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Copa Airlines said it had been in discussions with United and Avianca for a potential joint venture "for quite some time", as it reiterated confidence that any deal would attain regulatory approval amid heightened joint venture activity in Latin America. Copa's senior VP of commercial and network planning Dennis Cary said the airline had talked with both United and Avianca "throughout the last two years". He declined to specify if Copa had talked with the two airlines jointly or separately. "Occasionally the questions come up. Given the fact that no one else had reached an announcement, we felt it was important to disclose our participation in it," he said. Earlier this month, Copa emerged as the third party in joint venture talks between United and Avianca - which were first announced in early 2017. Cary said a three-way joint venture "makes sense" for all the airlines involved, pointing out Copa's long relationship with United and its partnership with Avianca through the Star Alliance. Both Copa and Avianca joined the alliance on the same day in June 2012. "Three of us would essentially have a joint offer for US-Latin America traffic, and what that brings is the ability for all of us to benefit from our combined networks, offering customers many more choices and a lot more flexibility," said Cary.<br/>

United Continental is eying joint ventures with three Latin American carriers in the near future, but a deal would not immunize the US airline from the “ups and downs” of the region’s volatile market, President Scott Kirby said on Tuesday. “I think we will get it done in the not so distant future, but hard to predict an exact time,” he said. “All of the turmoil in Latin America makes things complicated.” United is trying to finalize joint-venture agreements with Colombian airline Avianca Holdings, Panama’s Copa Airlines and Brazil’s Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras. Such deals would improve connectivity between the US and Latin American aviation markets and create growth opportunities, he said.<br/>

United Continental is seeing improved average airfares as US rivals offer fewer bargain-basement ticket prices. “It’s not really that fares have gone up much, it’s that the $25, $30 fares that were prevalent a year ago are much more narrow today," United President Scott Kirby said Tuesday. The improvement is helping United weather higher fuel costs, Kirby said. The carrier is also benefiting from robust business demand and consumers feeling “pretty flush", he said. “Both the pricing and the demand environment have just gotten stronger as we’ve gone through the quarter," Kirby said. “As fuel prices have gone up, the pricing environment has changed.”<br/>

United is considering a significant expansion of its Washington Dulles hub, says president Scott Kirby. The carrier is evaluating adding two additional flight banks – a period of time when a number of arriving and departing flights are bunched together – for a total of six at Dulles, he said. "Today we have a four-bank structure at Dulles," said Kirby. "The team is actually evaluating a six-bank structure that would create opportunity to add more frequencies in markets." The move, which could amount to a nearly 50% increase in flights by United at Dulles, would come on the back of continuing growth at the airport. Passenger traffic was up 4.5% to nine million during the first five months of 2018, data from operator the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority showed. Seats on United increased 3% year-over-year during the same period. "We've grown Dulles pretty aggressively this year, and it's done really well," said Kirby.<br/>

United Continental is experimenting with lie-flat seats for its fleet of Boeing 737 Max 10 jets, which the airline plans to fly on its longest domestic routes. The carrier is working on seat designs and has completed an initial round of testing on one model, President Scott Kirby said Tuesday. Test on a second seat are slated for this fall. United is planning to use the Max 10, the biggest version of Boeing’s upgraded 737 aircraft, to expand its luxury cabin offerings on cross-country flights beyond Los Angeles, San Francisco and Newark, New Jersey. The single-aisle jetliner will serve as a replacement for the carrier’s aging 757 planes in the trans-continental market, where business travellers are willing to pay a premium to stretch out. “Trying to fly from Denver to L.A., I think you would have a hard time making the economics of lie-flat work,” Kirby said. “But would Newark to Seattle work? Probably. Would San Francisco to D.C. work? Probably. We think there is demand, but it’s almost exclusively trans-con demand.” United has 28 lie-flat seats in business class on its small fleet of 757-200s. The planes serving the Los Angeles-Boston route will all offer lie-flat seat options in October, a company spokesman said Tuesday.<br/>

An Air Canada-led consortium has reached a deal to acquire Aimia’s Aeroplan loyalty program, easing customer concerns but raising questions around the price tag and what the deal augurs for Aimia’s future. The group, which includes TD Bank, CIBC and Visa Canada Corp., has agreed to pay $450m in cash and assume the approximately $1.9b liability associated with Aeroplan miles customers have accumulated. “We are pleased to see that an agreement in principle has been reached as Aeroplan members can continue to earn and redeem with confidence,” Air Canada CE Calin Rovinescu said Tuesday. The agreement comes weeks after Aimia rejected an earlier bid from the consortium of $250m in cash and the assumption of the reward point liability. Any deal between the consortium and Aimia, which had been seeking out new partners to offset the loss of Air Canada when a current agreement was set to end in 2020, would be the best outcome for all stakeholders, said GMP Securities analyst Martin Landry. “Overall, this deal provides continuity, visibility and minimal disruption as AC executes its strategy of bringing in-house its loyalty program.”<br/>

The Zambian government and Ethiopian Airlines have formalised an agreement to form Zambia Airways. Zambia’s Industrial Development Corp. (IDC) Group CEO Mateyo Kaluba, and Ethiopian Airlines’ Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam signed documents last Sunday setting out their positions as shareholders of the new national carrier. The IDC will hold 55% of the carrier’s shares, with Ethiopian Airlines holding 45%. Initial investment in the new national airline will be $30m. “Obviously, as we operate the airline, we will facilitate the financing necessary to support its growth,” the partners said. They anticipate the new airline will operate 12 aircraft—types are still to be announced — and carry 1.9m passengers by 2028. Zambia Airways will launch operations with local and regional routes; long-haul sectors to Asia, Europe and the Middle East will be added later. Ethiopian Airlines noted the investment in Zambia Airways is consistent with its Vision 2025 Multiple Hubs Strategy in Africa; the Ethiopian flag carrier plans to help set up four airlines on the continent this year. “As an indigenous and truly Pan-African airline, we believe that African carriers will only get their fair share of the aviation industry and the African market through partnerships with other African carriers,” Ethiopian said.<br/>

ANA has adjusted its six-month flight schedule that should allow it to operate without more disruptions because of Boeing 787 engine checks. The Japanese carrier said international capacity will be 4% lower than previously planned for the six months from Oct. 1, which is its fiscal second half. This will make capacity essentially flat compared to the same period last year. Domestic capacity will be 1% higher than planned, and up 2% year-on-year. ANA is one of the airlines affected by issues of fatigue and cracking identified with some Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines. The requirement to conduct extra inspections caused the carrier to announce a series of flight cancellations in recent months. The airline “considered factors such as the impact of the required Rolls-Royce engine inspections and determined the optimum allocation of its resources for the second half of FY2018,” ANA said. “Therefore, the company does not anticipate further flight cancellations and inconveniences … due to the engine inspections.” A handful of international route suspensions and frequency reductions will be made in the six-month period, although some of these will be resumed from February. ANA said the changes are also designed to help it respond to “robust” business travel demand, and strong inbound demand from China and elsewhere in Asia. <br/>