United Continental abandoned a plan to buy more landing rights at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport, almost five months after the US sued to block the deal due to the carrier’s already dominant market share. The airline gave up the effort to purchase 24 takeoff-and-landing authorizations, or “slots,” from Delta, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The deal would have subjected Newark passengers to higher fares and fewer choices since United already has 73% of slots, the government said in a November lawsuit. This is the third time in the last two years that United failed to gain more rights at Newark, where the carrier is focusing all of its New York-area flying after pulling out of JFK. United’s decision follows the FAA’s announcement last week that it would allow carriers to apply to offer new service at Newark for the first time since 2008. “United has used its slots monopoly to dominate air travel in and out of Newark,” assistant Attorney General Bill Baer said in a statement. “The FAA’s action opens up Newark to more robust competition and achieves the very outcome we sought in litigation: protecting consumers from United’s plan to enlarge its monopoly at Newark.”<br/>
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The carrier that would eventually assume the "United Airlines" name made its first flight 90 years ago Wednesday. It came under the name Varney Air Lines, which launched April 6, 1926, with an airmail run from Pasco, Wash., to Boise. Varney would go on to become one of the founding airlines making up today’s United Airlines. And in what would later become a remarkable historic coincidence, Varney Air founder Walter T. Varney would go on to launch another carrier in 1934. That airline – Varney Speed Lines – was a forerunner of Continental Airlines, which merged with United in 2010 to create the modern incarnation of United. United is marking its 90th birthday by treating customers to birthday cookies on United’s flights departing from US airports. United's employees will share in special birthday cake at airports across the USA. For those not flying Wednesday, United is marking the occasion with a timeline of United's "firsts." There's also a video dubbed "United - 90 Years in One Minute," which shows all of the logos of United's (and Continental's) predecessor airlines coming together in just 60 seconds. "On our 90th birthday, I couldn't be more proud of our rich heritage and the exciting future ahead of United,” United CEO Oscar Munoz says . “I want to thank our customers for your loyalty over the years, and we look forward to serving you for many more as we continue to elevate our customer experience today and into the future."<br/>
As part of its overall efforts to perk up customer service, United announced this past November that it had inked a deal with Italian coffee roasting company illy to provide coffee in the United Clubs and – starting this summer – on board flights worldwide. Switching brews may seem like a small thing, given the carrier’s rebuild-the-brand challenge, but “coffee is a disproportionately noticeable small thing,” said travel analyst Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research. “One of United’s greatest traveler-facing mistakes was ending its relationship with Starbucks and replacing it with the awful coffee Continental served," Harteveldt added. With the Continental/United merger now completed and the food on-board and in the lounges “reinvented globally,” Jeff Pelch, United’s senior manager of product strategy and implementation, said that “now it was time to do the same thing with the coffee. To be honest, our customers demanded it.” United didn’t just get a catalog and pick a new coffee supplier, said Pelch. Instead, it put its corporate nose to the grindstone – almost literally – to make a decision. Staff from United and illy conducted in-flight coffee brewing and taste tests. And, as part of a newly-forged partnership, illy is building a United-dedicated production line at its headquarters in Trieste, Italy, where it will roast and package the 50 tons of coffee United will need each month once the coffee begins being served on United flights this July.<br/>
Singapore Airlines has lifted its stake in Virgin Australia amid uncertainty over the future ownership of the Australian carrier. The move comes as The Australian Financial Review's Street Talk column on Thursday reported SIA was viewed as the most likely buyer of Air New Zealand's 25.9% stake in Virgin. In an announcement to the Singapore Stock Exchange on Wednesday evening, the Singaporean carrier said it now owned 23.11% of Virgin, up from 22.91% previously. SIA said it had elected to physically settle a series of equity swaps it had entered into with a counter-party at a cost of $3.18m, or 46.72¢ a share. That represents a significant premium to Virgin's closing price of 35.5¢ on Wednesday. Singapore Airlines is the third-largest shareholder in Virgin behind Air NZ with 25.9% and Etihad Airways with 25.1%. As of January, SIA had Foreign Investment Review Board approval for a stake of 25.9%. It is unknown whether it has sought approvals for an even higher stake.<br/>
TAP Portugal will be the first airline to fly the Airbus A330neo, the latest version of the plane maker's current generation of wide-body jets. The aircraft, an updated and more fuel-efficient version of the A330 with Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines, is due to enter service in late 2017. TAP ordered 14 of the jets as part of a wider fleet update last year. The Portuguese airline will also be the first to have a new cabin layout called "Airspace," being showcased at an industry event in Hamburg this week. The design allows airlines to add more seats, Airbus said last month. Airbus launched the 250-300 seat A330neo in 2014 partly to plug a gap left by disappointing sales of the smallest version of its newer A350 series.<br/>