Around 790 staff working for insolvent airline Niki in Austria will be paid monthly wages for December, administrator Lucas Floether said on Wednesday, adding he was confident of striking a deal with a new investor in the next few days. The new owner would be expected to take on Niki’s running costs, including salaries, from the beginning of January. Among the four bidders selected for the final stages of talks to buy all or parts of Niki is IAG, three people familiar with the situation have said. British tour operator Thomas Cook and Niki’s founder, former Formula One world champion Niki Lauda, are also among the bidders. A German newspaper had also named Tuifly, the airline of tour operator TUI, as a bidder. A spokesman for Floether said the talks were “going at full speed”, but declined to reveal further details. Lauda, who set up the airline in 2003, said he had been told a decision was to be made on Dec. 28. The Niki staff in Austria should probably Austria get their wages by the end of the month, Floether said. The airline also employs around 200 people in Germany. “Our aim remains to preserve as many jobs as possible in Austria and Germany. This task is one of the central questions in the ongoing ... process,” Floether said.<br/>
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A federal judge is considering whether an airline should pay damages to a Connecticut woman injured in a plane crash in Guyana in 2011. Judge Michael Shea in Hartford presided over a three-day, nonjury trial earlier this month in a lawsuit by Waterbury resident Indrawatie Shiwbodh against Caribbean Airlines. The judge is expected to rule sometime after Feb. 9, when final briefs are due. Shiwbodh, formerly of East Haven, was among 157 passengers and six crew members on a Boeing 737 that overshot the runway and broke in half at Cheddi Jagan International Airport on July 30, 2011. No one died, but dozens were injured. The flight originated from Kennedy Airport in New York. Investigators concluded that coordination between the captain and co-pilot broke down as the plane landed, and that the pilots failed to reduce excess power during landing and did not use the plane's full deceleration capabilities. The airline has settled all other claims in lawsuits filed in connection with the crash by more than 150 other passengers, including Shiwbodh's husband and adult daughter, said John Maggio, a New York-based lawyer for Caribbean Airlines. Terms of the settlements are confidential and the airline has not admitted to any wrongdoing in any of the cases, he said.<br/>
EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren laid out plans to serve 13% more passengers, widen links with other airlines and help pioneer testing of a hybrid-power plane in his first year of leading the discount carrier. Lundgren, who succeeded Carolyn McCall as CEO on Dec. 1, said EasyJet will carry about 90m travellers in 2018, helped by its purchase of Air Berlin’s operations at the German capital’s Tegel airport, the Luton, England-based airline said Wednesday. EasyJet’s transfer program with long-haul carriers will expand to cover about half of its routes during the year. “My ambition is to help EasyJet go from strength to strength next year,” Lundgren said. “Reaching these milestones will be a result of the successful delivery of our strategy of purposeful and disciplined growth.” The strategy builds on McCall’s efforts to turn EasyJet into a serious competitor to the likes of Ryanair and Europe’s biggest flag carriers. Lundgren, 51, joins EasyJet after a career in the tourism industry, primarily at German-British leisure operator TUI AG.<br/>
Royal Air Maroc has ordered four Boeing 787-9s in a deal which will increase its Dreamliner fleet to nine. Boeing announced the new order Dec. 27, saying it was worth $1.1 billion at list prices and that the aircraft were listed as unidentified on Boeing's orders & deliveries website, including two 787s purchased in December 2016 and two purchased in December 2017. RAM, which has already taken delivery of five 787-8s, flies the widebodies on routes from Casablanca to North America, South America, the Middle East and Europe. With the additional aircraft, the airline plans to expand service to these areas, Boeing said.<br/>
Southwest is expanding its seasonal flight schedule at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to include a new city: Phoenix. Just in time for Cincinnati Reds Spring Training in Goodyear, Ariz. (a 25 minute drive from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport), the low-cost airline will fly non-stop between Cincinnati and Phoenix (PHX) from March 8 through April 7. Tickets are on sale now. Story has schedule. Officials with Southwest said last month demand for its flights from CVG to Chicago and Baltimore "exceeded all expectations," but they shied away from predicting any pending expansion of service or new non-stop destinations. Besides competing with once-dominant Delta, discount carriers Allegiant Air and Frontier Airlines offer several non-stop flights out of CVG.<br/>
Thai AirAsia (TAA) chief Tassapon Bijleveld has regained his sway over Thailand's largest low-cost carrier through an 8.28b-baht share buyback<br/>from King Power Group. Tassapon agreed to pay the Srivaddhanaprabha family, which owns the duty-free store chain and Leicester City football club, 4.70b each for more than 1.76b shares in Asia Aviation. SET-listed AAV owns a 55% stake in TAA, which started operations 13 years ago. Tassapon is one of the founders of the airline, along with Malaysia-based AirAsia. The Srivaddhanaprabha family bought a 39% stake in AAV for 7.94b baht from Tassapon and his family in June 2016. After the deal was confirmed last night, Tassapon reinstated himself as a major AAV shareholder, owning a 41.3% stake in the company, up from 5% earlier. Tassapon said his share buyback stemmed from his "love" for TAA, which he has managed since its inception. He said the buyback will allow the continuation of TAA's growth plan, such as adding seven A320 jets next year, carrying some 22m passengers in 2018 and expanding its network in Asean, India and China.<br/>