As speculation grows about the future of Norwegian, the airline has announced a dramatic expansion of long-haul flights from Gatwick for the coming winter. Norwegian launches a new twice-weekly link from the Sussex airport to Tampa from Oct 31 2018. It will compete direct with British Airways’ daily nonstop service from Gatwick. The airline will also increase services to daily on the routes from Gatwick to Boston, Fort Lauderdale and Buenos Aires – again, competing with BA. But links to Austin and Seattle have been dropped for the winter, and services to Chicago and Oakland are being reduced. IAG has taken a 4.61% stake in Norwegian. But its approaches to take over the airline have been rebuffed. CE of IAG, Willie Walsh, says: “The company clearly is in a situation where its financial position is very poor.” <br/>
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Iraqi Airways is dismayed at the continuing European blacklisting of its operation, but is hoping that restrictions will start being lifted before the end of this year. The EC blacklisted the carrier in 2015, and it remains 1 of only 5 airlines individually barred from European airspace. Iraqi Airways is expressing "surprise" that the ban has been maintained during the latest blacklist revision, disclosed June 14, and claims the situation is "unfair". DG Miran Farid says the European authorities have been opting against sending inspectors to review the carrier's operations, citing security concerns in Iraq. Farid says the carrier has been using third-party carriers for more than 2 years to support its operations. Negotiations are taking place, he states, to establish a process by which inspections can be carried out. <br/>
Boeing announced Monday it will sell 20 787 Dreamliners to Vietnamese start-up air carrier, Bamboo Airways, at list prices of US$5.6b. Boeing signed an agreement with Vietnamese conglomerate FLC Group, the owner of Bamboo Airways, on the Dreamliners deal, under which Boeing will deliver the aircraft to its Vietnamese client starting April 2020 through 2021 after Bamboo Airways completed the deposit requirement in mid-June. Trinh Van Quyet, chairman of FLC Group said the new state-of-the-art Dreamliners will help Bamboo Airways to expand key markets in Asia, Europe and North America, he said. Bamboo Airways plans to begin commercial operations in 2019 out of the Vietnamese capital city of Hanoi, with initial operations on domestic flights, before expanding into other Northeast Asian markets. <br/>
AirAsia Group CE Tony Fernandes has continued the war of words with the Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM), calling for responsibilities of the regulatory body to be returned to the transport ministry. Fernandes says that "having regulators in the picture and adding layers of unreasonable cost for air travellers is just not right". AirAsia June 14, made similar comments and criticised MAVCOM for trying to "micro-manage the industry" after it rejected their application to raise frequencies on 2 routes due to overcapacity concerns. Then, the carrier had also called for the granting of route approvals to be handed back to the transport ministry. Fernandes also criticised MAVCOM's 2017 decision to increase the passenger service charge (PSC) at Kuala Lumpur International's KLIA2 terminal. <br/>
"Appalling and aggressive behaviour" within a 27-strong stag party led to a flight to Ibiza being diverted, an airline said. Crew were left with "no choice" but to divert the Birmingham flight to Toulouse, where the Jet2 aircraft was met by police. The airline said one member of the party had already been stopped from boarding the plane Friday. One person involved has received a lifetime ban from the airline. Jet2 said despite "repeated warnings" the group continued to be "aggressive and disruptive" during the flight. The crew had already decided to stop selling alcohol because of the group member who was refused boarding for being "drunk and aggressive". The airline said it is the second time in weeks that disruptive passengers have caused one of its flights to be diverted. <br/>
El Al is facing new allegations of discrimination after moving 2 female passengers under pressure from male ultra-Orthodox travellers who refused to sit next to women. In 2016, a similar case of discrimination was filed against the airline by a female passenger. Israel's Supreme Court ruled that asking a passenger to move their seat based on gender is a form of discrimination. The most recent incident occurred on a New York to Tel Aviv flight last week. El Al said discriminating against airline passengers is "forbidden" and that it does its utmost to serve a "wide array of populations and travellers." The Israel Religious Action Center, a progressive group that led last year's lawsuit, accused the airline of breaking its commitments. <br/>