Aviation

  Bloomberg Qatar Airways expects to finalize plans to buy a 49 percent stake in Meridiana Fly SpA by the end of January, which would end a long spat with unions over job cuts at the ailing Italian carrier. Completion of the deal, which was agreed in July, depends on Meridiana meeting certain unspecified conditions, Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer ...

  Bloomberg John Rothery said his goodbyes, handed in his badge and walked away from Boeing Co. He had worked on almost every commercial jet model over four decades, from a 707 bristling with military radar in the late 1970s to today’s sleek 787 Dreamliner. The date, October 3, had been circled on Rothery’s calendar for more than a year. ...

  Bloomberg As space in economy class becomes ever more constrained, airlines have devised a more spacious cabin product for passengers priced out of business class but determined to escape the indignities of steerage. Called “premium economy,” this section of added frills between coach and business aims to address a widening gap that has emerged between those cabins—and to extract ...

  Bloomberg An engine on an American Airlines plane that exploded on a Chicago runway October 28, triggering a massive blaze, had an apparent manufacturing defect, US investigators said. A disk within the General Electric Co. CF6-80 engine had an “internal inclusion,” meaning some type of foreign debris was embedded within the special alloy designed to withstand the heat and ...

Bloomberg British Airways owner IAG SA said it’s reviewing outstanding orders for the latest Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE wide-body jets while keeping older planes for longer and adding more seats to others in a bid to pare spending as overcapacity and the UK’s Brexit vote weigh on earnings. Plans to take 38 Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s are ...

  Bloomberg Canada will nearly double its limit on foreign ownership of airlines as part of an overhaul of transportation rules, raising it to 49 percent from 25 percent while retaining other restrictions. Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced the changes in Montreal, saying the government would immediately increase the ownership threshold to 49 percent for Canada Jetlines Ltd. and Enerjet ...

  Bloomberg Singapore Airlines Ltd. said it will be vigilant on costs as it warned yet again that the weak operating outlook is likely to persist amid excess capacity and aggressive pricing by competitors. The prospects for most major economies remain ‘tepid,’ while passenger airline business continued to be impacted by geopolitical uncertainty and weak global economic conditions, Singapore Air ...

  Bloomberg EasyJet Plc directors are in early-stage talks about relaxing executive bonus targets in order to hang on to Chief Executive Officer Carolyn McCall and other top managers as a capacity glut and the Brexit vote put the U.K. carrier’s earnings under pressure, people familiar with the plans said. The EasyJet board wants to make pay goals more achievable ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business Musafir.com, the UAE’s first premium-experience travel website, announced the launch of the online visa application service. Tourist visas to the UAE and 14 other destinations can now be directly applied on musafir.com and have their travel documentation processed and completed with no hassle. They are the first travel provider in the GCC region to introduce ...

  Shanghai / AFP China and Russia will invest up to $20 billion to develop a long-haul wide-bodied jet, reports on Thursday and a company statement said, as Beijing seeks to challenge leading Western manufacturers Boeing and Airbus. The hugely ambitious plan was first agreed between the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), whose products ...