Forty of 44 international airlines have amended their website references to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, China's civil aviation regulator said on Thursday, adding that measures taken by US airlines were still incomplete. China has demanded that foreign firms, and airlines in particular, do not refer to self-ruled Taiwan as a non-Chinese territory on their websites, a demand the White House slammed in May as "Orwellian nonsense." Taiwan is China's most sensitive territorial issue. Beijing considers the island a wayward province of "one China" and has not renounced the possible use of force to bring it under its control. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), which has been pushing airlines to make the change, said four airlines had submitted rectification reports Wednesday and sought a two-week extension for website audits. The four were American Airlines, Delta, United and Hawaiian Airlines, it added. The aviation regulator did not say in what way the amendments by the four airlines were incomplete. Checks on Wednesday showed all four of the US airlines now list only Taipei's airport code and city, but not the name Taiwan. They made the changes in a bid to avoid Chinese penalties ahead of a deadline that had been set for July 25.<br/>
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Operators of a specific set of Sukhoi Superjet 100s are being instructed to check the security of passenger windows on the twinjet type after discovery of a fastener manufacturing defect. Inspection of two Aeroflot aircraft found loosened and defective screws which clamp passenger windows. Damage to their threads had resulted from use of a sharp tool, says Russian federal air transport regulator Rosaviatsia, a “violation” of installation procedures. It has proposed examination of 15 other specific Superjets – with serial numbers between 95037 and 95084 – to ensure “absence of play” between components of the passenger windows.<br/>
Airbus’s Q2 profit doubled as the company accelerated deliveries of its best-selling single-aisle jetliner following delays at the model’s two engine providers. Adjusted earnings before interest and tax increased to E1.15b from a restated E572m a year earlier, Airbus said Thursday. Analysts had estimated a figure of E1.05b, based on six estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Customer payments for the re-engined A320neo family of planes had been held up by a three-month halt in handovers of Pratt & Whitney-powered jets, which have been dogged by a series of glitches, and manufacturing issues concerning aircraft with turbines from General Electric-led CFM. Airbus has since made headway in reducing the number of planes parked outside its plants from a May peak, with 110 Neos delivered in H1 out of 239 in total. CEO Tom Enders said that while Neo deliveries surpassed those for the original A320 model in Q2, meeting a target of 800 handovers across Airbus’s full aircraft line-up for 2018 as a whole remains challenging.<br/>