniavsky wrote that the push to make more money has "not (yet) come at the expense of demand.

"While it may be a stretch to suggest that this marks the end of cheap travel per se, it appears increasingly evident to us that...the elusive benefits of a 'cozy duopoly' in Canada's airline market may finally be at hand."

Erickson, a Calgary-based independent analyst, said WestJet has been the catalyst in increasing fares as it moves from making market share the priority to increasing value for shareholders.

"WestJet was very keen on market share...and so they worked to do that by adding more capacity. Of course, when you add more seats, to put bums on them you have to lower the price," Erickson said. Under new CEO Gregg Saretsky, the airline "is largely driven by the fact the stock has done nothing for a couple of years...WestJet is no longer flooding the market with cheap seats.

"What we're seeing now is a firming of the prices."

Erickson said while fares are increasing, airlines will also be considering fuel surcharges if the cost continues to rise.

The price of a barrel of oil hitting $100 for a sustained period would allow airlines to piggyback the fee on that news, he added.

3. Air Canada pilot retirement age is up in the air

OTTAWA – The issue of whether Air Canada can force older pilots to retire is back in play after a Federal Court judge found the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ignored key evidence in a 2009 decision about the airline’s mandatory-retirement policy.

In a decision posted to the Federal Court website this week, Judge Anne Mactavish ordered the quasi-judicial tribunal to reconsider whether youth is a genuine occupational requirement for Air Canada pilots.

In 2009, the tribunal ruled in favour of Robert Kelly and George Vilven, two Air Canada pilots who challenged their mandatory retirement at age 60. It found that mandatory retirement provisions in the airline’s collective agreement with the Air Canada Pilots’ Association violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a second decision last fall, it reinstated Kelly and Vilven and ordered Air Canada to compensate them for lost income.

The tribunal has since heard a complaint from 68 other former Air Canada pilots, with a decision still pending. In addition, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has referred complaints by another large group of former pilots to the tribunal and is investigating even more.

The Federal Court got involved after Air Canada and the pilots’ association filed applications for judicial review of the tribunal’s 2009 ruling.

In her 128-page decision, Mactavish upheld the tribunal’s finding on the charter issue. But she also concluded that it erred in finding Air Canada had failed to demonstrate that age is a bona-fide occupational requirement for its pilots, which would make the violation of their charter rights justifiable.

At the tribunal hearing, Air Canada argued that scrapping mandatory retirement would make it almost impossible to schedule its pilots within International Civil Aviation Organization rules. That organization allows pilots-in-command younger than age 65 to fly internationally, as long as one pilot in the crew is younger than 60.

Air Canada says 86 per cent of its flights are to an international destination or pass through foreign airspace, and thus are subject to the international body’s rules

Within five years of the abolition of mandatory retirement, a substantial percentage of Air Canada’s pilots would be over age 60, the airline told the tribunal. It could accommodate only a “very limited number” in that age bracket before scheduling would become unworkable, it said.

But the tribunal appeared to ignore much of the evidence central to Air Canada’s case, Mactavish observed.

“This is not merely a situation where the tribunal failed to specifically refer to evidence contrary to its findings,” she wrote.

“Rather, the tribunal states quite categorically that there was ‘no evidence’ on these points.”

That gave rise to the “inescapable inference” that the tribunal overlooked important portions of the airline’s case, she said.

At one point, for example, the tribunal found evidence was “lacking” as to the potential costs Air Canada would incur if it had to hire additional pilots to cover its schedule. But, Mactavish noted, the airline “actually provided detailed evidence” on that issue.

“No explanation was provided by the tribunal as to why this evidence was ‘lacking.’ This element of the tribunal’s decision thus lacks the transparency and accountability required of a reasonable decision.”

As a result, the judge set aside that part of the tribunal’s decision and ordered it to re-determine, based on all the evidence, whether Air Canada has established that age is a bona-fide occupational requirement for its pilots. If the answer is yes, that could validate Air Canada’s mandatory retirement policy.

4. Stranded in Canada by U.S. no-fly list, man says

A British man says he's stranded in Canada after being denied permission to fly home because he's on the U.S. no-fly list.

Dawood Hepplewhite of Sheffield, England, turned up at Pearson Airport in Toronto on Sunday only to be told he couldn't board an Air Transat flight.

Hepplewhite, 30, says Air Canada and British Airways also refused to let him fly the next day.

Airlines that operate from Canada have been known to reject passengers whose names are on the U.S. no-fly list.

That's because many flights pass over American airspace or may be forced to land at a U.S. airport in the event of emergency.

Hepplewhite says he's no security threat, but suspects he is on the no-fly list because he's a white Muslim and once applied to work in Yemen, considered a hotbed of terrorism.

NEHA JAIN

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