Some major airlines were re-routing flights Wednesday after Europe’s air traffic control agency warned aircraft flying in the eastern Mediterranean to exercise caution due to possible air strikes into Syria. Eurocontrol said in a notification published on Tuesday afternoon that air-to-ground and cruise missiles could be used over the following 72 hours and there was a possibility of intermittent disruption to radio navigation equipment. US President Donald Trump and Western allies are discussing possible military action to punish Syria’s President Bashar Assad for a suspected poison gas attack on Saturday on a rebel-held town that had long held out against government forces. Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, one of the few to fly directly over Syria, is rerouting those flights temporarily, a Beirut airport source said. A spokeswoman for Air France said the airline had changed some flights paths following the warning, including for Beirut and Tel Aviv flights, while easyJet said it would also re-route flights from Tel Aviv. The Eurocontrol warning on its website did not specify the origin of any potential missile threat. The only commercial flights above Syria as of 0115 GMT on Wednesday were being flown by Syrian Air and Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. At other periods later in the day, there were no flights using the airspace.<br/>
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A military transport plane crashed just after takeoff in Algeria Wednesday, killing 257 people in the worst aviation disaster in the North African nation's history. Soldiers, their family members and a group of 30 people returning to refugee camps from hospital stays in Algeria's capital died in the crash of the Russian-made II-76 aircraft. The plane went down in a field just outside a military base in Boufarik, 30 km south of Algiers, and was devoured by flames, killing 247 passengers and 10 crew members, the Defense Ministry said. There was no official mention of survivors, but one witness reported seeing people jump out of the aircraft before it crashed. Several witnesses told Algerian TV network Ennahar they saw flames coming out of one of the planes' four engines just before it took off. "The plane started to rise before falling," an unidentified man lying on what appeared to be a hospital bed told Ennahar TV. "The plane crashed on its wing first and caught fire." President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ordered three days of mourning starting immediately and prayers for the dead on Friday at mosques across the country. The four-engine Il-76 made its maiden voyage in 1997, according to Aviation Safety Network. The plane has been in production since the 1970s, and is widely used for both commercial freight and military transport.<br/>
Panama on Tuesday prohibited Venezuelan companies from operating flights to Panama, in retaliation for Venezuela's diplomatic and trade bans announced last week. The office of President Juan Carlos Varela said the cargo and passenger flights would be banned for 90 days starting April 25. The measure affects 10 Venezuelan companies. Last week, Venezuela banned key Panamanian businesses from operating on its territory after Panama's government put Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on a list of Venezuelan officials deemed at "high risk" for laundering money. Venezuela's ban included businesses of Varela and Copa, one of the few airlines still operating within Venezuela.<br/>
Bombardier delivered five CSeries jets in Q1 and is making progress in tackling delays separate from previously disclosed engine hold-ups in producing its flagship CSeries jets, sources familiar with the matter said. The delivery data and comments from executives on progress come as Bombardier nears regulatory approval for its planned sale of the delayed CSeries program to Airbus. But the Montreal-based company could still face snags in coming months after delivering 17 CSeries in 2017, down from an initial target of 30 - a delay the plane-and-train maker has previously attributed to delays at engine supplier Pratt & Whitney. Bombardier has not publicly discussed separate delays stemming from general challenges as workers learn to make the 110-to-130 seat jet more efficiently. These include “quality issues” at French interiors and seat maker Zodiac Aerospace, three sources familiar with the matter said, echoing similar problems affecting other planemakers.<br/>
Airbus wants Britain to provide more clarity over the country’s future relationship with the EU, or risk losing investment, the planemaker’s CEO said. “We must have more clarity on the UK’s long-term relationships, not just for the next 20 months,” CEO Tom Enders said Wednesday. “Britain must recognise that future investments are not a given.” His comments come less than a month after Britain’s PM Theresa May agreed a transition deal with European leaders to keep existing trade ties unchanged for 21 months after Brexit, a move seen by politicians as a way of providing businesses with certainty. But Enders said Britain needed to go further. He called for Britain to remain part of the EU aviation safety certification agency, EASA, to allow Airbus’s planes to gain the necessary approvals to let them fly, and said that its business depended on aircraft parts and people being able to move freely between its sites across the UK and Europe. Enders also said that there needed to be an agreement covering security, defence and space programmes between Britain and the EU, calling for deals to “cement this cooperation”. “It is no good making the right noises. We need a plan that comes from the UK but is also accepted by the EU27,” Enders said. “Within these negotiations, the EU will need to offer some flexibility but the UK must also be realistic in its demands; pragmatism must trump pride.” <br/>