The world's longest commercial flight landed in New Zealand on Monday with the arrival of Qatar Airways' 14,535-kilometre Doha-Auckland service, the airline announced. "We've officially landed in Auckland," the airline tweeted as flight QR920 landed at 7.25am (2.25am Singapore time), five minutes ahead of schedule after a 16 hours 23 minutes flight. The long-range Boeing 777-200LR crossed 10 time zones on its marathon flight. The return service will take 17 hours and 30 minutes – the world's longest. Qatar Airways noted the flight was longer than the entire "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies which were filmed in New Zealand. There were four pilots on board as well as 15 cabin crew who served 1,100 cups of tea and coffee, 2,000 cold drinks and 1,036 meals during the flight. In keeping with international tradition to welcome inaugural flights, the Auckland airport rescue service showered the plane with water cannons on arrival. New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay said the estimated economic impact of the new service "will be well in excess" of NZ$50m with the increased freight capacity provided.<br/>
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India's Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has suspended the licence of market leader IndiGo’s aviation security training facility for alleged lapses in the examination system conducted by it. The orders issued by the apex aviation security agency, BCAS, last week reportedly bar the airline from conducting security training programme for its employees any further. BCAS has also issued a show cause notice to the centre seeking an explanation. IndiGo has about 40% of the market share. BCAS chief Kumar Rajesh Chandra was quoted by news agencies as saying, “There was a complete breach of trust. What they did was without informing the BCAS, from April-May 2016 onwards, they (the training centre) changed from computer-based to pen and paper examination.” After looking at the examination results, BCAS found that for as many as eight batches, all the candidates got over 95% marks, he said. Each batch has around 35 to 40 people. As this aroused suspicion, Chandra said, an inspection was conducted and it was found that the centre was “repeating the same set of question papers and so there was a leak of questions”. “So, naturally, there was no training. This is what they were doing. That is why their licence has been suspended.” Sources said the lapses at the centre was a serious issue.<br/>
Officials say a Hawaiian Airlines jet carrying 130 people was forced this week to avoid a small plane that was taking off without clearance. The FAA said Friday it launched an investigation and that the much smaller Cessna was taking off without clearance. FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said in an email the incident happened Wednesday morning when the Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 717 was taking off from Kahului Airport on Maui. A controller noticed the two planes taking off on runways that intersect and told the Cessna to turn left to avoid the jet. Controllers then alerted the Hawaiian jet, but the plane's pilot was already turning right to avoid a collision. A Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman gave flight information but declined further comment. Flight 155 landed safely in Honolulu.<br/>
Bill Franke, one of the world’s most-influential investors in budget airlines, has debuted a low cost carrier in Chile that aims to expand regionally in the coming years. Franke, the co-founder and managing partner of the airline-focused investment fund Indigo Partners, said the new carrier JetSmart plans to operate three Airbus A320s this year in Chile and add another six in 2018. Once established in Chile, JetSmart will eye regional expansion, he said. "We haven’t gotten to that yet, but we have a lot of interest expressed by other countries," Franke said after the debut in Santiago at the weekend. "We need to get the base of operations here, stabilise the airline … and then we will expand the airline." Franke’s Indigo Partners, which already controls Frontier Airlines and owns part of Mexico’s Volaris, is known for unbundled or a la carte fares in so-called ultra-low-cost airlines, where passengers are offered cheap base prices with the option of paying more for extras. Indigo Partners is also in talks to acquire part of Canada’s Enerjet, and Franke said the fund was currently talking with regulators to better understand foreign ownership rules.<br/>