French marine wreckage specialists ALSEAMAR will join the hunt for the data recorders from EgyptAir flight MS804, the head of Egypt's air accident investigations said. A week after the Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean, investigators have no clear picture of its final moments. Search teams are working against the clock to recover the flight recorders, because the signals that help locate them in deep water cease transmitting after about 30 days. Negotiations were also underway to contract a second firm to search more than one area at once. ALSEAMAR has worked with Egyptian investigators before. In 2004, it joined the search for black boxes after a Boeing 737 belonging to Egypt's Flash Air crashed in the Red Sea near Sharm el-Sheikh. <br/>
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HNA Group will buy an initial 7% stake in Atlantic Gateway, a private consortium that owns 50% of TAP Portugal. This could raise a stake that could reach up to 20% of the carrier, a TAP spokesperson said. Meanwhile, the Portuguese govt increased its stake in TAP Portugal to 50% last week. May 20, Portugal’s new Socialist govt signed an agreement to partially review privatisation of the airline. The spokesperson said HNA will take a 7% minority stake in Atlantic Gateway. “On the other hand, HNA is due to enter into Azul’s share-capital, which has subscribed bonds in TAP that may be converted into shares, should that happen in the future. If so, this could mean HNA may come to have an indirect participation in TAP via Azul [up to 13%]. In the end, and putting both together, it could go up to 20% in the whole,” Palma said. <br/>
United Airlines will stop flying to Nigeria next month, ending the carrier’s only route to Africa because of weakness in the energy sector and difficulties in collecting money from tickets sold in that country. The daily route from Houston to Lagos had underachieved for years but was kept alive because of its importance to Texas-based customers, United Continental said in Wednesday. The last flight will be June 30, after which Delta Air Lines will be the only major US carrier flying to Africa. Nigeria has restricted the amount of money that can be moved abroad after the global slump in oil prices depleted the govt’s US currency reserves. “Repatriation has been a significant issue, as has been the downturn in the energy sector,” said a United spokesman. <br/>
Aegean Airlines widened its loss in Q1 of 2016 compared to the same period a year earlier as sales grew 7.0%. Aegean reported a net loss of E21.5m in the first 3 months of the year versus a loss of E8.3m in the same period last year. Domestic passenger traffic grew 6% in January-to-March to 1.05m passengers and by 9% on flights abroad, the airline said. "We concluded the delivery of new aircraft and started the year with a significantly larger fleet. As we grow and domestic demand remains weak in the winter we will depend more on how the summer season fares," Aegean's CE Dimitris Gerogiannis said. <br/>