unaligned

All 65 passengers and crew were feared dead in a plane crash in central Iran on Sunday after the domestic flight came down in bad weather in a mountainous region. A spokesman for Iranian carrier Aseman Airlines had told state television everyone was killed, but the airline then issued a statement saying it could not reach the crash site and could not “accurately and definitely confirm” everyone died. The airline had also initially said 60 passengers and six crew were on board the twin-engined turboprop ATR 72 that was flying to the southwestern city of Yasuj. But it later said there were a total of 65 people on board, as one passenger had missed the flight. The Aseman-operated plane crashed near the town of Semirom after taking off from Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi told ISNA news agency. As night approached, bad weather prevented helicopters searching the probable crash site but emergency workers were scouring the mountainous area by land, the television said. “It is getting colder and darker and still no sign of the plane,” said a television reporter accompanying rescue teams searching snow-covered areas in Mount Dena which has more than 40 peaks higher than 4,000m. Media reports said the plane disappeared from radar screens 50 minutes after taking off from Mehrabad airport in the southwest of the capital. It mainly handles domestic flights.<br/>

Niki Lauda has teamed up with German holiday airline Condor to sell flights for Laudamotion, the airline created after he bought Austrian carrier Niki out of insolvency. Lauda agreed a deal to buy Niki, a unit of collapsed Air Berlin, in January, beating a rival offer from British Airways-owner IAG Lauda plans to restart the carrier with 15 planes by the end of March, scrap the Niki brand and integrate it into his Laudamotion business, which offers business charter flights. However, without an established airline group behind it, Laudamotion lacks sales and marketing channels to get it back up and running quickly. Condor, part of Thomas Cook, said it will market Laudamotion flights to holiday destinations, such as in Spain, on its website and in travel agencies. Laudamotion is also in talks about its planes and crews flying for Lufthansa’s budget carrier Eurowings while the Austrian airline restarts its own operations, although no decision has yet been taken.<br/>

Ecuador's state-owned airline TAME wants to begin codesharing with foreign carriers, as part of a plan to turn around the loss-making airline. The Quito-based carrier's search for partners comes as the Ecuadorian government embraces open skies in a move to drive more international passenger traffic to the South American country. "We are open to establish codeshare ties with any airline that would like to transfer their passengers onto domestic flights in Ecuador," TAME president Ignacio Vallejo said. The airline is not currently in any active talks with other carriers, he said. Vallejo, who joined the airline in late 2017, is overseeing a turnaround plan at TAME which lost $60 million in 2017. The overhaul includes a fleet modernisation and a renewed focus on strengthening TAME's domestic network. Earlier this year, Ecuador's president Lenin Moreno committed to an open-skies policy to encourage more foreign airlines to fly to the country. The approach departs from previous governments which had sought to protect the country's airlines from foreign competition. Vallejo welcomed the new open-skies stance: "It benefits us because more passengers will arrive, giving us more opportunities for internal connectivity. Competition from other airlines will also help us improve." TAME operates to 12 destinations in Ecuador and five cities in Colombia, Peru and the USA.<br/>

The travel group Tui has the largest gender pay gap reported to date by a major UK company, with its male employees paid more than double the female staff. Women at the group’s Tui Airways UK unit earn on average 56.9% less in hourly pay than men, according to data filed under a new government scheme intended to highlight the gender pay gap and encourage employers to address the disparity. The company said the gap stemmed from low representation of women in highly paid roles such as pilots, engineering, technology and senior management. “We know that our gender pay gap is not an equal pay issue, rather a lack of representation in specific roles,” Tui said in its gender pay gap report for its UK & Ireland business. Tui Airways UK, which was known as Thomson Airways until October, employs 870 pilots earning an average of GBP111,683, of whom 95% are men. In contrast nearly 80% of its cabin crew, who are paid an average of GBP26,272, are women. But even at its head office Tui revealed a pay gap. Although 62% of its 3,308 head office staff are women, men are more likely to hold the better-paid roles in senior management, engineering or technology.<br/>

Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air plans to designate Florida’s Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS) as its 14th year-round base this summer. Allegiant said Feb. 13 it will invest more than $49m to open a two-aircraft (Airbus A320) base of operations at VPS, expanding on the leisure-travel carrier’s usage of the airport as a seasonal base in summer 2017. Allegiant first began flying to Destin-Fort Walton Beach in 2016 and, as of last year, operated routes to/from 16 cities. Five new seasonal routes will be added in June, for a total of 21 cities with service to VPS. The new routes include Northwest Arkansas Regional; Lexington, Kentucky’s Blue Grass Airport; Evansville Regional in Indiana; and North Carolina’s Concord Regional and Raleigh-Durham International airports. Allegiant operates all nonstop flights on an out-and-back model, in which aircraft and crews return to base after a day of flying.<br/>

Eurowings will open a base in Nuremberg, Germany, at the end of March with a leased TUIfly Boeing 737-800. The LCC plans to operate a total of 8X-weekly services from Nuremberg to Palma de Mallorca (Spain); 2X-weekly to Heraklion (Greece); 2X-weekly to Catania and Olbia (Italy); and one additional weekly frequency to Berlin Tegel. <br/>

Saratov Airlines is to resume operations with Antonov An-148s, days after suspending flights with the type in the wake of the fatal accident in Moscow. The Russian carrier – one of only two airlines in the country using An-148s – is to return the twinjet to its network on 16 February after completing in-depth technical checks on the fleet. Saratov says, however, that An-148 operations will be conducted with a "reinforced" crew, which will include an instructor pilot. An-148s have been crucial to the airline's recent network expansion. Saratov has had to introduce a restructured schedule since the suspension, which included suggesting that passengers bound for Moscow use the rail service from Kursk – a journey of more than 5 hours. Saratov has five An-148s, configured with 83 seats, as well as a pair of Embraer 195s, and also has a number of Yakovlev Yak-42s.<br/>