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Air France-KLM management unveiled details Thursday for a new long-haul budget unit it hopes will allow it to regain market share. Air France said the new unit will begin flying this year on medium-haul routes before long-haul service is added in 2018. The service will operate from its Charles de Gaulle hub in Paris. Air France CE Franck Terner said the airline aims to have 20% lower cost. Air France is one of a number of European network carriers setting up budget long-haul units at a time of falling fares and stiff competition. Lufthansa’s Eurowings unit already flies trans-Atlantic and to Asia. BA parent International Consolidated Airlines Group SA in December announced plans for a Barcelona-based long-haul discount unit. It is due to start service in June. The new units are intended to help network carriers regain traffic lost to rapidly expanding Middle East carriers and compete against airlines such as low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle, which has branched out into long-haul service. To deliver lower costs, Air France plans to hire about 1,000 cabin crew under new contracts. The new carrier will use Air France pilots. To help generate savings, all pilots, not just those serving the new unit, will be asked to fly 1.5% more hours, an Air France spokesman said. Air France on Thursday presented the plan to pilots belonging to its main unions in the hope of gaining an agreement by Feb. 24. The airline indicated it would be willing to extend the period if unions want to consult their members. The pilot unions have largely been opposed to Air France’s multiyear effort to lower costs through restructuring efforts.<br/>

Emirates has accused Delta of harming its operations by refusing it a spare part for its aircraft in the US, stoking tensions between US and Gulf carriers feuding over state subsidies. The Emirates flight from Seattle was delayed by more than six hours on Feb. 2, while it searched for the minor hydraulic part that needed replacing, an Emirates spokeswoman said. Delta confirmed the incident, but said "this was the last spare part of its kind in our Seattle inventory and, according to policy, was kept on hand to ensure coverage for Delta's own operation". "Having the right spare parts in the right places and in ample quantity is critical to ensuring a reliable airline operation for our customers," Delta spokesman Michael Thomas said. The hydraulic system part was initially fitted to the Emirates Boeing 777 by local engineers who had obtained the part from Delta, the Emirates spokeswoman said. However, at the request of a "senior manager" at Delta's headquarters in Atlanta the part was removed and returned just before passengers boarded resulting in a further delay, the spokeswoman said. "It is sad, in our view, that any airline would deny such standard, technical assistance to another carrier based on orders from headquarters that had nothing to do with maintenance or cost but seem clearly to have been intended to inflict harm on the airline and its customers," the Emirates spokeswoman said. It is common practice for airlines to loan parts to carriers away from their main base, Emirates said. Delta denied it had tried to obstruct the flight.<br/>

The Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel Agents (ASITA) has announced that its members will boycott national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia over its intention to reduce commissions paid to travel agents. ASITA chairman Asnawi Bahar stated that the airline’s commission from ticket sales would be cut from 7 to 5% for international flights and 5 to 3% for domestic flights. “We will boycott Garuda nationally because its wants to decrease the commission significantly. It’s already very hard for agents with the current competition with online travel agents,” he said Thursday. The travel agents will also file a protest with the government.<br/>

A threat that caused an American Airlines flight to be diverted to St. Louis has been deemed not credible by law enforcement, though the incident prompted an FBI investigation and use of bomb-sniffing dogs. Flight 534 left Columbus, Ohio, and was heading for Phoenix when it landed at Lambert Airport at 8:14 a.m. Thursday. The FBI says the pilot decided to divert the plane, but spokeswoman Rebecca Wu declined to say what specifically led to that decision. The 113 passengers and five crew members were taken by bus to the terminal while dogs examined the plane and baggage. Wu says there was no credible threat.<br/>