United Continental won’t take new reservations for its animal-transport service after drawing worldwide scorn in recent weeks for the death of a dog and other blunders in handling pets. The airline will review the procedures for its PetSafe program until May 1, including which breeds of dogs it will accept, according to a statement Tuesday. During that time, the carrier will honor existing reservations without accepting new ones for the service, which is for animals travelling in the cargo hold. United announced the move following a bruising week of public-relations fiascoes involving pets. “We think United’s issues highlight how fundamentally it has strayed from one of its core missions as a customer-service company,” CFRA analyst Jim Corridore wrote in a note Tuesday. United has already announced a plan starting April to issue brightly colored bag tags to identify in-cabin pets. The service suspension won’t affect those animals. Among other issues being examined for PetSafe, United will consider which pets to accept, said a spokesman. <br/>
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Air NZ has taken the unusual step of spelling out to the government the commercial relationship it has with the Crown after sustained attacks of its approach to the regions by cabinet minister Shane Jones. The airline has written to Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who represents the government's 51% stake, and told him it will always act independently. "Any appearance of a lack of commercial independence is viewed seriously by the Air NZ board and is ultimately potentially damaging to the interests of all shareholders, including the Crown." And the airline's CE Christopher Luxon said despite clear "terms of engagement" there could be a misunderstanding about the Crown's stake and what it means. "The Crown has the same rights as any other shareholder. That doesn't mean they can dictate the operations of the company, they can't use their majority shareholder position to make the company make non-commercial decisions," Luxon said. "Decision making is with the company board and the Treasury expects all those decisions to be commercial."<br/>
ANA Holdings has declined to comment on a report of a possible merger between its low-cost units Peach and Vanilla Air. Nikkei Asian Review had said in a 17 March report that the holding company has decided to merge the two carriers by 2020 to better compete in the Asian airline market and to tackle "cost and other issues". Peach would be the surviving brand upon merger, as it operates more international flights than Vanilla. When contacted, the firm says: "ANA Holdings continually reviews our investments and operations across industries at the local, regional and global level that support our business objectives. At this time, we are not able to comment on any speculations or confirm any details". Last month, the holding company also disclosed that it is looking to launch a medium-haul LCC around 2020, as part of a greater focus on the budget market. This airline will use "small size medium-haul aircraft". The same document, released as an update to the mid-term strategy, also indicated that Peach and Vanilla would continue to play a role in capturing demand from Asia. It owns 100% of Vanilla Air and 67% of Peach.<br/>