Malaysia will consider resuming the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 if companies interested in the hunt come forward with viable proposals or credible leads, its transport minister said on Sunday. Flight MH370, carrying 239 people, became the world’s greatest aviation mystery when it vanished on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Malaysia and China as well as Australia called off a two-year, A$200m underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean in January 2017 after finding no trace of the aircraft. A second three-month search, led by US exploration firm Ocean Infinity, ended similarly in May last year. Malaysia was prepared to reward firms searching for MH370 under a “no-cure, no fee” agreement, meaning payment would be made only if they located the aircraft, minister Anthony Loke said. “If there are any credible leads or specific proposals.... we are more than willing to look at them and we are prepared to discuss with them the new proposals,” Loke said at a Kuala Lumpur event marking the fifth year of MH370’s disappearance.<br/>
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Qatar Airways plans to place an aircraft order at the Paris Air Show and, separately, is looking to further develop its aircraft leasing business. “We will order more aircraft in Le Bourget,” Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said. The manufacturer and aircraft types would not be announced until the June 17-23 show, he said. “We don’t have any gaps in our fleet at the moment. What we are trying to do is to order more aircraft to enhance the fleet that we already have. The strategy of Qatar Airways is to keep our average fleet age young, hence we need to keep ordering aircraft as our aircraft exit our fleet,” he said. Responding to a question from ATW, Al Baker said he plans to further develop Qatar Airways’ aircraft leasing business. The airline already has “a very strong leasing company,” he said, although most of the aircraft are leased back into its own operation. “We have started to lease aircraft out and we have aircraft with three airlines at the moment, one of them is our sister company Air Italy, in which we hold a minority shareholding.”<br/>
Italian Deputy PM Luigi Di Maio said he sees no risk of failure for talks with EasyJet and Delta to relaunch struggling airline Alitalia. “I am very confident because of what I have seen up to now,” Di Maio said. He said the Italian Treasury should take a stake of no more than 15% in the new company, calling the package “a relaunch not a rescue.” “This is a market operation in which Ferrovie dello Stato is drawing up an industrial plan with EasyJet and Delta Air Lines,” Di Maio said, referring to the state rail operator. "So it will be their industrial plan which decides which players are involved." Efforts to salvage Alitalia are being spearheaded by Di Maio, of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, the League’s partner in a fractious populist coalition. Finance Minister Giovanni Tria has said the Treasury will only consider taking a stake in Alitalia if talks between potential investors produce a strong business plan. Speaking to lawmakers last week, Tria confirmed that talks between Delta, EasyJet and Ferrovie are under way.<br/>
American Airlines is apologising to a South Carolina mother and her young son after they were booted from a flight because of their rare, genetic skin condition. Jordan Flake said she was discriminated against and wrongfully kicked off a South Carolina-bound flight with her toddler son, Jackson, after an airline employee inquired about her "rash" shortly before takeoff. After asking nearby passengers to move, the employee "quietly asked me about 'my rash' and if I had a letter from a doctor stating it was OK for me to fly," Flake wrote on Facebook, where she documented the ordeal. "I explained to him that it was called ichthyosis and it was a genetic skin condition." The mother and son were returning home Thursday after visiting her military husband in Texas before his deployment, Flake wrote. Ichthyosis is a genetic skin disorder that slows the skin's natural shedding process, resulting in dry and scaling skin, according to Mayo Clinic. It's not contagious, but that didn't stop the airline from ordering Flake to deplane. <br/>