Aviation

  New York / Bloomberg Veritas Capital, a New York based private-equity firm, is the leading bidder to acquire Airbus Group SE’s aircraft maintenance and repair unit Vector Aerospace Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. If successful, the buyout firm plans to combine the unit, which could fetch as much as $800 million, with its existing portfolio company ...

  London / Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co. will postpone delivery of 67 Boeing Co. 737 Max 8 aircraft by as many as six years, pushing $1.9 billion of spending on planes into the next decade. The airline also plans to accelerate six 737-800 orders to next year from 2018 to help cover the already announced early retirement of its oldest ...

  Washington / Bloomberg United Continental Holdings Inc. reached a tentative deal to bring its 25,000 flight attendants under a single labour contract for the first time since the merger that created the airline almost six years ago. A unified labour contract with flight attendants would address one of the most glaring failures since the 2010 merger of United’s parent ...

  Mumbai / Tribune News Service Muscat-based Oman Air is seeking an over 36 percent increase in bilateral flying rights from India as it seeks to compete with West Asian rivals to carry more passengers to and from the country, the world’s fastest growing aviation market. Oman Air, which flies to 11 Indian cities, is competing with three major Gulf ...

  London / Bloomberg British Airways owner IAG SA lowered its 2016 profit target as the UK’s vote to leave the European Union threatens to extend a drop in demand that started in June in the run-up to the historic referendum. Operating profit this year will no longer increase at a level similar to the 70 percent surge posted in ...

  Hanoi / Tribune News Service The opening of direct flights between India and Laos aims to enhance people to people contacts between the two Asian neighbours. Lao News Agency recently quoted India’s ambassador to Laos, Ravi Shankar Aisola as saying the direct flights between India and Laos were in the final stages of approval and very soon there would ...

  New York / AFP The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain on Thursday morning after completing a 70-hour flight from New York in the first solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane. Applause broke out as the experimental plane set down at Seville airport in southern Spain just before 7:40 am (0540 GMT) where a team was on the ...

  Larnaca / AFP As Cyprus emerges from a deep financial crisis, a new low-cost airline will launch next month to tap into the Mediterranean island’s resurgent tourism market. The country has been without a national carrier since the collapse of Cyprus Airways, the victim of a credit crunch that brought the country close to bankruptcy in 2013. But numbers of ...

  Washington / Bloomberg FedEx Corp. is buying six Boeing 767 freighters valued at $1.2 billion as the world’s biggest cargo airline continues to modernize its fleet. The six aircraft are scheduled for delivery in fiscal 2019 and 2020, according to a FedEx spokesman. They were among the options included in a 50-jet order that FedEx placed almost a year ...

  New York / AFP The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft passed the halfway mark of its marathon flight across the Atlantic late on Tuesday, one of the most challenging legs of its historic sun-powered journey around the world. The experimental plane, which took off from New York’s John F. Kennedy airport on Monday, is being piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand ...