The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a $3.45m payout from Asiana Airlines to settle the city’s claim from an airport crash that killed three people and injured nearly 200. City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Wednesday called the proposed settlement “the final chapter in the sad tragedy” caused when Asiana Flight 214 clipped a seawall on an approach to San Francisco International Airport and burst into flames on the runway July 6, 2013. About $1.2m of the settlement will go toward the city’s legal costs and another $1.6m to the airport for damages stemming from the crash. The settlement also calls for Asiana to compensate San Francisco’s aviation insurer. Representatives for the South Korean airliner could not immediately be reached for comment. US safety investigators blamed the pilots, saying they bungled the landing approach. But the NTSB also faulted the complexity of the Boeing 777’s auto-throttle and auto-flight director, as well as use materials provided by Chicago-based Boeing. The proposed settlement is scheduled to be heard in committee before it goes to the full board for approval.<br/>
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SAS advanced as much as 7.2% following a report that Lufthansa is in talks about buying a stake in the tri-national carrier. SAS rose 1.7 kronor to 25.30 kronor, the biggest gain in two months, before closing 5.5% higher at 24.90 kronor in Stockholm, where it is based. That takes the stock into positive territory for the year, with a 2% increase, and gives the company a market value of 8.22b kronor ($1b). Lufthansa has been in negotiations about a possible investment in SAS since the fall, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing people close to the German company it didn’t identify. Alternative options include a partnership or some other kind of cooperation, it said.<br/>SAS returned to full-year profit in 2015, with pretax earnings of 1.17b kronor, aided by cost cuts and a sharper focus on business travel as it seeks to stem a loss of market share to discount carriers on short-haul routes and European and Persian Gulf network operators in the long-haul sector.<br/>
SIA has a decision to make: throw more cash at Virgin Australia, which has burned up shareholder wealth in four of the past five years, or risk an unwelcome rival muscling in. A power-sharing agreement at Australia’s second-largest airline -- owned almost equally by Air New Zealand, Etihad Airways and Singapore Air -- unexpectedly fractured last month when the New Zealand carrier said it was considering putting its stake up for sale. Singapore Air and Etihad may have to increase their holdings or jointly buy the stake so neither gains an edge. Air New Zealand’s 25.9% stake in Virgin Australia is worth about $249m, a fraction of Singapore Air’s $3.2b in cash. “Arguably Virgin Australia hasn’t been a good investment for everyone,” said Brendan Sobie, a Singapore-based analyst at CAPA Centre for Aviation. “But strategically for Singapore Air, a case can be made that they would need to increase their stake.” The bigger question is whether the stock is worth buying after years of meager returns. While a purchase could lock out a foreign competitor, injecting more funds would drain cash from Singapore Air’s faster-growing markets like India and China. Virgin Australia, dominated at home by Qantas, last month had to borrow money from its major investors to see it through a balance sheet review. <br/>
Singapore Airlines has, for the first time, hired women to fly its planes. Two of them joined last August during the last intake of cadet pilots. Their training - in Singapore and Australia - will take between two and three years, after which they will be rostered for commercial flights. SIA spokesman Nicholas Ionides confirmed the hiring but said no target has been set for the number of women pilots to be hired. The airline has about 2,000 pilots. "We will recruit whoever is the most qualified," he said. SIA is the last Singapore passenger carrier - and quite possibly major global airline - to hire women pilots. The group's regional arm SilkAir and long-haul budget unit Scoot already have women flying their planes. Low-cost carriers Jetstar Asia and Tigerair also have women at the cockpit controls.<br/>
Etihad Airways said Wednesday it has signed a code-share agreement with South American airline Avianca on flights to Bogota, the capital of Columbia. Etihad will code-share on Avianca flights from London and Madrid to Bogota while Avianca will code-share on Etihad flights to Abu Dhabi from London and Madrid, according to a statement from the airline. Members of the two airline’s frequent flyer programmes will be able to earn points on the other carrier’s code-share flights from May 2016, according to the statement.<br/>