Southwest Airlines’ website failed Tuesday, blocking access to booking and flight check-in tools in a busy holiday travel week. The carrier said it was making progress in fixing the disruption and was getting reports of successful transactions and online check-in attempts around 5:45 pm New York time. The failure affected all customers but didn’t have any impact on flights, the carrier said. “Recovery is underway,” the company said. Southwest told passengers via Twitter to check in using airport kiosks or ticket counters. The site was back online in at least some markets by the late afternoon. Southwest was one of 3 US airlines that suffered a similar disruption Oct 17 when technical difficulties with Sabre computer systems prevented reservations from being made on websites. <br/>
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A Bolivian govt investigation into the plane crash that killed dozens of Brazilian soccer players last month concluded that a Bolivian airline and pilot were directly responsible, Public Works minister Milton Claros said Tuesday. The pilot, Miguel Quiroga, was one of 71 people killed when a plane operated by the Bolivia-based charter apparently ran out of fuel and crashed on a wooded hillside near the Colombian city Medellin. Quiroga was also a co-owner of the airline. "LaMia and the pilot are directly responsible for what happened with this tragic event," Claros, who oversees Bolivia's aviation authority, said. Gustavo Vargas Gamboa, LaMia's CE, was jailed pending trial earlier this month on manslaughter and other charges. He has denied the charges. <br/>
Hong Kong Airlines plans to accelerate its intercontinental expansion with the scheduled delivery of its first Airbus A350 in Aug 2017. In 2010, the carrier ordered 15 A350s, which will be introduced starting from 2017, and 10 A330s that were delivered starting from 2012. It also placed an order for 9 more A330s in Sept 2016. The carrier expects to open new routes to Vancouver; London; New York; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Paris; Melbourne, Australia; Sydney; Milan; Chicago; and Christchurch, New Zealand, between 2017-20. The carrier opened 2 intercontinental routes (Hong Kong-Gold Coast-Keynes and Hong Kong-Auckland) earlier this year. CCO Li Dianchun said the carrier can utilise sixth-freedom rights to attract more of China’s mainland passengers, to maintain a high load factor that is expected to reach 82% this year. <br/>
Arik Air has resumed operations after a Dec 20 meeting called by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) addressed concerns between the airline and protesting aviation unions. Earlier in the day, the carrier said a group of aviation unions had disrupted operations by “occupying” its headquarters and blocking access to both the offices and the terminal at Lagos. “Access to the airport terminals is fundamental to the airline’s operations for movement of its personnel to ready and dispatch our aircraft for various flights,” Arik said, adding that check-in for its domestic and international flights had been disabled. Arik Air has been hit by a raft of operational problems, including fuel shortages, industrial action and one of its Airbus A330s being put out of service by a ground handling incident. <br/>
Flybe has named the former head of Irish regional CityJet, Christine Ourmieres-Widener, as its next CE and has secured slots to launch services from London Heathrow. The airline has scooped up valuable Heathrow slots as a competition remedy from IAG’s 2011 acquisition of bmi, which has since been merged into British Airways. Flybe will use the slots to launch 2 new Scottish links from Terminal 2: a 6X-weekly Heathrow-Aberdeen route and a 9X-weekly Heathrow-Edinburgh service. Both will launch March 26. Flybe, which already flies from London City Airport, said this is the first time it has operated from Heathrow. “The slots will not be purchased by Flybe and will therefore not be brought onto the balance sheet,” the airline said. Flybe used to operate from London Gatwick, but sold its slot portfolio to EasyJet in 2014. <br/>
Norwegian is examining the possibility of setting up operations in Argentina. While cautioning that discussions were still at an early stage, the carrier confirmed Dec 20 that it was looking at the possibility of setting up one or more bases in the South American nation, which has the continent’s third-largest economy. “As an ambitious airline with a huge aircraft order, we have made no secret of our plans to expand our operation to other parts of the world, including South America,” a Norwegian spokesperson said. Late last week, another Norwegian spokesman said that the airline was considering Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Mendoza as sites for bases and was looking at both domestic and international services. He was quoted as saying the airline could station between 6 and 10 aircraft there. <br/>