There were no survivors after a plane carrying 47 people crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan on Wednesday, the airline's chairman said, as recovery operations continued late into the night at the remote crash site. The military said 40 bodies had been recovered and rescue efforts involved about 500 soldiers, doctors and paramedics. The bodies were shifted to the Ayub Medical Centre in nearby Abbottabad, about 20km (12 miles) away. "There are no survivors, no one has survived," said Muhammad Azam Saigol, the chairman for Pakistan International Airlines. PIA-operated flight PK661, which crashed en route from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad. Junaid Jamshed, a well-known Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim cleric, was among those feared dead, an airline official said. PIA said the captain of the flight had reported losing power in one engine minutes before its plane lost contact with the control tower en route to the capital. The airline said the plane crashed at 4:42 pm local time (1142 GMT) in the Havelian area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, about 40km (25 miles) north of Islamabad. Chitral, where the flight originated, is a popular tourist destination in Pakistan. Saigol said the ATR turboprop aircraft had undergone regular maintenance and in October had passed an "A-check" maintenance certification, performed after every 500 flight hours. He said a full investigation of the crash, involving international agencies, would be conducted.<br/>
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Alaska Air Group Wednesday said it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by private plaintiffs that opposed its merger with Virgin America on antitrust grounds, removing the last big obstacle in the way of its planned deal. The suit was filed in September in US District Court in San Francisco on behalf of 42 fliers and travel agents. The judge had set a trial date for Dec. 12 but ordered a mandatory settlement conference and pretrial hearing on Wednesday. Terms of the settlement weren't disclosed. Alaska Air said it looks forward to closing the transaction "in the very near future." Alaska Air has raised $1.5b in financing for the acquisition of San Francisco-based Virgin American, and already has booked $36m in one-time merger expenses as it worked since the deal was announced in April to prepare for it and attain Justice Department approval. The consumer lawsuit was led by Joseph Alioto, a San Francisco antitrust lawyer who has filed similar complaints on behalf of individual plaintiffs in other big airline mergers in recent years.<br/>
Emirates said it struck a deal to accept deliveries of A380 jets powered by Rolls-Royce Holdings engines after the UK manufacturer agreed to fund measures to address performance and maintenance concerns. Emirates will take the first double-decker with Trent 900 engines from Rolls-Royce on Dec. 16, two weeks later than planned, in light of an agreement involving both technical and commercial elements, Tim Clark, the airline’s president, said Wednesday in London. “There were some issues on performance, but we’ve come to a satisfactory conclusion,” Clark said. “Rolls are taking care of everything, so we are neutral to the repercussions.” Emirates, the biggest operator of the A380, is due to take receipt of 50 of the Airbus Group SE planes equipped with Rolls-Royce engines after switching from the competing GP7000 turbine manufactured by an alliance of General Electric and Pratt & Whitney, which powered its first 90 aircraft. Clark said the engine malady involved a “higher intervention rate” in maintaining the Rolls engines, understood to involve unanticipated levels of wear to fan blades stemming from their deployment in Dubai’s desert climate. Rolls-Royce said that it’s working with Emirates and Airbus on getting the A380s into service.<br/>
Lufthansa named Thorsten Dirks, the CE of Telefonica Deutschland, to its management board to lead the expansion of budget unit Eurowings, which is rapidly building its presence in Europe thanks to recent deals. Dirks replaces long-time Lufthansa manager Karl Ulrich Garnadt, who is retiring because he is turning 60 in January. Eurowings is Lufthansa's answer to regain market share lost to low-cost rivals such as Ryanair and easyJet. Its aim to become Europe's third largest point-to-point carrier will be reached ahead of time should it successfully complete planned deals to lease up to 40 planes and their crew from ailing rival Air Berlin and take over Brussels Airlines.<br/>
A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Houston from Dallas turned back landing after a cockpit warning indicated a pressurization issue. The emergency was the second in as many days for a Houston-bound Southwest flight. A statement from the carrier says Flight 43 had departed Dallas Love Field with 143 passengers and five crew members aboard about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. That's when the problem arose and the pilot determined to return to Love for a landing 45 minutes later. The Boeing 737 landed safely and was removed from service for inspection. Meanwhile, another Boeing 737 was prepared to fly the passengers to Houston. On Tuesday, a flight was diverted to Jackson, Mississippi, after a loss of cabin pressure prompted the aircraft's oxygen masks to lower.<br/>
NokScoot is scaling down its fleet expansion plan as it adopts a more cautious approach to future growth. The medium-to-long-haul low-cost carrier plans to add two Boeing 777-200 jets by next October, instead of the seven aircraft it contemplated earlier this year for a single acquisition. NokScoot CE Piya Yodmani said that the airline's fleet enlargement is still on track but that just two aircraft will be acquired at a time to lessen capital tie-up and pressure to use additional capacity. In August this year, the Thai-registered joint venture of Thailand's Nok Air and Singapore's Scoot solicited interest from 30 parties, including airlines and lessors, to supply seven Boeing 777-200s to the fleet, currently comprising three aircraft of the same type, over the next two years. Those additional wide-body jets were meant to support an expedited plan, primarily geared towards tapping the Thailand-China traffic that constitutes almost all of NokScoot's turnover. But the Thai government's crackdown on "zero dollar" inbound tour scams has significantly slowed arrivals from China over the past four months, prompting tourism-related operators focused on the Chinese market to reassess their business strategy.<br/>