Air France plans to roll out its new standard of travel on the business, premium economy and economy cabins of its future Airbus A350s. Already available on select Boeing 777-300 ERs, these new standards will be available on A350s that will join the airline's long-haul fleet between now and 2025, the French flag carrier says. It adds that the A350s will have a cabin configuration with 48 business seats, 32 premium economy seats and 212 economy seats. All cabins will be equipped with 4K ultra-high-definition screens, Bluetooth connectivity, USB ports and Wi-Fi access. The carrier's new standard of travel also includes a new business-class seat designed specifically for Air France in collaboration with STELIA Aerospace, along with designer Mark Collins and design and branding consultancy SGK Brandimage. The seat features a sliding door that allows passengers to create a totally private space. It can also be transformed into a full-flat bed measuring nearly two metres in length. To create a greater sense of privacy for passengers travelling together, the seats located in the centre of the cabin are equipped with a central panel that can be lowered to create a convivial space. The airline has already received 20 of the 41 A350-900s it has ordered. The 21st A350 will be the first to feature this new cabin configuration and will make its first commercial flight in July, it notes.

British Airways has been fined $1.1 million by the US Department for Transportation over a failure to provide passengers with timely refunds for cancelled flights amid the pandemic. The DoT's Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP) says that since 1 March 2020 over 1,200 customers have complained to it about BA's conduct regarding refunds. Among several practices that it criticised, the OACP found that BA's website instructed customers to contact the airline by phone to "discuss refund options", which was effectively impossible because the carrier had "failed to maintain adequate functionality of its customer-service phonelines". IAG-owned BA allowed consumers to request refunds by email, Facebook or Twitter, but this was not advertised. "In addition, OACP's investigation revealed that, from March to November 2020, British Airways' website contained contradictory and false information regarding refund options for impacted consumers," says the office. "Specifically, following flight cancellations and schedule changes, consumers that logged into the airline's Manage My Booking webpage would see a conspicuous 'Cancel and refund flight(s)' blue button that linked to an online form. However, consumers could not request a refund by completing this form," notes the OACP. "We find British Airways' practices and misrepresentations to be deceptive because consumers were led to an online option for requesting and accepting vouchers when they were trying to obtain refunds," the office concludes. "The information was misleading to consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances and was material to consumers."
BA says its actions should be looked at in the context of the pandemic, which not only resulted in the cancellation of thousands of flights but led to the closure of call centres. "During this period, we acted lawfully at all times and offered customers the flexibility of rebooking travel on different dates, or claiming a refund if their flights were cancelled," says the airline, noting that it has issued 5 million refunds since the start of the pandemic.

Boeing is now producing four of its 787s per month and plans to reach five per month by the end of this year, the company confirms. A Reuters article published on 30 May cited Lane Ballard, Boeing's vice-president and general manager for the 787 programme, as saying that the Arlington, Virginia headquartered company had increased production of its 787 from three to four aircraft per month. "As we have said, our plan is for 787 production to reach five airplanes per month by the end of this year," Boeing says. "We are currently producing four 787s per month." In April, Boeing said it was producing three 787s per month and planned to increase this to five in late 2023 and 10 in 2025/26. Boeing's rate increase is backed by improved regulatory certainty from the US Federal Aviation Administration, which on 13 March cleared the airframer to resume deliveries of 787s. The FAA must still issue airworthiness certificates for each 787 prior to shipment, as it has done since Boeing resumed deliveries of the type in 2022 after a 10-month hiatus due to production issues.