ANA Holdings will lease 4 Boeing 737-800 aircraft while it awaits delayed deliveries of the country's first commercial aircraft in 50 years, the 90-seat Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), a senior executive said. ANA had no plans to cancel its order for 25 of the Japanese-designed jetliners, said Yuji Hirako, who took up the role of president and CE of ANA April 1. The aircraft will be leased from BOC Aviation Limited and SMBC Aviation Capital. The MRJ was delayed for 2 more years in January to redesign its wiring, with first delivery now set for 2020. The latest holdup is the fifth since development began 10 years ago. To tackle the delays, ANA previously said it would push back the retirement of older Boeing 737-500 aircraft and buy 3 DHC-8-Q400 aircraft from Bombardier. <br/>
star
Avianca Brasil will begin its first intercontinental service from São Paulo Guarulhos (GRU) to Miami, Florida June 23, followed by daily GRU-Santiago de Chile flights in July. Miami will be the first US destination and the second outside of Brazil, in addition to Bogota, Colombia. Avianca Brasil has operated freighter service to Miami since 2015. The new routes will be operated with Avianca Brasil’s first widebody aircraft, the Airbus A330-200. The carrier it has taken delivery of its first A330 configured with 32 business-class and 206 economy-class seats. A second aircraft is expected to be delivered shortly. Avianca Brasil president Frederico Pedreira said recently that the carrier has “grown by 15% in 2016, and we will continue to grow in 2017, but likely less than this year,” he said, adding he does not have high hopes for 2017. <br/>
Ethiopian Airlines and SIA will expand their codeshare agreement as of June 1, offering customers seamless connectivity between Africa and Asia. Ethiopian Airlines’ daily nonstop services to Singapore from Addis Ababa, scheduled to be launched in June, will be covered by the expanded codeshare. Under the deal, Ethiopian customers will be able to access multiple destinations in Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam across SIA’ network. In turn, SIA customers will have access to Ethiopian’s intra-African network including Botswana, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, The Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The two airlines began codesharing on flights to and from Dubai in 2011. <br/>