The death toll in one of Cuba’s worst air disasters rose to 111 on Monday while Mexico suspended the operations of the Mexican company that had leased the 39-year old Boeing 737 to Cuba’s flagship airline. Grettel Landrove, a 23-year old Cuban student died in a Havana hospital from “severe traumatic lesions”, Cuban state-run media reported. Two Cuban women remained in critical condition due to burns and other trauma, with a high risk of complications, media reports said. The airliner crashed shortly after takeoff on a domestic flight from Havana to the eastern city of Holguin on Friday in one of Cuba’s worst air disasters. The plane was a Boeing 737 built in 1979 and leased to Cuba’s flagship carrier Cubana by a little-known Mexican company Damojh. Mexico’s civil aviation authority said on Monday it had temporarily suspended Damojh’s operations while it made sure the firm adhered to regulations and gathered information to help investigators find the cause of the crash. Damojh, which owned three 737s before the accident, has been suspended twice before during regulatory compliance reviews, the authority said.<br/>
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Malaysia’s long-haul budget carrier AirAsia X logged a four-fold jump in quarterly profit Tuesday, courtesy of higher passenger volume and shrinking costs. Net profit for the January-March quarter rose to 41.5m ringgit (US$10.47m) from 10.3m a year earlier while revenue rose 7.2% to a record 1.3b. AirAsia X saw an increase in passenger volume of 13% which the carrier attributed mainly to new routes started since mid-2017. Moving capacity from some Australian routes to flights to the North Asian market also helped. AirAsia X said its cost per unit fell 2% year mainly due to the ringgit strengthening against the dollar. Its average fuel price rose 33% to $88 per barrel, the airline said. Excluding fuel, it cut its costs per unit by 10%. “The company recognizes the challenges posed by the recent hike in fuel prices, and best mitigative efforts are being put forth through the boost in ancillary and capacity numbers,” the airline said in a bourse filing. AirAsia X maintained an unchanged load factor of 84% while expanding capacity by 14%. It carried 1.59m passengers in the quarter.<br/>
A Saudia Airbus A330 made an emergency landing at Jeddah's King Abdul Aziz International airport with its nose landing gear retracted on 21 May. Saudi Arabia's Aviation Investigation Bureau says there was a "defect" in the aircraft's hydraulic system and nose landing gear. The jet was operating flight SV3818 between Madinah and Dhaka when the incident happened. Local media reports quote a Saudia spokesman saying that a decision was made to divert to Jeddah after a "defect in the hydraulic system of the A330" was identified. The aircraft, which was carrying 141 passengers and 10 crew members, took off from Madinah at 20.00 local time. Videos online show the A330 taxiing on the runway without its nose landing gear deployed. It eventually came to a stop on its front belly and supported by its main landing gears. Passengers were evacuated using emergency slides.<br/>