Investigators believe a passenger who boarded a commercial plane in a wheelchair may have been a suicide bomber responsible for an explosion that tore a hole in the side of the jet as it took off from Somalia’s capital, a Western diplomat briefed on the probe said. Investigators’ theory is that the man was able to use the wheelchair to bypass rigorous security screening in Mogadishu and then detonated a bomb that ripped a hole in the fuselage but failed to down the plane. The force of the blast ejected the alleged bomber from the cabin and his body fell to earth near the town of Balad, about 32km from Mogadishu, where it was recovered by authorities. The revelation comes amid mounting evidence that the blast aboard Tuesday’s Daallo Airlines flight was a terror attack. <br/>
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Scoot plans to launch services to at least 3 Indian destinations by the end of May 2016. Subject to regulatory approvals, the carrier said it will start flying to a south India destination from end March and will expand services over consecutive months to include “1 south Indian metro and 2 destinations in north India.” A Scoot spokesperson said that until the Indian aviation regulator, the DGCA, gives approval it could not disclose exact destinations, but said “it is true we are starting services in India this year.” The carrier said it had completed the required ground handling and technical assistance groundwork to support the flights, but ruled out Mumbai as one of the new destinations. “Mumbai as a destination doesn’t suit our strategy,” it said. Scoot said it would concentrate on leveraging its existing synergies with SIA operations. <br/>
The world’s least productive airline has lost track of passengers that may be stranded anywhere from New York to Beijing. Workers at Pakistan International Airlines have been on strike over the past week, prompting the carrier to cancel more than 200 flights. Each of its 15,000 full-time employees earns the airline US$584 a year, the lowest among 72 global peers -- making it the world’s most overstaffed by this measure. "We have no data available on how many and where passengers with confirmed PIA tickets are waiting, because the entire system is shut, servers are down and no booking is being done," a spokesman said. The crisis at the airline shows no sign of abating as labour leaders pressure prime minister Nawaz Sharif to halt plans to sell a 26% stake. <br/>
Kuwait Airways retired 1,350 Kuwaiti nationals during the last 2 years, part of a plan to cut costs and return to profit by 2019. The airline has struggled to recover from Iraq's 1990-91 invasion of Kuwait. Complex bureaucratic procedures have further side-lined it from the boom in Gulf aviation over the last 2 decades. Staff cuts of nationals are extremely rare in Kuwait, which redistributes significant oil wealth to citizens through high-paying jobs with state entities and social welfare. The number of people employed by the airline, however, is one of the main drawbacks to its turnaround plan, industry experts say. While 1,600 employees were originally made redundant, the airline called back 250 retired pilots, crew and engineers, due to shortages created by the aviation boom in the region. It currently employs 5,800 people. <br/>
West Air has launched a new 3X-weekly schedule from Chongqing Jiangbei International to Singapore’s Changi Airport with 180-seat Airbus A320-200 aircraft. The service is West Air’s first international schedule, aimed at both trade and leisure travel. The new schedule comes weeks after the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between Changi Airport Group (CAG) and Chongqing Airport Group to enhance connectivity between the two hubs. The memorandum also includes carriers SilkAir, Air China, West Air and Chongqing Airlines, which will be part of the push to boost both point-to-point and transfer traffic at the two hubs. Chongqing, which has said it plans to be one of China’s top four airports by 2035, can handle just over 30m passengers a year but is expanding both terminal and runway capacity. <br/>