LONDON - Qantas trials its London - Sydney nonstop service with a test flight that left Heathrow airport with 50 passengers Thursday., Serving airlines that will operate flights lasting 14 hours or longer is a "key consideration” for Boeing global growth strategy over the next 20 years, an executive said.
CAPE TOWN - South African Airways (SAA) said on Wednesday it might never recover if a strike by labour unions goes ahead this week, underscoring how close the state-owned company is to collapse. The airline had to cancel nearly all its schedule for Friday and Saturday in the wake of industrial action.
BUDAPEST - Wizz Air lifted the bottom end of its annual profit forecast and further raised its capacity growth outlook, as the budget airline flew more passengers and curbed costs in the first-half, while struggling rivals cut expansion plans. The Airline does not suffer delays caused by the 737 MAX Grounding.
SEATTLE - Boeing took 10 new plane orders last month, but saw some customers swapping the U.S. planemaker's grounded 737 MAX planes in favor of more expensive wide-body planes as doubts lingered about the MAX's return to service, which the manufacturer expects by January 2020.
CAPE TOWN - South African Airways (SAA) said it had started consultations with its more than 5,000 staff and was talking to labour unions. The airline has not made an annual profit since 2011 and is grappling with severe funding difficulties and an inefficient and ageing fleet of airplanes.
WASHINGTON - Boeing on Monday said it expected U.S. regulators to approve the return to commercial service of its grounded 737 MAX jet in the coming weeks, and its shares jumped as investors grew more hopeful the planemaker had addressed software problems at the heart of two fatal crashes.
KUALA LUMPUR - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has downgraded Malaysia's air safety rating, restricting the country's airlines from adding flights to the United States, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Malaysia has been downgraded to Category 2, said the sources, who did not want to be identified.
SYDNEY - Qantas Airways on Monday pledged to slash its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, joining British Airways owner IAG as the industry's response to climate change activists gathers momentum. The Australian airline will invest in research on biofuels to cap emissions at 2020 levels.
BRUSSELS - Nine European Union states have called on the bloc's incoming executive Commission to introduce an EU-wide tax on aviation so as to charge a polluting industry more for its emissions and put all member states on level pegging. The industry set itself an ambitious 2050 target.
LONDON - The bill to fix Rolls-Royce's Trent 1000 engine has risen by another 800 million pounds ($1 billion) as the aerospace group battles to reduce disruption to airline customers that have had to ground Boeing 787 passenger planes for repairs. The problem fix will extend into 2023.
JAKARTA - Lion Air has found structural cracks in two Boeing Co 737 NG planes with fewer flights than a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) threshold for checks, Indonesia's aviation safety regulator said on Friday. The issue becomes a widespread concern among 737 operators worldwide.
OSLO - Norwegian Air's third fundraising from investors in 20 months could be the airline's final chance to prove it can make money from cheap transatlantic air travel, one of its major shareholders said on Wednesday. It said the money would cover its needs "through 2020 and beyond based on the current business plan".
LONDON - British Airways owner IAG scaled back its forecast for capacity growth for the next three years on Friday, hitting its outlook for earnings per share as the prospects for the global economy remained weak. The airline group braces for a "soft" 2020 macroeconomic environment.
DOHA - India's largest airline, IndiGo , and Qatar Airways will make a strategic business announcement on Thursday, which media reports said would involve a codeshare agreement. Qatar has in the past shown interest in investing in IndiGo but the Indian airline has resisted.
SEATTLE - Boeing is planning an initial investment of around $1 billion into industry-wide pilot development as part of a long-term initiative to reduce risks like those faced by the crew in two 737 MAX crashes, people familiar with the matter said. The embattled planemaker is trying to rebuild trust and cooperation.
FRANKFURT - Boeing's grounded 737 MAX airliner is likely to return to service in Europe during the first quarter of 2020, the head of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said on Monday. The agency will run a series of tests and trials before it lifts the flight ban imposed March 19.
MADRID - IAG the parent of British Airways and Spain’s Iberia, announced a 1 billion euro ($1.12 billion) takeover of Spain’s Air Europa to boost its presence on routes to Latin America and the Caribbean. The deal follows a setback in Latin America for IAG - and raises competition concerns at rivals.
JAKARTA - Lion Air is targeting a flotation of up to $1 billion in the first quarter of 2020 amid a "market of stability", several sources close to the matter said, as the Indonesian airline resumes growth after a year dominated by the fatal crash of one of its Boeing 737 MAX jets near Jakarta.
LONDON - British Airways owner IAG said on Monday it had agreed to buy Spanish carrier Air Europa for 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) in cash as it set its sights on the market in European travel to Latin America. IAG will tie Air Europa to Iberia to strenghen its Madrid hub operation.
LONDON - Low-cost airline Easyjet has added baggage services to its flight-connections partnership with two budget long-haul carriers flying from Paris, in a move that challenges Air France on transatlantic and Caribbean leisure routes. Air France is eager to counter the step with Transavia.
DUBLIN - Ryanair said on Monday it expects to take delivery of its first Boeing 737 MAX in March at the earliest, two months later than it last forecast, pushing its passenger growth for next year to its lowest level in years. In July it said it hoped to receive it in January. The airline remains "cautious" for its guidance.
SYDNEY - Qantas Airways said on Friday it found structural cracks in three of its Boeing Co 737 NG planes after conducting earlier-than-required checks of its aircraft as part of a global issue with the model. The cracks are on what is known as the "pickle fork" – a part that attaches the plane's fuselage, or body, to the wing structure.
LONDON - London Gatwick is trialling a new boarding technique in a bid to avoid queues and congestion at gates. During a two-month trial, large digital screens and staff will be placed at Gate 101 to show passengers the order to board. Some Easyjet flights will participate in the "bingo boarding" field test.
MONTREAL - Canada's Bombardier said on Thursday it had agreed to sell its aerostructures business to Spirit AeroSystems for more than $1 billion in cash and debt. As part of the deal, Bombardier will sell two aerostructure facilities - the Belfast plant and another in Morocco - along with a smaller repair plant in Dallas.
WASHINGTON - Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg was repeatedly hammered by U.S. lawmakers at a hearing on Wednesday over his compensation and key mistakes in development of the 737 MAX that he newly acknowledged. This is what happend during the hearing.
STOCKHOLM - Norwegian investor Petter Stordalen and private equity firms Altor and TDR Capital have agreed to buy the Nordic business of collapsed travel company Thomas Cook. The nordic Thomas Cook arm generated a 108 million Euro operating profit in 2018 and has a headcount of 2,300 employees.
PARIS - Airbus cut its full-year delivery goal for commercial jets on Wednesday, as the planemaker struggles with production delays at a newly expanded German plant. Europe’s largest aerospace group expects to deliver "around 860” airliners in 2019 instead of the 880-890 previously targeted.
PARIS - Planemakers worldwide face tougher scrutiny and changes in the way aircraft are certified in the aftermath of two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 MAX jets, leading regulators have told Reuters. The head of FAA expects a different environment for airplane design and regulatory review in the 2020s. 
TOULOUSE _ Indian budget airline IndiGo is close to placing a near-record order for more than 300 Airbus A320neo-family jets worth at least $33 billion at recent catalogue prices to cement its position as India's largest carrier by market share. The deal is expected to include A321XLR long-range aircraft.
WASHINGTON - The head of a U.S. Senate panel reviewing two catastrophic Boeing 737 MAX crashes told Reuters ahead of hearings this week that the plane would not return to U.S. skies until "99.9% of the American public" and policymakers are convinced it is safe. Dennis Muilenburg is scheduled to testify.
BEIJING - Beijing's new $63 billion Daxing airport began its first scheduled international flights on Sunday as it ramped up operations to help relieve pressure on the city's existing Capital airport. British Airways was among the first carriers to shift their Beijing operations to the new airport.
LONDON - The airline industry needs to take strong action to reduce carbon emissions and withstand the "flight shame" movement by environmentalists seeking to reduce commercial flying, an executive for London's Heathrow airport said on Friday. The airports expects "global hubs" to be less effected by the movement.
SEATTLE - Boeing engineers and test pilots considered before two fatal 737 MAX crashes whether an anti-stall system should be redesigned after discussing how flawed data from a single sensor could trigger it repeatedly, U.S. investigators have found. The planemaker later abandoned the idea.
JAKARTA - Indonesia has called for better Boeing cockpit systems and oversight by U.S. regulators after design flaws helped bring down a Lion Air 737 MAX jet - a crash that was compounded by errors from ground staff and crew. The findings are revealed in the final accident report.Discussions on current events and developments in the aviation industry
