Aviation

  Bloomberg Beijing and other regions of north China were blanketed by the year’s worst bout of noxious smog, prompting officials to cancel 351 flight departures from the capital’s airport because of limited visibility. The concentration of PM2.5 — the particles that pose the greatest health risks — was 402 micrograms per cubic meter near Tiananmen Square at 5 p.m. ...

  Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co.’s website failed, blocking access to booking and flight check-in tools in a busy holiday travel week. The carrier said it was making progress in fixing the disruption and was getting reports of successful transactions and online check-in attempts around 5:45 p.m. New York time. The failure affected all customers but didn’t have any impact on ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea’s top carrier Korean Air said its staff followed company procedure in restraining an unruly passenger after 80s pop singer Richard Marx tweeted that he helped the “ill trained” crew handle the situation. Marx said he and his wife were flying from the Vietnamese capital Hanoi to Incheon airport, the South’s main hub, when a ...

  Bloomberg Air travellers globally are bracing for higher fares after Opec decided last month to cut output. Not in India, the world’s fastest-growing major aviation market. Carriers cut fares in November, selling tickets about 12% cheaper on average for Mumbai-New Delhi flights from a year ago, according to Yatra.com, India’s No. 2 online travel agency. The steepest discounts were ...

  Bloomberg Boeing Co. is making deeper job cuts in its commercial airplane business and planning further reductions for 2017, citing “fewer sales opportunities and tough competition.” The US planemaker will trim the workforce in its largest division by 8 percent by the end of this year compared with the January level, Boeing Vice Chairman Ray Conner and Kevin McAllister, ...

  Bloomberg Flybe Group Plc, Europe’s biggest regional airline, appointed Christine Ourmieres-Widener as its chief executive officer, succeeding Saad Hammad, who stood down in October after struggling to lift earnings. Ourmieres-Widener, an executive at Air France before she ran fellow regional operator CityJet Ltd. between 2010 and 2015, takes over Jan. 16, Flybe said in a statement on Tuesday. She’ll ...

  Bloomberg Killing four empty hours at Guangzhou airport waiting for a China Southern connection to Sydney may not be everyone’s idea of fun. For Gina Capella, it was a no-brainer. The 43-year-old Boston resident and her friend saved hundreds of dollars last year choosing China Southern Airlines Co. over a direct flight from Seoul with Korean Air Lines Co. ...

  PARIS / Reuters Iran expects to get its first new jet within weeks under a multi-billion-dollar deal with Airbus for 100 planes, a senior official said on Monday, as Tehran and Western firms race to reopen trade almost a year after sanctions were lifted. The first of the Airbus jets should be delivered in mid-January, part of plans to ...

  Bloomberg Airbnb Inc. is developing a service for booking air travel as the home-rental start-up looks to compete with Priceline Group Inc. and Expedia Inc. for more people’s online travel spending. Development of the flight-booking feature is early, and the company is considering various routes to break into the business, said people familiar with the plans. Airbnb may acquire ...

  Emirates Business Musafir.com, the UAE’s first premium-experience travel website, announced a partnership with Visa across the UAE, Qatar and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and launch of dedicated websites for Qatar and KSA. The move is a breakthrough in Musafir.com’s regional expansion and to the continuous increase in online travel bookings in the region. “At Musafir.com we like to ...