Lufthansa will benefit from future cooperation between airplane makers Airbus and Bombardier as it is a major customer of both companies, the airline’s CE Carsten Spohr said. Airbus has agreed to buy a majority stake in Bombardier’s CSeries jetliner program, giving a powerful boost to the Canadian plane and train maker in its costly trade dispute with Boeing. “The cooperation of strong partners and the joint development of technology are of enormous importance in the aircraft sector,” Spohr said. “As a major customer of Airbus and launch customer and operator of the Bombardier CSeries, Lufthansa will benefit from the future cooperation of two companies that are bundling their innovation and competence,” he said. Lufthansa unit Swiss was the launch operator of the CSeries and has 30 of the planes on order, including 20 of the larger variant, the CS300.<br/>
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Two airport security officers in Chicago have been fired for their roles in an episode in which a screaming passenger was violently dragged from a United flight in April. Chicago’s inspector general, Joseph Ferguson, announced in a quarterly report released Tuesday that, after an investigation, two of the four Chicago Department of Aviation employees involved in the matter had been discharged. The other two employees remain suspended. The investigation found that three aviation security officers and one aviation security sergeant “mishandled a nonthreatening situation that resulted in a physically violent and forceful removal of a passenger,” Dr. David Dao, on United Flight 3411 on April 9. “The investigation also uncovered that the employees made misleading statements and deliberately removed material facts from their reports,” the report stated. As a result, the department terminated the security officer “who improperly escalated the incident” and the sergeant for deliberately removing facts from an employee report. The aviation department did not release the names of the employees. The people who were fired are appealing their discharges, a spokeswoman for the inspector general said on Tuesday. <br/>
A New Jersey man is suing United, claiming a drunken fellow passenger urinated on him as their cross-country flight was taking off. Daniel Card is seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit, which accuses the airline of assault, negligence, breach of contract and emotional distress. The Pequannock man says the airline shouldn't have allowed the visibly drunken man to board the June 12 flight from Los Angeles to Newark. Card claims the cabin crew initially refused his request to move from the urine-soaked seat and he had to endure the remainder of the flight in urine-soaked clothes. United said Tuesday it had not been served with the lawsuit.<br/>
South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation, one of the continent’s largest asset managers, has not ruled out investing in struggling state-owned airline SAA, its CE said Tuesday. “We are not closing the door on SAA,” CEO Dan Matjila told parliament’s finance committee, adding that South African Airways would first need to improve governance and implement a turn-around strategy before being considered. The PIC manages South African government employee retirement funds and has been in the spotlight recently after reports the finance ministry requested money from the pension fund to bail out struggling state firms.<br/>