Lufthansa will phase out its last Boeing 737 on Oct. 29 after completing a flight from Milan to Frankfurt. The German airline’s last aircraft, a 737-300, marks a historical move as the Boeing twin-engine narrowbody has been in service for nearly 50 years. Lufthansa became the launch customer for the type Feb. 19, 1965 when it ordered 22 737-100s. The 737 received FAA certification Dec. 12, 1967 and the first aircraft was delivered for crew training Dec. 27, nearly two weeks later. The first scheduled flights were domestic. The original Lufthansa 737-100 fleet operated 643,048 hours and made 836,446 takeoffs and landings before it was phased out Feb. 25, 1982. The Lufthansa 737 fleet completed nearly 5.5 million landings. Lufthansa is replacing its 737s with an all-Airbus A320 family fleet.<br/>
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A Singapore Airlines flight from Milan to Singapore was grounded for more than 24 hours due to a "technical issue". SQ377 was scheduled to depart from Milan's Malpensa Airport at 1pm on Friday when it "encountered a technical issue while the aircraft was still on the ground", a spokesperson for the airline said. "As the engineers on ground required more time to fix the issue, a decision was made to delay the flight and passengers disembarked normally," SIA said. Some passengers contacted Singapore Airlines via its Facebook page to express their frustrations. A spokesperson for SIA said hotel accommodation and meals were arranged for affected passengers. The flight was rescheduled to depart from Milan at 2pm on Saturday. <br/>