Aviation

Bloomberg Just days after taking the top job at Air France-KLM, Chief Executive Officer Ben Smith is learning the hard way about the difficulties of running a French state-backed business. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire publicly took the Canadian to task for being quoted in the Financial Times as saying that the government was prepared to sell its 14 percent ...

Bloomberg Delta Air Lines Inc. blamed a “physical device issue” for a systems failure that forced the carrier to briefly ground all domestic flights earlier this week. Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian provided few details about the cause of the disruption. Speaking at the Skift Global Forum in New York, he referred to the September 25 problem as “a hiccup” ...

Bloomberg JetBlue Airways Corp. will offer its own version of a basic economy fare, saying its “success is at risk” if it doesn’t match the discounted, no-extras tickets being sold by larger rivals. The change will be part of a broader shakeup of JetBlue’s fare system that will debut next year, President Joanna Geraghty told airline employees in a message. ...

Bloomberg Boeing Co. defeated Lockheed Martin Corp. to win its third prize in a recent flurry of defense contracts, snaring a US Air Force contest valued at as much as $9.2 billion to build training jets to hone the flying skills of future aviators. The 351 to 475 training aircraft and 120 ground-based training systems would be produced at Boeing’s ...

Bloomberg Kansai International Airport is planning to shut down its runways on Sunday as a powerful typhoon is expected to pass through the western Japan region. The airport’s operator said it will close two runways from 11 am local time on Sunday to 6 am on Monday, halting all takeoffs and landings. Train services also are expected to be impacted. ...

Bloomberg India’s struggling airlines are finding out there’s no end to their woes. Jet fuel, for which they already pay the world’s highest prices, just got dearer as Prime Minister Narendra Modi slapped a duty on imports as part of measures to arrest a slide in the rupee. Shares of Jet Airways India Ltd., SpiceJet Ltd. and InterGlobe Aviation Ltd. ...

Bloomberg The head of an industry group representing almost 300 of the world’s biggest airlines slammed an impasse that threatens to ground planes after Brexit as unprofessional and showing disdain for passengers who have bought tickets in good faith. A deal removing the risk of disruption to flights when Britain leaves the European Union on March 29 must be hammered ...

Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc said it will have to cancel services on Friday after cabin crew unions in Germany, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Italy called a strike. Only a “tiny minority” of staff are involved in the action, Ryanair said, adding that the scrapped services amount to 8 percent of the planned schedule and will affect about 30,000 customers. ...

Bloomberg Delta Air Lines Inc.’s computer breakdowns are turning into an unwelcome, annual affair. The US airline grounded all domestic flights on September 25 to deal with a technology issue that affected some of its systems. About an hour later, Delta said it had restored all its systems, allowing the services to resume. While the carrier said there were no ...

Bloomberg The UK warned that flights may be grounded if the European Union doesn’t grant reciprocal approvals to its planes and airlines in the case of a no-deal Brexit — a scenario it maintains remains unlikely, despite a recent setback in negotiations. Britain will continue to recognise European Aviation Safety Agency certifications for up to two years after March 29, ...