EasyJet and British Airways have been forced to cancel a flurry of flights as Covid-related absences hit the UK airlines’ abilities to operate their full schedules. Low-cost carrier EasyJet has cancelled some 222 services in the past three days, including around 60 on 4 April. It attributes this to “higher than usual levels of employee sickness.” It adds that it has sought to offset some of these problems with additional standby crew, but warns that Covid levels made some cancellations inevitable. The roughly 60 pre-emptive cancellations to and from the UK on 4 April represent a small share of the airline’s planned 1,645 flights, it points out. BA has also cancelled some services, but says these amounted to just six flights on 4 April. It adds that during March it took the decision to moderate capacity slightly during April and May as it ramps back up. “Aviation has been one of the industries worst hit by the pandemic and airlines and airports are experiencing the same issues rebuilding their operations while managing the continuing impact of Covid,” states IAG-owned BA. “We are also building a completely new subsidiary at Gatwick while increasing the size of our schedule at Heathrow.”

Norwegian will end the requirement for passengers to wear a face mask onboard across its network from 4 April. The mandatory requirement, which has been in placed since 17 June 2020, will be lifted as a result of revised guidance across Europe, the Scandinavian low-cost carrier says. As countries reduce or completely remove travel restrictions, passengers will now be able to choose if they wish to wear a face mask or not. The requirement for passengers to wear masks was actually lifted by governments across Scandinavia on 12 February, prompting increased passenger demand and bookings for both leisure and business travel, Norwegian notes. It remains confident that travel will “recover and thrive during the summer months ahead.”

Australia’s Alliance Aviation has executed an aircraft sale and purchase agreement to acquire an additional Embraer E190 jet. This acquisition will take the E190 fleet to 33, Alliance says in a 1 April filing to the Australian Securities Exchange. This aircraft was previously operated by Helvetic Airways in Switzerland and is a sister ship to two other E190s in its fleet, bearing registration VH-XFL and VH-XFM. These were acquired in the middle of 2021 and are both based in Adelaide. Alliance adds that the aircraft is already in Australia and only requires “minor maintenance and to be painted in Alliance livery before it can commence revenue operations”. Alliance’s managing director Scott McMillan states: “Acquiring the sister ship of the two E190s servicing contracted routes out of Adelaide will enable Alliance to re-deploy Fokker capacity elsewhere across the network. “In addition, basing this aircraft in Adelaide will also lead to base simplification by creating efficiencies across crewing, operational and engineering services.”