Xiamen Airlines said it has seen passenger numbers fall by up to a fifth on flights to South Korea since a recent flare up in diplomatic tensions between the two countries. The tensions are over the deployment of a US missile system outside Seoul, which China has urged South Korea to halt. Xiamen Airlines' chairman Che Shanglun said Thursday that the carrier was seeing Chinese travellers cancel or postpone trips to South Korea. The airline flies daily to Seoul and Jeju Island in South Korea. "We haven't reduced flights, but passenger numbers have fallen ... by about 10-20% daily," Che said. "Some people are automatically thinking, the current situation is not good, there is discrimination there against us, so we shouldn't go ... The recent actions of (the South Korean govt) have hurt many Chinese citizens." <br/>
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Delta Air Lines CE Ed Bastian Thursday sounded an optimistic note for 2017 earnings and said he expects to meet soon with the company's newest and biggest investor, billionaire Warren Buffett. Two months ago Delta announced last year's record-breaking performance, but noted that higher fuel prices and wage costs could weigh on margins during the March quarter before they expand again in the second half of the year. "The numbers are sound ... we are on a good trajectory," Bastian said, forecasting that the company's full year pre-tax income could be around US$6b, roughly matching last year's number. The company paid out $1.1b to employees in profit sharing in February and expects to see a further reduction in its debt load. <br/>
Alitalia will cease all flights from the southern Italian city of Reggio di Calabria in a move that will remove the majority of services from the city’s airport. From March 27, the carrier said it will halt its 56 weekly flights from Aeroporto dello Stretto, which serves Reggio on the “toe” of Italy. Alitalia said its flights—38X-weekly to Rome Fiumicino, 14X-weekly to Milan Linate and 4X-weekly to Turin—were heavily loss-making, turning in a deficit of E6m (US$6.4m) in 2016. It had tried for a year to find a way to maintain the services, but talks involving the Italian central govt and local and regional authorities had been unsuccessful. “We are a commercially focused business and our decisions are made for economic reasons,” Alitalia CE Cramer Ball said. “The Reggio Calabria services are losing money and that situation simply could not continue.” <br/>
China Eastern Airlines CE Ma Xulun will call on Beijing to formulate legislation for China’s air space management to meet the country’s fast-growing market demands when he attends the annual National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference this week. According to Ma’s proposal, China has lacked basic air space management legislation for a long time and the current model—which is mainly dominated by the military and characterised by solid usage and static management—has seriously restricted the development of China’s air transport industry. In addition, he said China’s air transport growth potential has reached “the ceiling” of air service supportability. Ma also said the govt organisations responsible for air space management in China are currently under-regulated. <br/>