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Qantas Airways said Thursday it is appointing former Wesfarmers CE Richard Goyder as its new chairman from October, replacing long-serving chairman Leigh Clifford who is retiring at a time of record earnings at the airline. The airline underwent a dramatic financial turnaround during Clifford's tenure. Qantas has forecast it will report record full-year underlying earnings before tax of up to A$1.6b (US$1.18b) in August, although the outlook for airlines globally has been tempered by rising oil prices. Clifford, a former CE of miner Rio Tinto, was appointed 11 years ago and oversaw the selection of current CE Alan Joyce, who has been in his role for nearly 10 years. Goyder is also the chairman of Woodside Petroleum and the Australian Football League. <br/>

American Airlines said this week that it is now reviewing its regional carrier's technology systems after issues with a crew scheduling program caused thousands of flights to be canceled for days last week. The computer problem was tied to the crew scheduling and tracking system at PSA Airlines. "This was a significant IT systems issue that caused both PSA’s main systems and backup systems to slow down beyond a usable state," a spokeswoman. During the outage, American Airlines canceled about 3,000 flights, with 2,500 of those to and from the Charlotte airport. Those cancellations stranded passengers in Charlotte and elsewhere, while drawing widespread ire from travellers, including on social media. One woman made headlines after she was so frustrated she broke a window. <br/>