Air Berlin says it has reached a cooperation agreement with JetBlue that will improve its customers' transfer options in the United States. Air Berlin CCO Goetz Ahmelmann said Friday that the deal is "only the beginning" of the two companies' cooperation and added that "we are working to extend our partnership in the coming months." The company said that cooperation will include the airlines' frequent flyer programs in the future. Air Berlin said that benefits for its customers center on transfer connections at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, JetBlue's hub. Air Berlin has struggled with losses over recent years but said in June that it had decided against applying for German government loan guarantees after making progress with restructuring efforts.<br/>
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Dramatic footage has been released of the moment when a plane was engulfed in flames shortly before taking off Chicago last October. Miraculously nobody was seriously hurt when the right-hand side of the American Airlines caught fire. The blaze started when the plane, a Boeing 767, blew a tire shortly before take off on a flight to Miami. Within seconds part of the plane was in flames after debris smashed through fuel lines to one of the engines. The pilot aborted the takeoff and terrified passengers fled for safety, with some seen dragging their luggage across the grass verge by the runway. Emergency escape chutes were deployed and the 161 passengers and nine crew were evacuated two minutes and 21 seconds after the plane had come to a complete stop. Video posted online at the time showed passengers coming down an emergency slide, and running away from the tarmac as black smoke billowed from the plane. It is estimated that more than 2,000 gallons of fuel escaped, turning one of the wings into a fireball. The footage, obtained by the US broadcaster, NBC, captures the moment when the plane caught fire and the scene as it unfolded as fire trucks rushed to the scene.<br/>
American Airlines says 10 people on a flight from Greece to Philadelphia were injured during severe turbulence. The airline says Flight 759 was heading to the city from Athens with 287 passengers and a dozen crew members Saturday when it briefly encountered severe turbulence shortly before landing. American says the fasten seat belt sign was on at the time. After the flight landed at 3:10 p.m., three passengers and seven crew members were taken to a hospital for evaluation. There was no immediate word on their injuries or whether any would be admitted. American says it wants to "thank our team members for keeping our passengers safe."<br/>
Cathay Pacific Airways would start a “comprehensive review” of staffing at overseas airports and in its foreign offices, the airline’s human resources chief said. The review will affect 7,600 staff outside Hong Kong in more than 100 places. The airline recently cut 600 head office jobs from a total workforce of 26,674. The company acknowledged the jobs audit would have an “impact”. But it was too early to tell if the review would recommend further redundancies or just changes in workers’ roles. “We’re starting a comprehensive review of our outports, how they work with HQ, which will have an impact on their own organisational structures,” Tom Owen, the airline’s human resources director, announced in the company’s staff magazine. Owen also confirmed that the earlier restructuring of its head office was now complete. The redundancies in May marked the biggest round of job cuts by Hong Kong’s premier airline in 20 years. “We haven’t touched on the outports,” a Cathay Pacific source said, adding it was “the obvious next step, now that Hong Kong has been reorganised.” “We have to do a complete review first, and then we’ll have a blueprint of what needs to be reorganised to make the company more competitive and agile.”<br/>
Two Qantas planes heading for Dallas and Johannesburg respectively were forced to return to Sydney airport after separate problems. Airbus A380 QF7 took off from Kingsford Smith Airport just before 2pm, bound for Dallas Fort Worth in the United States but flight radars detected the plane circling and dumping fuel following a “technical issue”. The flaps on the wings were unable to retract, making it difficult for the aircraft to fly efficiently. “As the Dallas flight is our longest on the network, the captain made the decision to return to Sydney,” Qantas said. The plane landed at Sydney airport safely on Friday afternoon, after dumping fuel off the coast of Wollongong. It was met by three airport firefighting crews. QF63 Sydney to Johannesburg was a few hours into its flight when an issue was discovered, a Qantas spokeswoman said. A pane of glass on the aircraft’s windscreen was cracked, Qantas said. Only the outer of three layers of glass was affected, and the crack “did not compromise the integrity of the aircraft”, the airline said. The plane has landed safely in Sydney. QF63 did not dump fuel.<br/>