United said Friday it expects to record a special charge of $105m in Q2 after determining an Open Skies agreement between Brazil and the United States impairs the value of its Brazil routes. United said the value of its Brazil routes were impaired because the agreement removes reciprocity requirements for flights between the two countries, and does not reflect any decline in passenger traffic. “This is about an accounting non-cash write down and has nothing to do with the value of the routes,” a United spokeswoman said. United is due to publish Q2 results after the market closes on July 17, followed by a conference call on July 18.<br/>
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French air accident investigators say that a rapidly spreading fire probably caused the crash of an EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo in 2016, casting doubt on Egyptian authorities' claims that traces of explosives were found. French investigation agency BEA said in a statement late Friday that "the most likely hypothesis is that a fire broke out in the cockpit and "spread rapidly, resulting in loss of control." Authorities at Cairo airport declined to comment, saying only that state prosecutors were investigating the case. Egyptian authorities are carrying out a criminal investigation amid suspicions that explosives were involved. The BEA has also investigated the crash alongside Egyptian and American experts. In its statement, the French agency cited its "difference of opinion" with the Egyptian conclusions based on evidence collected so far, including the BEA's advanced repair work on flight recorders found in the Mediterranean depths. The BEA urged Egyptian prosecutors to investigate the possibility it was an accidental fire, to prevent such accidents in the future. <br/>
A Chinese passenger plane has veered off the runway after landing at an airport in the north of the country, state media has reported. The Shenzhen Airlines jet skidded after landing at Hohhot airport in the capital of Inner Mongolia on Saturday afternoon before coming to a halt on the grass besides the runway, according to a Beijing Youth Daily report. News of the accident first emerged after social media users started discussing the incident before Shenzhen Airlines confirmed the incident on its official Weibo page, adding there had been no injuries. The plane, which departed from Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province, was carrying 124 passengers and nine crew. Light rain had been reported in the Hohhot airport area that afternoon.<br/>
Airbus is continuing its route-proving program toward A330neo certification, completing a 2-hr. leg from Chicago O’Hare to Atlanta Hartsfield July 7. This part of the testing is using an A330-900neo that will be delivered to TAP Air Portugal, which has ordered 21 of the type. The joint route proving flights are part of the work required by civil aviation authorities and must include short, and long flights as well as flights in different environmental conditions. For the -900neo, these have included flights in Kazakhstan for cold weather, Mexico for hot weather, Bolivia for high altitude, and Ireland for strong wind conditions. Airbus has two more -900s participating in the certification program and anticipates completion this summer. TAP is configuring its -900neos with 298 seats in a three-class cabin comprising 34 business-class seats 96 economy Xtra seats with a 34-in. seat pitch and 68 regular economy with a 31-in. pitch. The lie-flat business seats and slim-line economy seats are supplied by Recaro, while the IFE systems are Pansonic’s EX3. TAP intends to first operate the -900neo on premium routes such as Lisbon-Sao Paulo and Lisbon-New York, but with seven scheduled for delivery by the end of 2018, expects to see the aircraft widely deployed soon to its Americas’ destinations.<br/>
Hundreds of staff from South Korea‘s two rival air carriers held a rare joint rally late Sunday, blaming the companies’ top management for causing scandals that have evoked huge public outrage. More than 400 employees of Asiana Airlines and Korea Air Lines gathered in central Gwanghwamun to stage a rally condemning their chiefs Park Sam-koo and Cho Yang-ho, respectively. Asiana staff denounced Park and his executives for massive in-flight meal service disruptions that led over 100 of its flights to take off without food for passengers for most of last week. The fiasco resulted in the suicide of the head of a supplier to Asian‘s new caterer that failed to produce food on time. Protesters from the rival airline Korean Air joined the demonstration, the second rally by Asiana employees following a candlelight vigil on Friday. Sunday’s joint rally was to voice their united call for measures to prevent such managerial errors and misconduct from happening again and also to call on their chiefs to take full legal and ethical responsibility, they said. <br/>