Airlines
Air North Adds Toronto Flights
Air North, Yukon's Airline is adding Toronto, Ontario to its route network. Joe Sparling, Air North’s president and CEO, said that: “As we look towards economic recovery in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories over the coming years, it has become evident to us that another connection to central Canada is going to be essential. Having a direct flight to Canada’s economic hub will kickstart opportunity for both territories.” Sparling’s comments were echoed by Garry Njootli, president of the Vuntut Gwitchin Development Corporation and a member of Air North’s board of...
WestJet, TELUS Partner On Boarding Trial
WestJet and TELUS have teamed up to trial Trusted Boarding, a touchless process that uses safe and secure facial verification technology to verify travellers' identity prior to boarding a flight. The trial was the first-of-its-kind in Canada and took place at the YYC Calgary International Airport. Stuart McDonald, executive vice-president and chief information officer, said: “The travel experience is evolving to include many touchless processes and WestJet is innovating to ensure our guests' travel journey improves to become more seamless and efficient, while prioritizing safety...
IATA Calls For Caution On DCC Validity
IATA is calling for caution following the European Commission Recommendation that the EU Digital COVID Certificate (DCC) should only remain valid for up to nine months after the second vaccination dose, unless a booster jab is administered. Rafael Schvartzman, regional vice president for Europe for IATA, points out that: “The EU DCC is a great success in driving a common continent-wide approach to managing the COVID-19 health crisis and in facilitating the freedom of people to travel again. It underpins a fragile recovery in the travel and tourism sector. And it is critical that any...
Airlines Get Social
Following the ease of travel restrictions and reopening of international borders for vaccinated travellers, global airlines companies are striving to maintain services majorly by addressing staffing shortage issue amid massively increase in bookings. Against this backdrop, American Airlines has emerged as the top mentioned airline operator among the top 10 most mentioned airlines companies on the basis of social media conversations of Twitter influencers and Redditors in 2021, GlobalData reports. The data and analytics company’s Social Media Analytics (SMA) Platform, which...
The WestJet Group Takes Off With AZOVA
The WestJet Group has rolled out a significant expansion to its COVID-19 testing program through AZOVA -- a leading digital health technology platform. The new program is designed to give guests the confidence to book their holiday travel knowing all their COVID testing requirements are available through a convenient and easy-to-use site at https://www.azova.com/westjetswoop/. With AZOVA's app-based program, guests have access to a vast network of approved testing locations across Canada and the majority of WestJet transborder and international destinations. Additionally, AZOVA...
Air France Adds Caribbean Routes
Air France is expanding its flight schedule to leisure destinations this winter with the introduction of two North American routes to the Caribbean. Travellers can now fly from YUL-Montreal and JFK-New York to Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. Air France will fly once a week between Pointe-à-Pitre (PTP), Guadeloupe, and Montreal (YUL), with the following schedule: AF624 Pointe-à-Pitre to Montreal departing 3:20PM arriving 7:50PM [Tue] AF625 Montreal to Pointe-à-Pitre departing 1:00PM arriving 6:50PM [Wed] The week of Dec. 6, 2021, Air France will add a second weekly flight...
Keep It Simple, Predictable, Practical
IATA is calling on governments to adopt simple, predictable and practical measures to safely and efficiently facilitate the ramping-up of international travel as borders re-open. The global airline industry association wants governments to focus on three key areas: Simplified health protocols Digital solutions to process health credentials COVID-19 measures proportionate to risk levels with a continuous review process The industry’s vision to address the complexity is outlined in the newly released policy paper: From Restart to Recovery: A Blueprint for Simplifying...
Avoiding A Tailspin
A new report from Deloitte Canada takes a deep dive into the Canada’s aviation industry and some of the challenges it is facing right now. Dejan Markovic, Director and National Aviation Leader for Deloitte Canada, points out at one point in his conversation with Canadian Travel Press that: “There is no money for mistakes amidst the turbulence of what we’ve seen. Airlines, airports, ANSP’s are working off of borrowed cash and we need everyone to collaborate more closely so that the steps they take towards recovery and how those steps influence the ecosystem is accretive to positive...