Indonesia will launch a renewed search effort as early as Tuesday to find the cockpit voice recorder from a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, the head of its accident investigation agency said. "If the weather is good, the ship will start to depart today," National Transporation Safety Commission (KNKT) Chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said Tuesday. The crash, the world's first of a Boeing Co 737 MAX jet and the deadliest of 2018, killed all 189 people on board. Investigators last week said they planned to use a navy ship for a fresh search for the crashed jet's second "black box" after a 10-day effort funded by Lion Air failed to find the cockpit voice recorder.<br/>A KNKT source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the team will have seven days using the ship KRI Spica to find the CVR, which could hold vital clues giving investigators insight into the actions of the doomed jet's pilots. Tjahjono declined to comment on whether there was a time limit on the search.<br/>
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Unions representing Ryanair cabin crew in Spain called off plans to strike on Tuesday to allow time for further talks, the SITCPLA and USO unions said in a statement. The unions, which are due to meet representatives of Ryanair on Tuesday morning, have not cancelled plans for one-day strikes on Thursday and Sunday, the SITCPLA union said. “We have suspended the strike on Jan 8, 2019, in order to continue negotiations,” the two unions said. According to the strike plans agreed with the Spanish labour authorities, cabin crew union members would operate all flights between Spanish islands and 50% of flights between Spanish islands and the Spanish mainland on the strike days. But they will only operate 25 percent of flights to and from Spain over 500 km. Ryanair last week said it did not expect customers would be disrupted by the action but a spokesman for the SITCPLA union said he did not think disruption to flights could be avoided if cabin crew go through with their strike action.<br/>
Dutch authorities have denied Ryanair the right to lay off pilots and crew members who refused to move away from the Netherlands following the contested closure of the company’s base in the country. Ryanair said last month that it would fire 16 Dutch pilots and 15 cabin crew members who refused to relocate after the company’s decision to shut its base in Eindhoven, in the south of the Netherlands. Under Dutch law, companies planning to make staff redundant must secure approval from the government’s social security department, UWV, to ensure they abide by labor regulations and have good grounds for their plan. A spokesman for the FNV labor union, Leen van der List, said UWV had rejected the airline’s plan to make the Dutch workers redundant as the company had failed to negotiate a severance plan. A spokeswoman for UWV confirmed that the department had rejected Ryanair’s plan but would not give details. “Ryanair will have to talk to us,” Van der List said. “They will have to convince us of the absolute necessity to close the base.”<br/>
Icelandair said it carried 4.1m international passengers in 2018, a 2% increase over the previous year, a record for the Iceland flag carrier. As a result, the airline is confident its “strong liquidity position” at the end of last year will enable it to seize any “opportunities that may arise,” Icelandair CEO Bogi Nils Bogason said. His assertion follows Icelandair’s decision in November 2018 to abandon plans unveiled earlier that month to acquire Icelandic budget operator WOW Air and suggests the airline could be in the market for other consolidation opportunities. The airline increased international capacity, measured in ASKs, by 7% in 2018, outstripping the 4% increase in RPK traffic. This resulted in a 1.7 percentage point drop in load factor to 81%. Conversely, passenger numbers on Icelandair’s domestic and regional services dropped 9% to 319, 238 in 2018 as the carrier slashed capacity on these routes by 16%.<br/>
Sun Country Airlines will begin service from San Francisco to Hawaii on May 18 for the peak summer season, bulking up its service to the island state just as Southwest plans to jump into the market. Fares to Honolulu will start at $259 each way. The average one-way fare on the route is $339 during the summer travel season, June 8 to mid-August, a Sun Country spokeswoman said Tuesday. Sun Country also flies to Honolulu from Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, with its fleet of Boeing Co. 737s. The Hawaii service was one of 19 new routes Sun Country announced on Tuesday in what it called the largest network expansion in its history. The carrier will add eight new routes from Minneapolis, three from Las Vegas and Nashville, Tennesse, and two from both Dallas-Fort Worth and Portland. Closely held Sun Country was acquired in December 2017 by Apollo Global Management. <br/>
Vietnam’s start-up Bamboo Airways has secured a licence from the local authorities, the company said, opening the way for its maiden flight in January after a string of delays. Bamboo, owned by hotel and leisure firm FLC Group will operate 37 routes connecting major cities and tourist destinations in Vietnam to “reduce pressure on aviation infrastructure”, the airline said. “In 2019, Bamboo Airways will also launch international air flights to Asian countries, starting with Japan, Korea and Singapore,” it said, adding that it also intended to operate flights to Europe, without elaborating. Vietnam’s fifth airline signed a provisional deal in July to buy 20 Boeing 787-9 wide-body jets worth $5.6 billion at list prices, and a memorandum of understanding in March with Airbus for up to 24 A320neo narrow-bodied aircraft.<br/>
The Indian government will not intervene to assist troubled carrier Jet Airways as it looks to raise more cash. Minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha says that Jet's efforts to raise more debt and equity capital are an " internal matter of the airline." "Each airline prepares its business plan on the basis of their own market assessment and liabilities. Based on their business plan, the efficient operations and financial resources are the responsibility of the airlines." Local media reports indicate that the carrier is in talks with the state-owned State Bank of India for a fresh loan of US$225m aimed at bolstering its working capital. However, no official word has been made by the airline on such developments. Jet defaulted on payments to a consortium of Indian banks at the end of December 2018, which it blamed on a "temporary cashflow mismatch".<br/>