oneworld

Qatar Airways said it may seek to form a breakaway group within the Oneworld alliance should fellow member American Airlines continue to lend its weight to a US push to curb the growth of Gulf rivals. Qatar Air, which joined Oneworld in 2013, won’t tolerate a situation where “conditions are no longer conducive to a fair business relationship and mutual respect,” CEO Akbar Al Baker said. “We don’t get bullied by anybody,” he said at a briefing in Los Angeles, where Qatar Air began flights from Doha on Jan. 1. “If American does not want to work fairly with us, we will consult the others and we could form our own mini-alliance if we wanted to.” While Al Baker has said before that Qatar Air could quit Oneworld if its partner continues to seek limits on US access for Gulf operators, he hasn’t previously threatened to split the alliance. American Air, Delta Air and United Continental Holdings all say Qatar, Etihad Airways and Emirates of Dubai have benefited from $42b in illegal aid and want air treaties revised. Al Baker, who maintains that Qatar Air has received no questionable state support, said that US carriers have themselves benefited from a “legal subsidy” in the form of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, while Air France-KLM Group, another opponent, remains partially state owned and Lufthansa has had government money in the past. Oneworld has 15 airline members drawn from 13 companies. A schism could become a major issue for the biggest US carrier should it come involve BA, in which Qatar Air has a 10% stake via the U.K. company’s parent group IAG SA.<br/>A joint venture between BA, the US carrier and IAG’s Spanish Iberia arm on North Atlantic routes took more than a decade to win regulatory clearance and is regarded as one of the most profitable in the entire airline industry.<br/>

The brother of an American man who was a passenger on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 when it disappeared while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014 sued the carrier in a US court. Phillip Talmadge Wood was on temporary assignment in Malaysia for International Business Machines Corp. when he boarded the flight to the Chinese capital, according to the complaint filed in Washington on Jan. 12 by Thomas Wood of Fort Worth, Texas. Thomas Wood, who is managing the affairs of Philip Wood’s estate, is seeking as much as the $155,937 maximum automatically allowed under the terms of the 1999 Montreal Convention, and more unless Malaysia Airlines can prove his brother’s death was caused by something other than the negligence of the carrier or those in its employ. Philip Wood was survived by his sons Nicholas and Christopher, according to the court filing. Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation last year declared the incident, which claimed the lives of 239 passengers and crew on the Boeing Inc. 777, an accident.<br/>

The search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 in the Indian Ocean has turned up the second centuries-old shipwreck but no sign of the aircraft which disappeared with 239 passengers and crew nearly two years ago. The Australian-led underwater search is expected to be completed by the middle of 2016, having scoured more than half of a planned 120,000 sq km of seafloor, the agency overseeing the effort said, ruling out any expansion of the search without new leads. "In the absence of credible new information that leads to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft, governments have agreed that there will be no further expansion of the search area," Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said. A piece of the plane found washed up on the French island of Reunion in July 2015 provided the first direct evidence that the plane had crashed into the sea. No further trace has been found. In May searchers found the wreckage of what was believed to be a 19th century cargo ship and now sonar imagery has identified what is likely to be a second shipwreck, a steel/iron vessel dating from the turn of the 19th Century, according to JACC.<br/>

Malaysia Airlines is dropping its daily flight to Dubai from Kuala Lumpur as part of its new code-share agreement with Emirates, one of the world’s largest airlines, announced last month. The airline will instead place its code-share on Emirates’ existing four daily flights between the two cities, according to a statement posted on Malaysia Airlines website on Wednesday. Malaysia Airlines passengers will still be able to book through the airline on flights to Dubai, however, the services will only be operated by Emirates from February 15, when the new agreement starts. It also sees Malaysian Airlines place its code-share on Emirates flights to Europe and Emirates place its on Malaysia Airlines services to destinations in Asia Pacific.<br/>

An American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York City has been diverted to the Las Vegas airport. The crew on Flight 256 reported smelling smoke in the cockpit on Tuesday afternoon. The plane landed safely at McCarran International Airport. Airport spokeswoman Christine Crews says the Clark County Fire Department found no fire or smoke aboard the plane, which made it to the gate under its own power.<br/>