Aviation

Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co. resumed commercial service to Houston in the wake of flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey, landing its first passenger flight at William P. Hobby airport, according to tracking website lightAware.com. That puts Southwest behind United Continental Holdings Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc., which started limited service late last week at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Since ...

Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc plans to bid for Alitalia SpA, which has filed for bankruptcy, and will keep the Italian company intact if it’s successful, according to Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary. Europe’s biggest discount airline is prepared to take over Alitalia’s long-haul arm as well as a short-haul unit that parallels its own operations, O’Leary said. Most of the ...

Bloomberg A price battle between United Airlines and heavy discounters is spreading to other US carriers, threatening to derail the industry’s nascent recovery in pricing power. Competition that heated up this summer in United’s hub cities of Houston, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey, has extended to American Airlines in Dallas and to other carriers, airline executives said. Passenger revenue for ...

Bloomberg Bird Group, an aviation and hospitality company, said it is interested in bidding for the ground handling division of Air India Ltd., the state-owned flag carrier the government is planning to sell in full or part. The New Delhi-based group has written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation asking the government to consider selling Air India’s subsidiaries separately, a ...

Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co. quietly took delivery of its first Boeing Co. 737 Max jetliner, canceling an employee celebration in Dallas to mark the milestone because of the devastation in nearby Houston caused by Hurricane Harvey. The jet’s Tuesday arrival at Southwest marks the first at a North American carrier for the Max, which has shattered sales records at Boeing. ...

Bloomberg United Continental Holdings Inc. is likely to take at least a $265 million financial hit from Hurricane Harvey because of the carrier’s reliance on Houston as one of its biggest hubs, an airline analyst said. The third-largest US carrier’s seat count will fall an estimated 1.5 percent in the current quarter because of the storm, with little opportunity to ...

Bloomberg Patrick Shanahan, the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian, has set up an alert system to insulate himself from decisions affecting Boeing Co., where he rose to senior vice president during a 30-year career. The new deputy defense secretary has signed a “screening arrangement” that will notify Defense Secretary James Mattis and Shanahan’s staff to issues involving Boeing—the No. 2 US ...

Bloomberg For years, China’s three state-owned airlines kept adding flights on international routes to chase after a rising middle class that can afford to fly overseas. Now, they are slowing that down in favour of the local market. In the first half of 2017, Air China Ltd., China Eastern Airlines Corp. and China Southern Airlines Co. increased international seats at ...

Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd. announced its fourth stock buyback in two years as the airline reported better-than-expected annual earnings, marking the end of a three-year turnaround under Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce. The Australian carrier, reporting its second-highest profit on record, said it will repurchase as much as $295 million of stock even as the shares traded near an all-time ...

Bloomberg United Continental Holdings Inc. suspended its entire regional operation and all mainland flights out of Houston to non-hub airports around the country as Hurricane Harvey lashed southeast Texas, the airline said. More than 1,000 flights had been canceled and another 1,259 delayed nationwide as of 3:04 p.m. Eastern time Saturday, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. United’s cancellations, including ...