Eurowings Europe, which is adding 33 wet-leased Airberlin Airbus A320s to its fleet by the end of April, said the additional aircraft will create operational challenges for the carrier. Eurowings MD Michael Knitter said that one of several challenges facing the LCC is training Airberlin flight attendants to Eurowings standards. “We started cabin crew training on Jan 10. Airberlin needs 5 to 6 crews per aircraft. Also, at the same time, we have to bring together two different operations [Airberlin and Eurowings fleets] into the same traffic control centre,” Knitter said. Another challenge Eurowings faces is to sell additional seat capacity from the wet-leased fleet. “Eurowings is growing faster than the [European aviation] market itself,” Knitter said. <br/>
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A Germany-bound Eurowings passenger flight from Oman landed in Kuwait Sunday over a bomb threat but no explosives were found on board, authorities said. The Airbus A330 from Salalah heading to Cologne, Eurowings flight 117, landed Sunday morning in Kuwait City after the captain received word of the threat, said a spokesman for Kuwait's civil aviation authority. Security officials found no signs of explosives on the aircraft. The spokesman declined to discuss how the threat was made against the aircraft. Eurowings said there were 287 passengers and 10 crew members on board the plane, which was being flown by SunExpress on its behalf. Eurowings said the flight was a charter for tour company FTI. <br/>
Unions representing more than 100,000 airline workers are challenging the US govt’s decision to give a licence to Norwegian Air International that will allow it to fly from Cork and Shannon to Boston and New York. Washington’s DoT recently announced that it would permit Norwegian to fly to the US, paving the way for it to offer cheap transatlantic flights, including long-awaited services from Cork and Shannon. A number of trade unions which originally opposed Norwegian’s application for a foreign carrier’s permit have petitioned the US court of appeals to review the decision in a bid to have it reversed. The unions represent about 100,000 workers mostly in airlines and transport. They include the AFL-CIO, Airline Pilots’ Association, Association of Flight Attendants, and the Allied Pilots’ Association. <br/>
VietJet Air has gone from start-up to Vietnam's largest private airline in 5 years. Now it is pushing overseas to keep up that growth and absorb a bumper order of more than 200 planes: no easy task in a cutthroat southeast Asian market. The airline, which was set up in 2011, has tapped a rich vein - a fast-growing economy and a young population that was starting to travel more. But VietJet's next step will be more challenging, industry analysts and executives say, as it expands further beyond Vietnam into choked southeast Asia, competitive China or Russia, where VietJet's fleet of narrowbody jets would confine it to the country's east. Infrastructure in the region is clogged and new airport slots are rare. That has raised questions about VietJet's ability to absorb one of the region's largest aircraft orders. <br/>
A LAM Mozambique Boeing 737-700 that landed in Tete, Mozambique, Jan 5 with nose damage was not hit by an unmanned aerial vehicle, authorities in Mozambique have concluded. The aircraft was widely reported to have been in a possible drone collision as it approached the airport, but the evidence does not bear that out, the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (IACM) said. According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network, which cited IACM, the damage to the aircraft’s nose occurred because of structural failure to a radome caused by air flow pressure. The IACM said there was no sign of wreckage from a UAV, nor any evidence that one had been operating in the vicinity of the Tete Airport at the time. <br/>
Alaska Airlines Friday said that a non-toxic de-icer caused attendants to fall ill on a flight, triggering a hazardous material response when the plane landed in San Jose Thursday. The airline says 2 flight attendants reported feeling ill Thursday after a white powder fell from an air vent in the galley in the front of the plane. The flight attendants said they didn’t feel well and requested medics meet them after landing. One attendant was taken to a hospital to be evaluated. She has been released and reported feeling fine Friday, the airline said . The plane was removed from service and its ventilation system “will be thoroughly cleaned” before the aircraft is put back into service, the airline said. <br/>