Lufthansa emerged as the number one candidate to take over Alitalia Monday after an Italian government minister called the German airline's bid the "most promising". The Italian government has been looking for new investors in its struggling flagship airline since it entered insolvency proceedings last year, hit by competition from low-cost operators. The situation is further complicated by March's inconclusive general election, from which no new government has yet been found. "Alitalia is still fragile and needs a partner. There's a chance to work on these offers and arrive at a structural solution that doesn't cost taxpayers anything more," Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda told the La Repubblica daily. "Objectively speaking, however, Lufthansa's offer is the most promising." The deadline for sale of Alitalia was originally the end of this month, but the government will issue a decree in the coming weeks pushing back that deadline by around six months while Mattarella searches for a solution to the stalemate. Last week a Lufthansa spokesman said that they had "submitted a document describing ideas for a restructured 'NewAlitalia'", while stating that Alitalia as it is today "is not interesting". The spokesman said that if the document was well received enough "we can imagine further discussions".<br/>
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Etihad Airways and EgyptAir announced Monday they are expanding their codeshare partnership, widening their networks to cover more destinations in Africa, North Asia, and Australia. The initial phase of the agreement was launched in March 2017 and saw both airlines place their codes on each other’s flights operating between Abu Dhabi and Cairo. The second phase will see Etihad share its EY code on EgyptAir flights to a number of African destinations. Meanwhile, EgyptAir will place its MS code on Etihad flights to destinations in Asia and Australia. <br/>
United Airlines will open a Polaris Lounge for international business and first class passengers on April 30 at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), a major gateway for the carrier’s trans-Pacific flights to Asia and the South Pacific. The SFO outpost will be only the second Polaris Lounge to open since United introduced the new lounge concept at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in early December of 2016. That Chicago lounge quickly became too crowded to comfortably accommodate Polaris international business class passengers at peak times. United was forced to add more space to the lounge — a project that was not completed until late 2017. United no doubt took into account what it learned from the problems in Chicago as it built out the new SFO lounge over the past several months. The SFO Polaris Lounge will be a two-level space that, at 28,000 square feet, is larger than the Chicago Polaris lounge, which covers 16,292 square feet. United has declined to release any photos of the new space in advance of an April 25 media tour. But the San Francisco facility will have several discrete seating areas for Polaris passengers to relax in and recharge. A viewing area overlooking the airport will be equipped with binoculars to give Polaris visitors a chance to take in the airport operations and the larger San Francisco Bay Area adjacent to SFO.<br/>