Flight Safety Information - May 16, 2022 No.093 In This Issue : Incident: Sun Express B738 near Munich on May 16th 2022, cabin pressure problems : Incident: Cargojet B752 at Hamilton on May 6th 2022, loss of cabin pressure : Incident: PIA B772 near Karachi on May 12th 2022, weather radar problem : Incident: Dolomiti E195 at Graz on May 12th 2022, burning smell and fog in cabin : U.S. FAA Finds Boeing 787 Certification Documents Incomplete: Sources : From the No-Surprise File: FAA Switches Up On Electric Aircraft Certification : Russia’s Aeroflot Buys 8 Stranded Airbus A330 Aircraft From Leasing Firms : Stakeholders converge on Abuja to discuss air safety (Nigeria) : MESA AIRLINES LOST 5% OF ITS PILOTS IN A MONTH! : Senator Graham May Propose Raising U.S. Pilot Retirement Age : Airbus overtakes Boeing in jet orders and plans to add 1,000 jobs in U.S. : Jet Airways Commences Demonstration Flights With Indian Regulators : JetBlue makes hostile bid for Spirit Airlines Incident: Sun Express B738 near Munich on May 16th 2022, cabin pressure problems A Sun Express Boeing 737-800, registration TC-SEI performing flight XQ-634 (scheduled dep May 15th, act dep May 16th) from Dalaman (Turkey) to Cologne (Germany) with 56 people on board, was enroute at FL400 about 40nm south of Zagreb (Croatia) when the crew donned their oxygen masks, initiated a descent to FL380, then FL320 and finally FL280 due to problems with the cabin pressure while continuing to fly towards Cologne. About 20nm south of Munich (Germany) the crew then decided to divert to Munich for a safe landing on runway 08L. During roll out the crew requested emergency services to NOT open any doors or cargo doors due to the pressurization problems for the time being. The aircraft remained on the ground for 4:20 hours, then continued the flight climbing to a maximum FL240 and arrived in Cologne with a delay of about 5 hours. The aircraft is still on the ground in Cologne 3 hours after landing. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8e3a1a&opt=0 Incident: Cargojet B752 at Hamilton on May 6th 2022, loss of cabin pressure A Cargojet Boeing 757-200, registration C-GIAJ performing flight W8-909 from Hamilton,ON to Vancouver,BC (Canada) with 2 crew, was climbing through FL290 towards FL380 out of Hamilton when the crew observed the cabin altitude climb with an EICAS warning "Cabin Altitude" illuminating. The crew initiated an emergency descent and diverted to Calgary,AB. The Canadian TSB reported that maintenance while examing all systems that could have caused the problem also checked DVI of the ECS (environment control system) bay was checked and found a right pack discharge duct coupling had dislodged from its clamp. This had been the first flight after a "C" Check, hence all clamps and duct connections were checked too with no further fault found. A test flight did not reveal any other anomaly. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8c1878&opt=0 Incident: PIA B772 near Karachi on May 12th 2022, weather radar problem A PIA Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 777-200, registration AP-BGY performing flight PK-9715 from Multan (Pakistan) to Madinah (Saudi Arabia), was enroute at FL360 about 170nm northwest of Karachi (Pakistan) when the aircraft turned around to divert to Karachi due to a problem with the weather radar. The aircraft landed safely on Karachi's runway 25L about 25 minutes after leaving FL360. The aircraft remained on the ground for about 3:15 hours, then continued the flight and reached Madinah with a delay of about 3 hours. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8c0110&opt=0 Incident: Dolomiti E195 at Graz on May 12th 2022, burning smell and fog in cabin An Air Dolomiti Embraer ERJ-195, registration I-ADJS performing flight EN-8061 from Graz (Austria) to Frankfurt/Main (Germany), was climbing out of Graz's runway 17C when the crew stopped the climb at FL180. The aircraft returned to Graz for a safe landing on runway 35C about 25 minutes after departure. A passenger reported there was a burning odour on board already before engine start but went away after engine start after a brief smell of Kerosene. About 30 seconds after becoming airborne the smell re-occurred and became stronger, the cabin became slightly foggy. Suddenly there was a noise like a kind of a musical note similiar to an untied ballon deflating, presumable some hydraulic or pneumatic leak, about 2-3 minutes later the crew announced they were returning to Graz. Following landing back in Graz the passengers were told, that medics would check all of them for inhalation of unknown gasses, then changed to state only people feeling unwell would be checked. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Graz about 33 hours after landing back. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8c0494&opt=0 U.S. FAA Finds Boeing 787 Certification Documents Incomplete: Sources U.S. air-safety regulators have told Boeing Co. the documentation it submitted to win approval to resume 787 deliveries to airlines after a year is incomplete, two people familiar with the matter said. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) identified a number of omissions in Boeing’s documentation, submitted in late April, and has sent portions of it back to the planemaker, one of the people said. A second person said it was too early to say whether FAA concerns would lead to a new delay in resuming deliveries, which have been suspended for the past year due to production flaws. Boeing shares pared gains on Friday afternoon to trade up 1% at $125.12 after rising as much as 6.2% earlier in the session. Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun highlighted the submission in the company’s April 27 earnings call, calling it a “very important step” and saying it was preparing the first 787s for delivery, but stopped short of providing a date. People briefed on the matter say the submission was made shortly before the call. A Boeing spokesperson said the company continues to have a transparent dialog and work closely with the FAA on the remaining steps. An FAA spokesman declined to elaborate, saying only, “Safety drives the pace of our reviews.” Clearing a swollen inventory of twin-aisled Dreamliners and its best-selling 737 MAX jets is vital to the U.S. planemaker’s ability to emerge from the overlapping pandemic and jet-safety crises, a task complicated by supply-chain bottlenecks and war in Ukraine. Deliveries of the 787 have been halted for a year as Boeing worked through inspections and repairs in an industrial headache expected to cost about $5.5 billion. Boeing has more than 100 of the advanced composite twin-aisle jets parked in inventory, worth about $12.5 billion. In February, the FAA said it would not allow Boeing to self-certify individual new Boeing 787 planes. Then-FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said the agency needed from Boeing “a systemic fix to their production processes. They’ve got to produce the quality on their production line that we’re looking for and that they’ve committed to.” The FAA said in February it would retain the authority to issue airworthiness certificates until it is confident “Boeing’s quality control and manufacturing processes consistently produce 787s that meet FAA design standards.” Reuters reported in late April that Boeing has advised key airlines and parts suppliers that deliveries would resume in the second half of this year, with one industry source saying deliveries could resume in a matter of weeks. Boeing’s certification package is a sprawling set of documents and data that shows the jet’s compliance, though the FAA controls the final determination. The package lays out inspections and repairs Boeing will undertake on dozens of planes sidelined by production flaws. The documentation is a crucial step before Boeing can resume deliveries. Boeing’s chief financial officer, Brian West, made upbeat comments on the 787’s progress at a Goldman Sachs conference this week. “This certification plan submission was an important milestone, and it reflects a very thorough comprehensive set of documents that verifies that we are in conformance,” West said. “And there’s been an enormous amount of work into that, working side by side with the FAA along the way.” Boeing suspended deliveries of the 787 in late May 2021 after the FAA raised concerns about its proposed inspection method. The regulatory agency had issued two airworthiness directives to address production issues for in-service airplanes and identified a new issue in July. “I’ll remind you that we haven’t really seen anything new in a while,” West added. “So we’re working hard on making sure that that submission is thorough, and now the FAA has it, and we are standing by ready and willing to enter any discussion, answer any question and help them do their work as they move through their certain protocols.” https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2022/05/16/667742.htm From the No-Surprise File: FAA Switches Up On Electric Aircraft Certification Sooner or later, the FAA—and regulators worldwide—will reach an inflection point with electric aircraft and it may be that sooner has arrived. Or at least has been hinted at. Last week, Air Currents reported that the agency is switching gears, at least with regard to the burgeoning eVTOL category, which appears to mean these aircraft will be certified as a special category, not a traditional aircraft that happens to be electric powered. That category is likely to be powered tilt rotor. In my view, this was inevitable I prepared on the Joby project, the company’s claim that it would certify the S4 as an airplane was too much of a stretch to believe. It’s a tilt rotor, not an airplane, and as such it has complex flight dynamics in normal flight, much less failure modes that neither the FAA nor any of the companies have much experience with in the certification realm. Going into this large sea change, the FAA had essentially zero experience in electric aircraft and even now it is pedaling furiously to gain enough expertise to even construct the framework for electric certification. Manufacturers have soothed us with claims that a certification path exits, but I’m skeptical that this is true. The FAA announcement all but confirms that. Joby, for one, is insisting that its aircraft will be certified next year and will enter service in 2024, with volume reaching 34,000 flights a day by 2026. Joby will start with production rates of 200 to 400 aircraft a year, eventually rising into the thousands. The market aim is, of course, urban air mobility—on demand air taxi. There’s a detectable hubris among these manufacturers because not a one has been through a big certification project and, being visionaries, they’re sure they’ve got this wired because they’re inventing the future. (To be fair, they are.) It’s understandable that the FAA would get nervous about this ambitious schedule and Joby isn’t the only company pushing the cutting edge. Archer is another promising entrant, along with Lilium, Volocopter and eHang to name just three others. In general aviation, there’s kind of dual kneejerk reaction to all this development. One is a hidebound belief that these things are just flying air castles designed to drain investors of their money. While there’s some of that, these vehicles are, nonetheless, real things and like it or not, they’re coming. We’re on the edge of a sea change. The second reaction is the standard howl about the FAA stymieing progress by bureaucratic foot dragging and unrealistic test requirements. There’s truth to that, too. But try this thought experiment. The light sport industry, such as it is, came into being by a deliberate shift away from stringent FAA oversight to industry consensus standards overseen largely by the aircraft builders themselves. This was supposed to yield less expensive airframes that would be more accessible to more people. To a degree, it did just that. Next time you’re bitching about a $200,000 light sport airplane, just remember that it costs less than half the price of a new 172 and many are a lot less than that. If you applied consensus standards to a transport-type aircraft, what would you get? We know the answer. You get the 737 MAX. Yeah, it’s an exaggeration—although not much of one—to say the 737 was built to consensus standards. The FAA was so incompetent in its oversight of the MAX certification that Boeing applied its own standards, resulting in a catastrophe for the company, the airline industry and aircraft manufacturing in general. With so little expertise in electric airplanes, it’s possible if not likely that Joby, Lilium, Archer and others will attempt to drive certification to meet what they consider appropriate standards. They may be right. Or not. Boeing obviously was not. And the stench of this still wafts through the halls at 800 Independence Ave. We don’t know for sure, but the searing disaster of the MAX probably shapes FAA decision making on electrics, if not everything else. How this might shape oversight of the coming electric trainers is an unknown. Bye Aerospace claims it has a cert path all mapped out and Pipistrel, now owned by Textron, is working toward a certification program, too. In the months since I did this video on the Pipistrel Velis, FIT is continuing its data acquisition work for the FAA. At this juncture, it doesn’t look like the agency is ready to commit to paper a certification framework for those airplanes. It will get there. Eventually. So the thing to remember here is this: It’s what you’ve always known. When a manufacturer says an electric aircraft will be certified by some date, just blot that out. Think about applying an industrial bag of salt and you’ll be about right. https://www.avweb.com/insider/from-the-no-surprise-file-faa-switches-up-on-electric-aircraft-certification/ Russia’s Aeroflot Buys 8 Stranded Airbus A330 Aircraft From Leasing Firms Russia’s biggest airline, Aeroflot, said on Friday it had bought eight Airbus A330 aircraft from foreign leasing companies “as part of the fulfillment of contractual obligations.” More than 400 aircraft leased from Western firms, worth almost $10 billion, have been stranded in Russia since Western sanctions forced the lessors to terminate their contracts and Russia barred its airlines from returning the planes. Aeroflot did not specify which firms the aircraft had been leased from. But the purchase could be a bid to maintain good relations with lessors by making use of an exemption to European Union sanctions against Russia in respect of aircraft financial leases – which involve purchase when the lease ends. To ensure that they can continue to have valid airworthiness certificates and Russian airlines can keep using them, Russian authorities have been transferring the aircraft to Russia’s own registry. Meanwhile, leasing firms have resigned themselves to lengthy insurance claims to try to recover some of the lost value of the aircraft. The largest claim has been made by Dublin-based AerCap, the world’s biggest aircraft lessor, which has submitted a $3.5 billion insurance claim for more than 100 jets. AerCap did not immediately respond to Reuters calls seeking comment. EU regulations governing sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine generally prohibit “the award and continued execution of public contracts and concessions with Russian nationals and entities or bodies established in Russia.” Aeroflot is majority-owned by the Russian state. But one of the exemptions enacted on April 8 says national authorities in the EU may authorize “the execution of an aircraft financial lease concluded before 26 February 2022,” as long as it is “strictly necessary to ensure lease re-payments” and no payment is made beyond the transfer of the aircraft. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2022/05/16/667762.htm Stakeholders converge on Abuja to discuss air safety (Nigeria) The Federal Ministry of Aviation in conjunction with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the International Civil Aviation Organisation are set to host stakeholders in the aviation industry to a global event in Abuja. The global event, which is the seventh in its series, begins on Monday (today), according to a statement by the General Manager, Public Relations, NCAA, Mr. Adurogboye Sam. The statement noted that this year’s event will engage “all participants in discussing important issues like progress made in implementing the International Civil Aviation Organisation global and regional plan, enhancement of aviation performance in all ICAO strategic objectives, key priorities for the coming years, COVID-19 aviation recovery and building back better and the outcome of the ICAO High-Level Conference on COVID – 19 (HLCC) 2021 amongst others.” The statement also stated that the Federal Government would be hosting the directors general of civil aviation authorities, aviation safety and security representatives, aviation experts of African-Indian Ocean (AFI) region member states, and other representatives and experts from international/ regional organisations.” The event is aimed at availing the directors-general of civil aviation authorities the opportunity to brainstorm and chart a course aimed at further developing the appropriate strategies and providing the necessary actions to support the enhancement of the aviation system in Africa. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Nigeria and some notable countries has been listed as the highlight of the five-day event. https://punchng.com/stakeholders-converge-on-abuja-to-discuss-air-safety/ MESA AIRLINES LOST 5% OF ITS PILOTS IN A MONTH! The pilot shortage is really making itself felt in the United States, with Mesa Airlines now losing pilots faster than it can replace them. Typically it flies with the colours of its airline partners, but it has one aircraft that is an exception. Photo: Mesa Airlines It may not be a household name in the United States, but Mesa is one of the largest regionals in the country. Unlike the websites of main carriers, Mesa’s is mainly about job openings. That’s because the company doesn’t sell tickets. It operates aircraft for American Airlines (as American Eagle) and United Airlines (as United Express). Recently, it also started operating cargo flights for DHL, with 737s. Speaking to a panel at the US Senate, Mesa Air Group CEO Jonathan Ornstein said that the company lost 5% of its pilots in April. These pilots all went to mainline carriers in the United States. And they did so quicker than before, as mainline carriers ramp up faster, to deal with the rising demand for travel. Airlines like Delta and United are aiming to hire 200 pilots per month. Regional carriers like Mesa did relatively well during the pandemic, furloughing relatively fewer pilots and cabin crews. But at the same time, the big carriers gave early retirements to their most senior pilots. With some companies retiring whole fleets of aircraft types, many pilots close to retirement age decided to go. The alternative would have been to train for a new type rating. MESA AIRLINES – AN AWKWARD MIX OF PILOTS? Meanwhile, the “poaching” of pilots from these carriers creates other issues for Mesa and other regionals. As some analysts point out, these companies now have a very “lopsided” pilot roster. Regionals typically have a shortage of Captains and a surplus of First Officers. This is because pilots need an extra 1,000 hours (on top of the 1,500-hour requirement) to move to the left seat. But by the time pilots are ready to become Captains, they also have the hours to make themselves attractive to mainline carriers! So by losing Captains much faster, Mesa may seem like it has enough pilots, but it struggles to operate normally. In previous months, other regional carriers announced that they could no longer operate certain government-subsidized flights to smaller communities. The pilot shortage has been a point of contention in the United States. Some carriers report recruiting problems, others are more optimistic. As we’ve seen, some airlines are now sponsoring flight schools – and United is opening its own. At the same time, pilot unions are sceptical of some efforts to bring in new pilots. Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein also said that the shortage of pilots is “the single greatest threat to the industry I have witnessed since 9/11”. The situation seems to confirm what many expected to see at the tail-end of the pandemic. With long-haul still not fully recovered, it seems clear that the pandemic did not reverse the previously looming pilot shortage. It merely postponed it. https://mentourpilot.com/mesa-airlines-lost-5-of-its-pilots-in-a-month/ Senator Graham May Propose Raising U.S. Pilot Retirement Age Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is said to be preparing to introduce legislation that would raise the retirement age for commercial airline pilots in the U.S. by at least two years, to 67. Two people familiar with the proposed legislation confirmed that Graham is in the process of building support among his colleagues in Congress before introducing the bill. Airline pilots must retire at 65 today, an age that was set in 2007, when Congress raised the it from 60. Graham’s office was not immediately available for comment. Raising the retirement age would be a short-term fix to the pilot shortage facing U.S. airlines. Following a spike in early retirements at major carriers and a slowdown in the issuance of new airline transport pilot (ATP) certificates by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during the pandemic, the industry is facing a shortage of thousands of pilots that is not expected to ease until at least next year. The shortage is forcing regional airlines, including Mesa Airlines and SkyWest Airlines, to ground planes and cancel flights. Even mid-tier carriers, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways, say they face elevated attrition rates. “This just kicks the can down the road two years,” said one person familiar with the proposed legislation. Raising the retirement age does not address the industry’s need for more new pilots, something that takes years and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to the government’s requirement for 1,500 hours at the controls of a plane for ATP certification as a first officer, or 2,500 hours as a captain. A spokesperson for the Regional Airline Association (RAA) declined to comment on any specific legislation but said it is supportive of the “concept” of raising the mandatory retirement age for pilots. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), which represents pilots at Southwest, asked pilots on May 12 to vote in a poll on whether they supported raising the mandatory retirement age. “The SWAPA government affairs committee is closely monitoring the issue and working closely with our industry partners to determine the road ahead,” the union told members in a notice. “There won’t be a quick fix but we’ve got to work on shoring up that domestic aviation workforce,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on May 3. He said the FAA was preparing to award $5 million in workforce development grants to help boost pilot supply but did not provide specifics for easing the immediate shortage. Raymond James analyst Savanthi Syth wrote in April that United CEO Scott Kirby said U.S. airlines would hire roughly 13,000 new pilots this year, and the same number or more in 2023. The current pipeline creates roughly 5,000 to 7,000 new pilots annually. Cowen & Co. analyst Helane Becker wrote in April that the U.S. government needed to take a three-pronged approach to easing the pilot shortage. Those prongs included lowering the hour requirement for new ATPs, allowing consolidation to reduce duplicate flights, and temporarily raising the pilot retirement age to 67. “We expect this pilot issue to persist for the foreseeable future as airlines seek to replace retirements that occurred during the pandemic, retirements that continue and won’t peak until later in the decade, and growth,” she wrote. Outgoing Allegiant Air CEO Maurice Gallagher commented on the pilot situation in a letter to shareholders on May 12. “We are facing a chronic scarcity that will last for years given the known retirements and the projected numbers of new pilots entering the system. The numbers suggest by 2030 the industry could have a deficit of almost 30,000 pilots. At 16 pilots per aircraft this will correspond to 1,800 aircraft that will be parked or the equivalent of two US legacy carriers such as [American] and [United],” he said. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) will lead a Senate Commerce Committee field hearing outside of Phoenix on May 13 centered on developing the aviation workforce. https://airlineweekly.com/2022/05/senator-graham-may-propose-raising-u-s-pilot-retirement-age/ Airbus overtakes Boeing in jet orders and plans to add 1,000 jobs in U.S. Last month, Airbus pulled ahead of Boeing for the first time this year in terms of net new jet orders. With its sales lead mainly because of the success of the A321neo, Airbus said last week that it will expand its manufacturing presence in the United States, adding 1,000 jobs in Mobile, Ala. According to data for April orders released Tuesday, Airbus booked 95 net new orders after cancellations in April, bringing its year-to-date total to 178. Boeing booked just a dozen net orders, bringing its total so far this year to 157. The data also show the European jet maker continues to outpace Boeing in deliveries, with 46% more jets delivered so far this year. Airbus delivered 190 commercial airplanes in the first four months to Boeing’s 130 commercial airplanes. The difference is down to the struggles of two critical Boeing programs — the 737 MAX and the 787 Dreamliner — as well as the sales dominance of the Airbus A321neo. The success of the A321neo led Airbus last week to announce that it plans to increase production of the A320 family to 75 jets per month by 2025. To accomplish that it will open a new 350,000-square-foot final assembly line in Mobile, Ala., adding the 1,000 jobs there. This will bring the total number of assembly lines in Mobile to three: two for the A320 jet family and one for the smaller A220. Airbus Americas CEO Jeff Knittel said Monday that Airbus plans to break ground in the first half of next year and begin production in the new final assembly hall in the second quarter of 2025. To support increased production at the Mobile site, he said Airbus will also build a new airplane paint shop and modify current hangars to a double-bay configuration by the end of 2023. In terms of deliveries, production of the MAX is still ramping up after the prolonged grounding that followed two crashes and so lags production of the Airbus A320neo jet family. Airbus delivered 37 of its A320neo family in April, as well as four of its smaller single-aisle A220s. Boeing delivered 28 MAXs plus one 737-based P-8 anti-submarine jet for the U.S. Navy. As for the 787, deliveries remain completely halted as Boeing continues to seek approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for its fixes to a series of manufacturing quality issues. On the order front, the Airbus A321neo, with variants that offer longer range than the corresponding MAX 10 jet, remains the hottest-selling airplane. The backlog of orders for this one model stands at 3,447 aircraft, slightly more than the entire MAX model backlog of 3,381 aircraft. Of the Airbus orders in April, 92 were for the A320neo jet family, including 64 for the A321neo. Boeing booked a net total of just a dozen orders for the 737 MAX jet models. Boeing also booked orders for two widebody 777F cargo planes, but at the same time canceled two orders for 787-10s. The above tallies do not include the large jet order from Lufthansa that Boeing announced Monday. That order for seven 777X freighters, two current 777 freighters, and seven 787-10s will be included in the May order data. https://lmtribune.com/business/airbus-overtakes-boeing-in-jet-orders-and-plans-to-add-1-000-jobs-in-u/article_29252ad0-14a2-56d6-a27d-be6f38204f63.html Jet Airways Commences Demonstration Flights With Indian Regulators Jet Airways is undertaking its first of two proving flights to gain its Air Operators Licence once again. The revived Jet Airways will undertake its first proving flight today, the last step before the DGCA will rule on restoring the carrier's Air Operators Certificate (AOC). The airline is planning one more flight on Tuesday, following which it will reach the 10 hours of flying time needed to qualify. Ready to go At the time of writing, Jet Airways' Boeing 737-800 has departed Ahmedabad Airport and is nearing New Delhi. Proving flights require airlines to show that they can handle all commercial operations, which means Jet Airways set up its check-in counters, baggage services, and crew management. According to BusinessLine, Jet has two proving flights planned, on 15th and 17th May. These flights will have onboard a full flight crew, airline management, engineers, and DGCA officials. The first route planned is from Delhi to Mumbai and back, Jet Airways' flagship route before bankruptcy. The second one on Tuesday will be Delhi-Hyderabad-Delhi. The first flight has two pilots and four cabin crew onboard, all of whom will be female. If all goes smoothly, Jet Airways will have cleared the last operational steps needed to win back its AOC. The first plane Jet Airways will be using one of its own former aircraft for the proving flights this week. VT-SXE was delivered to the airline in February 2007 and spent 12 years flying across the country and the globe. After the carrier's bankruptcy, the plane moved to SpiceJet in July 2019 and flew until December 2021, when it went into storage. On May 5th, VT-SXE officially became a Jet Airways aircraft again, flying a test flight for the DGCA from Delhi to Mumbai to Ahemdabad. This plane will likely join the airline's new fleet once the AOC is approved. For now, the carrier has been tightlipped on what its order book will look like. It's unlikely the hundreds of 737 MAX's on order will make a return, but CEO Sanjiv Kapoor has said more details on an order will be revealed once the carrier has its AOC. Competitive market Jet Airways' relaunch comes at a time when the Indian domestic market is heating up. Air India has been purchased by the Tata Group, which is planning major investments and consolidations with other brands. Alongside Jet, Akasa Air plans to start flying in just two months, adding another low-cost operator into the mix. Meanwhile, existing players like IndiGo and SpiceJet are planning to boost their networks to offer regional destinations and add new travelers to the market. Akasa Air For now, Jet Airways will be going slow and steady to understand its place as a full-service hybrid model. However, don't expect to see any less competition soon. https://simpleflying.com/jet-airways-commences-demonstration-flights-with-indian-regulators/ JetBlue makes hostile bid for Spirit Airlines JetBlue Airways on Monday commenced a hostile all-cash takeover bid for Spirit Airlines, two weeks after the discount carrier rejected an offer from the larger rival. JetBlue, which in early April offered $33 per share, is locked in a takeover battle for Spirit with Frontier Group Holdings and has argued a deal will help better compete with the “Big Four” U.S. airlines that control nearly 80% of the passenger market. In a letter to Spirit shareholders on Monday, JetBlue offered $30 per share and said it was ready to “negotiate in good faith a consensual transaction at $33, subject to receiving necessary diligence.” Spirit rejected the earlier offer, saying it had a low likelihood of winning approval from regulators. JetBlue said on Monday it had filed a “Vote No” proxy statement urging Spirit shareholders to vote against the planned merger with Frontier, which cash and stock for each share of the discount carrier that was valued on Friday at $18.81 a share. Shares of Spirit rose more than 17% to $19.90 in premarket trading. JetBlue shares were down 1.5% Frontier and Spirit did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Spirit will hold a shareholder meeting on June 10 to vote on its proposed merger with Frontier. JetBlue said Monday that on March 29 its Chief Executive Robin Hayes called Spirit Chief Executive Edward Christie to inform him of the airline’s interest in buying Spirit and said in a letter “the combination of our two companies would create a leading player best positioned to serve our customers by offering increased flight schedules and more competitive fares.” JetBlue, the sixth largest U.S. passenger carrier, would operate Spirit under the JetBlue brand and does not think any divestitures are needed, but promised a $200 million reverse break-up fee, or $1.80 per Spirit share, if the deal did not go through for antitrust reasons. Spirit in April had sought a significantly higher reverse break-up fee, JetBlue said. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/16/jetblue-launches-tender-offer-of-30-per-share-for-spirit-airlines.html Curt Lewis