U.S. Government Charges Belarus with Aircraft Piracy
The Department of Justice charged four Belarusian officials and the Belarusian government of air piracy following the diversion of Ryanair Flight 4978 last May. This conclusion was reached after officials saw someone with an eye patch and a parrot on his shoulder leaving the country.
The DOJ said the quiet part out loud – that the Belarusian government made up a fake bomb threat to force the plane to land in Minsk and detain a Belarusian journalist who was not friendly towards the government. The four officials charged by the DOJ are:
- Leonid Mikalaevich Churo – Director-General of Belaeronavigatsia, the Belarusian state air navigation authority
- Oleg Kazyuchits – Deputy Director-General of Belaeronavigatsia
- Andrey Anatolievich Lnu (last name unknown) – Belarusian state security services
- Fnu Lnu (first name unknown, last name unknown) – Belarusian state security services
According to the FBI’s investigation, Churo personally communicated the false threat to Minsk ATC prior to the flight departing Athens. Kazyuchits is the bookworm of the group, as they assigned him to falsify incident reports. Fnu Lnu helped convey the fake threat and directed radio communications to the flight while sharing progress of the caper with Antolievich, his direct superior.
All four remain in Belarus and are at large – the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Belarus. The US’s best bet in bringing the four in is waiting until they take a flight somewhere, call in a fake bomb threat, and force the plane to land somewhere with a friendly extradition treaty with the United States.
Airbus Tells Qatar to Take its Paint and Get Out
Airbus canceled a contract to deliver 50 A321neo aircraft to Qatar Airways in the latest salvo between the two companies. The single-aisle aircraft are a hot item right now and ends a deal completed in December 2017 at a rack cost of about $6.4 billion.
Qatar was supposed to begin taking delivery of the A321s next year but now will have to look elsewhere for single-aisle planes. The cancellation comes about a month after the two companies found themselves in London’s High Court over an issue about paint on Qatar’s A350s.
The carrier claims the paint was cracking and peeling, which exposed copper meshing on the planes used to protect the airframe from a lightning strike. Airbus’s response to Qatar was that the paint issue was not a safety issue, and added “besides, what are the odds a plane gets struck by lightning? Like 100 to 1, right? And then it’s gotta be your plane – and an A350 to boot. The odds are super small.” We’ll let you judge for yourself. Here’s a video Qatar released today showing the damage.
In the meantime, if Airbus and Qatar cannot work their problems out together and anyone reading this has 50 single-aisle jets laying around, now would be a good time to call Qatar CEO Akbar Al Baker before Boeing beats you to it.
Qantas Explores Ending Flight Attendant Agreement
Qantas went to the Australian Fair Work Commission this week to seek permission to terminate its deal with its long-haul flight attendants. This is the first time in its history that the carrier has gone for what some are calling “the nuclear option,” and the unions in Australia are totally cool with it. Just kidding. They’re really pissed off.
Qantas said in a statement it wanted to adjust the agreement “to change restrictive and outdated rostering processes.” The carrier said the current arrangements meant that about 20% of its 2,500 long-haul crewmembers could only be used on a single type of aircraft.
The airline says it offered more money in return for changing those arrangements, but the workers’ union, the Flight Attendant’s Association of Australia (FAAA), and 97% of staff who voted turned down the offer. The FAAA says the change would cost its members in work-life balance, being forced into much more standby and uncertainty about trips, in addition to significant pay reductions.
If the Fair Work Commission approves the application, salary and conditions for international crew would revert to what is known as the ‘modern award’ which guarantees a minimum pay and allowances system which is much lower than what FA’s currently earn.
- Air Canada won an award.
- Air France-KLM added some people that aren’t you to its Engineering & Maintenance Executive Committee.
- AirAsia X has come to terms with the fact that it owes BOC Aviation nearly $24 million.
- Allegiant is leasing two more A320-214 aircraft.
- American and Aer Lingus completed a slot swap in Dublin for summer 2022.
- Condor and SKY Express are now besties.
- DHL Express will no longer fly to Bergamo, Italy (BGY).
- Libyan Airlines received $15 million in state aid to help cover the costs of employee salaries.
- Qantas will cut domestic capacity by another 10% after Western Australia surprisingly delayed its border opening.
- VietJetAir launched domestic A330 ops.
- Wizz Air applied to the DOT to operate cargo flights to the United States.
A guy stopped me in the street the other day to ask why I was carrying a 9ft book. I said “It’s a long story”.