One week before the US imposed sweeping economic sanctions against Iran, Iran Air dispatched 11 international flights. Two weeks later, a US ban on the airline firmly in place, it flew 13—touching down in destinations including Paris, London, Hamburg and Doha. The failure of sanctions to slow down Iran Air points to the challenge facing the Trump administration in its campaign to use international isolation to pressure Iran. The administration Nov 5 ramped up sanctions against Iran’s oil industry, financial system and key industries including shipping and aviation. To make those measures stick, the US has sought help in curtailing or halting the operations of key Iranian companies. However, few countries, if any, appear to be heeding the effort to effectively ground Iran Air, including Washington’s allies across the Atlantic. <br/>
unaligned
Norwegian Air is to halve the number of flight from Dublin to New York for the winter with 2 daily flights resuming at the end of March. Daily flights from Shannon to New York Stewart International in Newburgh, New York, will cease Jan 12th. The service will resume at the rate of 5 times per week March 31st, the airline intends to maintain the route as a summer-only service from 2019 onwards. Up to 100,000 passengers have flown with the airline to and from Shannon Airport since July, 2017 when they commenced services with 4 weekly direct flights to New York Stewart International and Providence International. However their decision to scale back comes as it reduces flights from Europe to Stewart International to 11, the least it has offered since first landing at the airport 17 months ago. <br/>
Airbus is poised to resume stalled deliveries of jets to debt-laden HNA Group, an Airbus schedule showed Monday, but deliveries of over US$1b of large jets remain behind schedule after months of wrangling over late payments. Visitors to an Airbus delivery centre in Toulouse Monday saw at least 2 Airbus A330 aircraft and one smaller A320-family jet in position for handover to HNA-affiliated airlines. An electronic sign welcomed crew for an imminent A320 delivery. "Some (HNA) planes will be delivered," an industry source said, though another cautioned that financing details could still take several more weeks to finalise. Another 6 A330 aircraft painted in flame-red HNA tail liveries remained parked in long-term storage elsewhere in Airbus's Toulouse base. <br/>
Malaysia’s civil aviation regulator appears to be unwilling to approve plans for Firefly to operate from Seletar airport in Singapore due to issues over airspace between the countries. The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia said Nov 23 that "for purposes of Firefly's safe operations into Seletar airport, there are indeed regulatory issues that needs to be resolved between the civil aviation authority of both countries." This includes "outstanding airspace issues to be discussed, particularly on reviewing the terms and conditions of delegation of Malaysia's airspace to Singapore for the provision of air traffic services." It adds that it was not consulted by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore on the Dec 1 deadline to move turboprop operations at Changi International airport to Seletar, but respects that the authority was within its rights to do so. <br/>