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United Continental told lawmakers it secured an average of 16 volunteers for every passenger it had to involuntarily bump last year from a flight, in response to questions following the now-notorious flight to Louisville when a passenger was dragged off a plane. CE Oscar Munoz told four members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in a letter it released late Wednesday how it historically handled overbooked flights. The committee is probing the incident and sent questions to United and Chicago’s Aviation Department. The House transportation committee plans to hold a hearing on the incident on May 2. United, which has already announced some changes to its passenger policies in an effort to prevent a repeat of the incident, is expected to release on Thursday details of an internal review into the incident in which police dragged 69-year-old Dr David Dao off the plane in Chicago after he refused to give up his seat to accommodate the last-minute boarding of four crew members slated to operate a flight from Louisville the next day. Munoz said in the letter to the lawmakers that the airline involuntarily denied boarding to 3,765 passengers last year, almost all of them before they were on the aircraft, but secured a large number of volunteers for each seat in return for compensation such as vouchers. Story has further details.<br/>

BOC Aviation said Thursday it would buy two Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from Turkish Airlines for an undisclosed sum as the aircraft lessor builds its balance sheet by investing in in-demand aircraft. The aircraft, which will be leased back to the airline, have an aggregate full life current market appraised value of about $322 million, the Hong Kong-listed firm said in a filing to the stock exchange. BOC Aviation, which operates a fleet of 494 aircraft, will fund the deal through cash on hand, loans and other borrowings. The deal is expected to be completed in April. The deal came about a month after BOC Aviation bought two Boeing 747-8 freighter aircraft for an aggregate list price of US$758.2m.<br/>

South African Airways Wednesday cancelled nearly three dozen flights, most of them domestic, because of a strike by some cabin crew. The national carrier doesn't have enough crewmembers to operate all its flights and is working to help passengers affected by cancellations and delays, the airline said. It said 32 flights, including 28 domestic ones, were cancelled. About 200 striking flight attendants protested outside the head office of South African Airways in Johannesburg, the African News Agency reported. Members of a union, the South African Cabin Crew Association, want more money for meals when working outside South Africa. They say their international meal allowances have not increased in the past six years, they stay in hotels where food is expensive and their spending power has diminished because of the depreciation of the South African currency. Currently, cabin crewmembers get a meal allowance of $130 per trip. Union treasurer Gift Bilankulu said protesters want $170, but are willing to negotiate.<br/>

Air New Zealand beefed up domestic capacity in the face of rising passenger numbers, particularly on Auckland-to-Queenstown routes which showed up in higher domestic passenger movements in Auckland International Airport's latest figures. Auckland-based Air NZ increased passenger numbers 5.2% to 1.61m in March from the same month a year earlier and expanded its available seat kilometres (ASK) 4.1% to 4,057m, it said in a monthly investor update. Of that, domestic passenger numbers climbed 8.3% to 1.09m and ASK climbed 7.9% to 672m, which Air NZ said was due to "increased services on Auckland-Queenstown and the main trunk routes, as well as growth on the regional routes resulting from up-gauging to larger aircraft." Auckland Airport's monthly traffic figures show domestic passenger movements rose 8.4% to 807,401 in March, outpacing a 6.6% gain in international passengers excluding transits to 397,706. Domestic aircraft movements increased 6.3% to 10,549. Queenstown airport, which is quarter-owned by Auckland Airport, posted an 11% increase in domestic passenger numbers in March to 132,086, even as domestic plane movements slipped 1.6% to 959. The airline's update shows domestic passenger numbers have climbed 5.8% to 7.86m in the nine months to March 31, and ASK has expanded 7.6% to 4,999m, outpacing the group's 4.1%t increase in passenger numbers to 12.1m and a 6.5% capacity expansion to 32,408m ASK.<br/>