France’s air accident investigation agency BEA will analysis black-box flight recorders from a Boeing 737 MAX 8 which crashed near Addis Ababa on Sunday, a spokesman said. Ethiopian Airlines said earlier it would send the two cockpit voice and data recorders abroad for analysis. The French announcement resolved uncertainty over the fate of the two recorders after Germany’s BFU said it had declined a request to handle them because it could not process the new type of recorder used on the 737 MAX jets, in service since 2017. The BEA is one of the world’s most active air crash agencies alongside the US NTSB and has laboratories at its Le Bourget headquarters.<br/>
star
Panama's Copa Holdings said Wednesday it would suspend operations of its six Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, the latest airline in the region to ground planes in the wake of Sunday's crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane. The decision followed an order by the US air regulator to ground Boeing 737 MAX jets, joining government regulators in Europe, China and other countries. But even as regulators around the world have ordered the planes grounded, Latin America has largely left it up to carriers to make their own decisions. As of Wednesday night, regulators in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, the largest air travel markets in the region, had not forced the grounding of planes. Argentina's state-run news agency Telam reported on Tuesday that South American regulators were discussing potential groundings, but said no decision was "imminent" and would be made by the countries as a group. Brazil's chief federal prosecutor asked ANAC, the local regulator, on Wednesday to force the suspension of Boeing 737 MAX planes, but as of Wednesday evening no decision had been made. Copa operates Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes, which are of the same family but not the same model as the one involved in the Ethiopian Airlines crash. <br/>
Lufthansa Group is ordering 20 Boeing 787-9s and is also taking another 20 Airbus A350-900s to replace four-engined jets in its fleet. The carrier has also disclosed that it is to sell six of its Airbus A380s within the next four years. Lufthansa Group’s supervisory board has approved the acquisition of the 40 twin-engined long-haul jets, which will include the first 787s for Lufthansa. The new aircraft, valued at $12b, will be delivered over the course of 2022-27. Lufthansa has also revealed that it will sell six of its 14 A380 jets back to Airbus. The airline says it “continuously monitors the profitability” of its route network and is cutting the A380 fleet to eight aircraft “for economic reasons”. “By replacing four-engined aircaft with new models, we are laying a sustainable foundation for our future in the long run,” says CE Carsten Spohr. The carrier, already a customer for the A350-900 and the 777-9, is yet to decide where the additional A350s and the 787s will be stationed.<br/>