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Wreckage and bodies from a Myanmar military flight that had gone missing Wednesday afternoon have been discovered in the Andaman sea, the military has confirmed. Aircraft parts and the remains of two adults and a child, along with life jackets and luggage were discovered at 8:18 a.m. Thursday local time, 14 miles west of Kyauk Ni Maw in Rakhine state, the statement said. The recovery operation is ongoing. The plane, with 122 people on board, lost contact 29 minutes after taking off from the coastal town of Myeik. It was headed toward the capital of Yangon and part of a regularly scheduled military flight, a military spokesman said Wednesday. Of the 122 people on board, 108 were passengers and 14 were crew, Capt. Myat Min Oo said. Myanmar state media reported that 15 children and 58 civilian adults were among the passengers. Myanmar authorities lost contact with the plane at 1:35 p.m. local time. The plane was reportedly flying at an altitude of 18,000 feet.<br/>Nine Navy ships and three airplanes are searching for the plane in the Andaman Sea to the south of Yangon. The aircraft was a Chinese-made Shaanxi Y8-200F four-turboprop plane. It had recently been purchased and logged 809 flight hours.<br/>

Sir Tim Clark is sombre. Over the past decade, Emirates has become one of the most powerful forces in global aviation. Competitive pricing, superior service and its prime geographic position has seen the Gulf’s biggest carrier inflict financial pain on long-haul airlines in the US, Europe and Asia. But today it is the one facing pain. The economic slowdown in the Gulf triggered by the oil price collapse almost two years ago has sharply cut travel demand in the region. Its geography is no longer a positive, with the region facing overcapacity, while new US travel restrictions alongside the laptop ban have hit traffic further. Uncertainty also surrounds the severing of diplomatic ties and transport links by the United Arab Emirates, where the Dubai airline is based, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain with nearby Qatar over claims the Gulf state is fuelling extremism and terrorism. This is likely to hit Qatar Airways hardest, but it could have a negative knock-on effect on the region’s economy and Emirates’ business too. “We’ve just got to tough it out,” says Sir Tim, the airline’s president. “The business model is essentially a sound business model, but at the moment it’s challenged. For no reasons of our own, purely from geopolitical and socio-economic reasons.”<br/>

Philippine carrier Cebu Pacific has ordered seven A321ceos from Airbus to meet the low cost airline’s increased capacity needs as it delays delivery of A321neos. The new order for the Current Engine Option, worth US$812m at Airbus list prices, will be delivered from March 2018. Cebu has 32 A321neos on order for delivery from September 2017, but has deferred them to Q4 2018. It said the reschedule will give Pratt & Whitney time to work through issues on the power plants selected for the aircraft. “We have decided to take a conservative approach to the introduction of the A321neo into our operations. We remain confident that Pratt & Whitney will address all issues on the GTF (Geared Turbo Fan) engine,” Cebu’s CFO Andrew Huang said. “There is, however, the need to increase our current capacity to meet growing domestic and regional network demand, thus the A321ceo order,” he added. Cebu Air currently flies to 37 domestic and 26 international destinations with a fleet of 61 aircraft. It already flies forty Airbus A320-family aircraft.<br/>

Southwest boosted passenger traffic in May, with an increase of just over 3%. The LCC flew 11.3m revenue passengers in May, a 3.6% increase on the previous year period’s 10.9m. Traffic in revenue passenger miles was up 3.4% for the month, and with ASM capacity rising 4.0%, load factor fell 0.4 percentage points to 85.4%. Year to date numbers for the period to end May showed a 4.2% lift in revenue passengers carried to 51.9m. ASM capacity rose 4.8% in the five months, with RPM traffic lagging slightly with an increase of 4.4%. Load factor was 81.9%, a drop of 0.3 percentage points on the 2016 period. Southwest said that “based on these results and current trends, the Company continues to expect its second quarter 2017 operating revenue per ASM to increase in the one to two percent range, as compared with second quarter 2016.”<br/>

An aircraft scheduled to make a trans-Atlantic flight was damaged when a piece of ground equipment struck an engine in the gate area of Boston's airport, forcing passengers to spend the night on cots in a terminal. A spokeswoman for Logan International Airport said no injuries were reported late Tuesday night. Azores Airlines said the flight was canceled and the A310 jet is scheduled to be inspected Wednesday. The flight was headed to Ponta Delgada in the Azores, followed by Lisbon and Barcelona. The airline said because of the late hour, about 200 people had to stay in the terminal.<br/>