ANA airline group has become a new member of what has been billed as the world's largest low-cost carrier alliance. The inclusion of ANA's full-service airline and its budget carrier subsidiary Vanilla Air into the Value Alliance (VA) was made possible after parent ANA Holdings took a 15% stake in Air Black Box Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, a joint venture founded by Singapore's long-haul low-cost carrier Scoot, Thailand's Nok Air and VaultPAD Ventures. The latter provides cloud-based airline passenger software platforms, which are instrumental to VA's move to connect diverse member airlines and cooperate in business. The entry of ANA Holdings into VA strengthens the alliance's footprint. It also represents the first time VA has embraced a full-service airline, as the group had previously consisted entirely of no-frills operators. ANA Holdings' admission to alliance also comes as Philippines-based budget airline group Cebu Air acquired a 15% stake in the joint venture, according to Nok Air executives. Together with ANA group, VA now includes Scoot, Nok Air, NokScoot, Tigerair Singapore, Tigerair Australia, Cebu Pacific, Cebgo, Jeju Air, Vanilla Air and ANA. <br/>
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SIA has announced plans to introduce its new types of aircraft on its Indian routes, beginning from 2017. The flag carrier of Singapore will be launching Airbus A350 services in India in 2017, while its yet-to-be inducted Boeing 787-10X is expected to be coming to India in 2018. Currently, the airline operates a fleet of Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 aircraft in India, a few of which, will be replaced by the said new planes, once the latter get inducted into serviced routes. “Today, the all-wide-body fleet of Singapore Airlines boasts of 105 aircraft — 34 777s, 19 A380s, 26 A330s, and six A350s. In totality, we’ve ordered 67 A350 aircraft, of which, 20 aircraft would be inducted into our fleet by the end of the next financial year. In terms of the Boeing 787-10X, we’ve ordered 30 planes, which are yet to come on board,” SIA GM (India) David Lim said. <br/>
Forty-one passengers were removed from a Brussels Airlines flight before it took off from Brussels on Saturday, because the passengers were being “unruly” and “aggressive” toward members of the crew, a spokeswoman for the airline told ABC News. The flight took off without the passengers, at least some of whom “had been drinking,” en route to Alicante, Spain, according to Kim Daenen, a Brussels Airlines spokeswoman. “During taxiing, there were a few passengers who were being unruly and also aggressive toward our crew,” Daenen said. All of the passengers were part of the same group, which had all been booked together on the flight, SN3771, she said. “The captain asked for them to stay calm,” but they didn’t listen, she said. So before taking off, she said, “the captain decided to go back to the gate. … We had to think of the comfort of the other passengers." She would not give any more details about the passengers.<br/>
The crew of Aer Lingus has swallowed its pride and donned All Blacks tops after losing a bet to Air New Zealand. The two airlines made a public pact before yesterday's Ireland v New Zealand rematch in Dublin - betting that the losing nation's national carrier would wear the winning side's rugby jersey. It came after a back-and-forth between the two airlines' Twitter accounts ahead of the big game, which saw Ireland lose 9-21 on home turf at Dublin's Aviva Stadium.The airlines sparred over Twitter, throwing out some interesting proposals - from boarding passes and in-flight magazine covers, to airport revamps. They finally settled on a cabin crew uniform change if their side lost. Monday Aer Lingus posted a short video of Air New Zealand crew handing over All Blacks tops for them to wear. The four crew members in the video smile and hold them up - however forced the smiles appear. But the airline said it all when it posted: "A deal is a deal."<br/>