Neha Jain: Canada Airline News

Showing posts with label Canada Airline News. Show all posts

Saturday, April 2, 2011

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1. Something to declare: cabin crew in €20m forgery scam
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
Friday, 1 April 2011SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
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The sight of a prim, uniformed German flight attendant struggling to lug her impossibly heavy hand luggage through the "nothing to declare" channel at Frankfurt airport finally convinced customs officials that something was up.

For the officers who ordered the luckless cabin crew member to open up her valise, it felt like stumbling upon Treasure Island. The flight attendant's luggage was groaning with thousands of gold- and silver-coloured one- and two-euro coins.

"Pulling open the zip on the case was like winning the jackpot on a fruit machine," is how one of the officials remembered the find at the airport last summer. Yet they also noticed that many of the euro coins in the luggage were oddly shaped, defaced or even bent. Questioned, the flight attendant nevertheless protested her innocence: "It's money a friend of mine in China gave me to trade in. No bank there will accept this sort of cash," she insisted.

Yesterday, the curtain was lifted on the origins of the mysterious haul of bent euros after state prosecutors announced the arrest of six people. Among them were four ethnic Chinese and flight attendants employed by the airline Lufthansa. They are suspected of involvement in one of the biggest professionally organised euro scams since the single currency's introduction.

"The six are being investigated on suspicion of importing forged coins," Frankfurt state prosecutor Doris Möller-Scheu said. She said a total of 25 people were thought to have belonged to the forgery ring. "Lufthansa has been informed that some of its employees are being investigated," she added.

Those in police custody in Frankfurt are accused of exploiting the Bundesbank's standard procedure for removing damaged or defaced euro coins from circulation and reissuing those who bring them to the bank with legitimate coinage or notes.

The six stand accused of re-importing €20m-worth of damaged and defaced coins which the Bundesbank believed it had sold off to China to be melted down as scrap metal. To minimise the risk of foul play, the Bundesbank deliberately dismantles damaged coins prior to their disposal. Little did its staff know that until earlier this year, the coins were being intercepted by a gang of forgers who arranged for them to be carefully reassembled by a team of accomplices in China.

The gang used airline cabin crew, especially those employed by Germany's normally reputable national carrier, Lufthansa, to act as "mules" and take the reassembled coins back to Germany. In return for sizeable payments, they dragged the coins in their hand luggage past what was assumed would be unsuspecting customs staff at Frankfurt international airport.

Once in Germany, other gang members took the reassembled euros back to the Bundesbank, where they were swapped for legitimate notes. The Bundesbank said that as it carries out random tests only on defaced coins returned to the bank, it had failed to notice that a scam was under way.

2. Ask the traveller: cabin crew strike
Wednesday, 30 March 2011SHARE PRINTEMAIL
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Q: My wife and I are booked to go to the UAE at the start of the Easter holidays on British Airways. I have just learnt that cabin crew may strike over this period. BA is saying it plans to run 100 per cent of the long-haul flights from Heathrow. Is this likely? Could it lead to delays at the airport? Should I cancel? Carl Rees

The latest British Airways cabin crew ballot saw union members vote 5-1 in favour of more strikes. The union, Unite, has not yet announced any strike dates; it must give at least one week's notice of action, and any stoppage must begin no later than 25 April. Talks are continuing.

In the event of another strike, the airline aims to fly all long-haul services, including yours. A spokesman for BA says there are "robust and well-rehearsed contingency plans".

BA is relying on the 57 per cent of cabin crew who did not vote in favour of a strike, augmented by more than 1,000 volunteers from elsewhere in the airline, to cover for strikers.

Delays to your trip are unlikely. Indeed, during last year's strikes, by taking out a proportion of flights, industrial action actually accelerated other services by reducing aircraft queues on the ground and in the air.

Cancellation without penalty is not an option at this stage, and – if the airline's confidence is justified – will not be offered. In common with a couple of million other BA passengers holding bookings for April, all you can do is wait and hope. The union has warned opaquely of "weird and wondrous initiatives" that could thwart the airline's plans. But the worst you are likely to experience is a reduced inflight offering, and a gruff old captain spilling coffee in your lap.

BA also says it will operate a normal schedule at Gatwick and London City, and "the majority" of its short-haul, flights from Heathrow.

3. Southwest grounds 80 737s after jet holed in flight
US low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines is to ground over 80 Boeing 737 aircraft pending immediate inspections after a fuselage hole was discovered in a jet that depressurised on a service to California.
Southwest says that it has "decided to keep a subset of its Boeing 737 fleet out of the flying schedule" to commence an "aggressive inspection effort".
It says 81 aircraft are affected by the checks and that these will be examined over the next few days. The jets are covered by US FAA airworthiness directives detailing checks for skin fatigue.
Southwest has taken the action after one of its 737-300s, operating flight WN812 between Phoenix and Sacramento, diverted to Yuma yesterday after a loss of cabin pressure and deployment of oxygen masks.
"Upon landing safely in Yuma the flight crew discovered a hole in the top of the aircraft," says the carrier, adding that it was located about mid-cabin. It has not indicated the size of the rupture.
One of the 118 passengers and one of the five cabin crew members were treated for minor injuries.
The aircraft involved, identified by the US National Transportation Safety Board as bearing registration N632SW, carries serial number 27707 and is a 15-year old airframe.
"We have launched personnel to Yuma to begin the investigation process with the NTSB, FAA and appropriate parties to determine the cause of the depressurisation," says Southwest chief operating officer Mike Van de Ven.
It says it is working with Boeing on the details of the inspections for the aircraft.
Southwest suffered a similar incident two years ago when a Nashville-Baltimore service - also operated by a 737-300 - diverted to Yeager after being holed in its upper fuselage in July 2009.

By
Neha Jain

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Friday, April 1, 2011

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1. Ask the traveller: cabin crew strike
Q: My wife and I are booked to go to the UAE at the start of the Easter holidays on British Airways. I have just learnt that cabin crew may strike over this period. BA is saying it plans to run 100 per cent of the long-haul flights from Heathrow. Is this likely? Could it lead to delays at the airport? Should I cancel? Carl Rees

The latest British Airways cabin crew ballot saw union members vote 5-1 in favour of more strikes. The union, Unite, has not yet announced any strike dates; it must give at least one week's notice of action, and any stoppage must begin no later than 25 April. Talks are continuing.

In the event of another strike, the airline aims to fly all long-haul services, including yours. A spokesman for BA says there are "robust and well-rehearsed contingency plans".

BA is relying on the 57 per cent of cabin crew who did not vote in favour of a strike, augmented by more than 1,000 volunteers from elsewhere in the airline, to cover for strikers.

Delays to your trip are unlikely. Indeed, during last year's strikes, by taking out a proportion of flights, industrial action actually accelerated other services by reducing aircraft queues on the ground and in the air.

Cancellation without penalty is not an option at this stage, and – if the airline's confidence is justified – will not be offered. In common with a couple of million other BA passengers holding bookings for April, all you can do is wait and hope. The union has warned opaquely of "weird and wondrous initiatives" that could thwart the airline's plans. But the worst you are likely to experience is a reduced inflight offering, and a gruff old captain spilling coffee in your lap.

BA also says it will operate a normal schedule at Gatwick and London City, and "the majority" of its short-haul, flights from Heathrow.

2. Smuggling cabin crews coin it in

Friday, April 01, 2011

German authorities have uncovered a scandal in which Lufthansa flight crew smuggled scrapped euro coins back from China and cashed them in.
The cabin crews would exchange the coins for notes at the Bundesbank central bank, prosecutors in Frankfurt said.

Six people, four of them of Chinese origin, were arrested after police dawn raids at the Bundesbank and firms in and around Frankfurt, including flag carrier Lufthansa.

They "are suspected of having acquired from one or more sources in China reconstructed 1- and 2-euro coins," the prosecutor's office said. About 29 tonnes of decommissioned coins were exchanged against 6 million euros (HK$66.36 million) in cash between 2007 and last November.

Every year the Bundesbank takes out of circulation hundreds of tonnes of dirty, bent coins, and breaks them into separate metals to be shipped to China.

But the bimetallic coins were reassembled by criminal groups who hired cabin crew to smuggle them back into Germany, prosecutors allege.

3. bmibaby is new at London Stansted with Belfast City route

bmibaby, the low-cost subsidiary of the British airline bmi, launched a new domestic service between Belfast City (BHD) in Northern Ireland and London Stansted (STN). Flights operate 16 times weekly with 148-seat 737-300s. The route was previously operated by Ryanair, but the Irish LCC dropped it at the end of the last summer season. Indirect competition does, however, come from parent bmi’s 39 weekly flights to London Heathrow, flybe’s 27 flights a week to London Gatwick and easyJet’s 18 weekly flights to London Luton. From Belfast International, further indirect competition comes from Aer Lingus’ 28 flights a week and easyJet’s 26 and 25 weekly flights to London Gatwick and London Stansted. This is the first time bmibaby operates to the London area since the airline’s flights from London Gatwick from Cork, Prague and Durham Tees Valley in 2004-2006.

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Thursday, March 31, 2011

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Porter Air at the Toronto Island Airport. - Air Canada is set to join Porter Airlines at the Toronto Island airport on May 1. | Peter Power/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

1. Tunnel would save island airport passengers four minutes, report says
A proposed $50-million pedestrian tunnel linking Toronto’s waterfront to the island airport will save air passengers about four minutes waiting time before their flights, compared with using the ferry.

That’s among the conclusions of a city-commissioned report into Billy Bishop airport, where growing business-commuter traffic is raising the hackles of some community activists.
The newly released report, by international aviation consultants Airbiz.aero, used computer modelling to determine that a passenger using the proposed underwater tunnel would wait just over five minutes for check-in and security screening, on average.

Passengers on the free ferry, which runs every 15 minutes, wait just over nine minutes at check-in and security.

“The ferry has the impact of accumulating passengers which then result in excessive wait times ... by creating artificial 15 minute peaks based on the arrival-departure of the ferry,” says a draft copy of the report, dated Feb. 3.

“A pedestrian tunnel would somewhat reduce congestion at the terminal by introducing a steady flow of passengers.”

The draft was obtained by The Canadian Press under Ontario’s freedom-of-information legislation.

2. Seeds of a new energy industry

New fuel standards are driving demand for biodiesel plants, but hopes hinge on subsidies

EDMONTON — Adding vegetable oil to diesel will soon be the law across Canada, and with millions of hectares planted in canola, Alberta stands to be a big winner in the push to produce the green fuel.

But backers of proposed plants in Vegreville and Lloydminster, two huge projects that could supply half the Canadian market, are still hoping to get production credits from a federal EcoEnergy program which was exhausted in October.

They and other proponents hope funds already set aside but not used — because the winners can’t get their projects launched — will become available under the March 22 federal budget and redistributed.

“I am optimistic something will happen to encourage new domestic production. Certainly farm groups and federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz have been huge supporters,” said Gordon Quaiattini, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.

“Since the announcement of the EcoEnergy program in 2007, not a single industrial-scale biodiesel facility (producing more than 100 million litres per year) has been built.”

The federal government intends to make a two-per-cent biodiesel (called B2) addition to petroleum diesel mandatory on July 1. Manitoba and B.C. already do that, and Alberta will insist on the B2 standard starting on April 1.

It’s a different story with ethanol added to gasoline. The demand created by the five-per-cent blend (which also comes into effect in Alberta on April 1) will be fully met by Canadian plants operating or under construction.

Alberta has biofuel production credits of between nine and 13 cents per litre under an extension of its biofuel program which also begins April 1. The federal EcoEnergy credits are 10 cents per litre.

Together, the federal/provincial aid would be enough to level the playing field with the United States, which offers its producers a $1-a-gallon blending credit (about 25 cents a litre).

Under free trade, U.S. biodiesel produced from American corn or soy can enter Canada, and it offers petroleum firms here a subsidized product for blending.

And that is what has been happening in B.C. and Manitoba, and will continue until Canada can supply its own market.

Many American plants are waiting to go online as more states enact biodiesel requirements. In 2009, U.S. production was 1.7 billion litres, but there was capacity for 5.9 billion litres. Canada will need one billion litres under the B2 blending standard, but currently produces only about 150 million litres in several small plants.

“The federal producer credits would be worth $100 million over five years to us,” said Darrell Michaels, president of Biostreet Canada Inc., which is ready to go with its 237-million-litre-a-year plant in Vegreville.

“So we might export, too. In Europe their biodiesel mandate is 10 per cent and there is a lot of demand, but they need their land for food production. In Alberta there is always lots of green (subgrade) canola available.”

With all its permits and engineering in place, Biostreet fully expected it would receive its EcoEnergy production credits last year, which would have allowed it to arrange financing and begin construction almost immediately.

“We were further down the road than anyone in Western Canada. The feds said they would tell us in April, then May, then in October they said they were out of money.”

So Biostreet has gone back over its financial projections and, with the Alberta credit and more investors, it hopes to get the project underway this year.

It’s a similar story in Lloydminster. Canadian Bioenergy plans to build a plant to produce up to 265 million litres a year in a joint venture with agri-foods giant Archer Daniels Midland.

“Alberta is the most attractive place to build. On the ethanol side you have wheat supply, and on the biodiesel side you have canola and animal fat,” said Doug Hooper, chief executive of Bioenergy.

3. $50m tunnel to Tto island airport to save four minutes: report

OTTAWA - A proposed $50-million pedestrian tunnel linking Toronto's waterfront to the island airport will save air passengers about four minutes waiting time before their flights, compared with using the ferry.
That's among the conclusions of a city-commissioned report into Billy Bishop airport, where growing business-commuter traffic is raising the hackles of some community activists.
The newly released report, by international aviation consultants Airbiz.aero, used computer modelling to determine that a passenger using the proposed underwater tunnel would wait just over five minutes for check-in and security screening, on average.
Passengers on the free ferry, which runs every 15 minutes, wait just over nine minutes at check-in and security.
"The ferry has the impact of accumulating passengers which then result in excessive wait times ... by creating artificial 15 minute peaks based on the arrival-departure of the ferry," says a draft copy of the report, dated Feb. 3.
"A pedestrian tunnel would somewhat reduce congestion at the terminal by introducing a steady flow of passengers."
The draft was obtained by The Canadian Press under Ontario's freedom-of-information legislation.
To pay for the proposed tunnel, the airport last summer added $5 to the $15 fee it previously charged for each passenger on an outgoing flight. About 1.2 million people flew from Billy Bishop in 2010, almost all with Porter Airlines Inc. Air Canada is set to begin some competing flights to Montreal on May 1.
A spokesman for the federally operated Toronto Port Authority, which is responsible for the facility, defended the additional $5 charge to save four minutes.
"In the world of aviation every second counts, not least to our business travellers, who often fly specifically from our Billy Bishop (airport) so they can leave their meeting and get to their flights in a matter of minutes," said president and CEO Geoffrey Wilson.
"The ferry, while consistent, is currently the only method of accessing the airport and if there are inclement weather conditions it could, and on occasion has, been delayed."
The port authority plans to continue regular ferry service even after construction of the tunnel.
The head of a local group opposed to the island airport said the new report raises basic questions about the need for a tunnel.
"Spending what appears to be upwards of $50 million for a bit of smoothing of passenger flow to the island airport is an incredible waste of public assets," said Brian Iler, chairman of CommunityAir.
"Will passengers really use a facility that requires them to take an elevator down six stories, travel across through the tunnel, and take another elevator back up, when the ferry is right there — or will be in a few minutes?"
The Airbiz.aero report also endorsed the findings of a previous review, by Jacobs Consultancy Canada, that said a daily cap of 202 "slots" — that is, the right to land or take off 202 times in one day — was reasonable, based on noise-level restrictions and other factors.
Jets are not permitted at the airport, to help dampen noise in an area that's home to thousands of downtown residents.
Airbiz.aero said the pedestrian tunnel will not lead to expanded service at Billy Bishop, as community activists had claimed, because a restriction on the length of the main runway already sets a limit on the amount of air traffic.
The federal Transport Department last month introduced a draft regulation to expressly permit construction of a pedestrian tunnel, to eliminate any doubt about the current regulations, which prohibit a "fixed link." The deadline for feedback was March 4.
The current regulations date from May 2005, when the previous Liberal government acceded to local political opposition to a proposed bridge to the island airport, and prohibited construction of "a bridge or similar fixed link."
Newly elected Toronto mayor Rob Ford has said he supports construction of a pedestrian tunnel.
The Toronto Port Authority, which has said the tunnel could cost between $50 million and $60 million, has not yet hired a contractor as it awaits the new regulation from Transport Canada.
The Airbiz.aero report says the tunnel will require additional infrastructure at the waterfront to better accommodate the flow of pedestrians and other traffic.

NEHA JAIN

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