Ivory Coast is in talks with three African airlines to operate the first direct route to the US by early 2018 as the West African nation seeks to attract more investors to its fast-growing economy. The most advanced discussions are with Ethiopian Airlines, which is due to send a delegation to Ivory Coast before the end of the month. The move would fit with the strategy of Ethiopian, which is pushing to consolidate its lead as the continent’s biggest airline with new hubs and already flies to Ivory Coast and the US. Ivory Coast’s economy has expanded by an average 9% per year since 2012. More than 400,000 passengers travel from West Africa, excluding Nigeria, to the US every year. <br/>
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Air NZ will fly almost every day from Auckland to Houston using a newly configured Dreamliner for most of next winter. Air NZ now flies five times a week to Houston year-round. From March 25 to Oct 27 next year it will increase to a mix of daily services and six services per week, boosting the number of seats by 16,000. The new 787-9 Dreamliner will be the first to regularly service one of the airline’s North American routes. Demand for travel between NZ and Texas continues to soar after the airline started flying there in 2015. Air NZ’s chief revenue officer said demand was strong from both ends of the route. <br/>
United Continental said Tuesday revenue passenger miles fell 1.6% in September from the year-earlier period. Available seat miles rose 1.7%, while the airline's consolidated load factor fell 2.7 points. Scott Kirby, president, said the airline managed to achieve its best on-time departure performance for September, despite the three historic Atlantic storms that hit in the month. United has provided cargo capacity and flights to deliver more than 1.5m pounds of relief supplies to Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. <br/>
United CCO Greg Hart is turning into the carrier's chief cheerleader in residence as the airline seeks to put behind it the man-dragged-from-plane incident last April. Friday, Hart issued a rousing memo to more than 87,000 United employees in which he assessed the airline's performance in Q3. The quarter included no fewer than three hurricanes that impacted United operations. United managed to set records for the quarter and September, including the carrier's best-ever consolidated on-time departure metrics. September was the best-ever month for on-time departures, and United also recorded six days in which there were zero mainline flight cancellations in Q3— an all-time quarterly record. <br/>