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American Airlines announced Tuesday that it would reduce the fee for passengers to check musical instruments and some sports equipment. Effective immediately, the carrier will no longer charge passengers US$150 to check sports equipment like bicycles or surfboards, or musical instruments like a cello. Such items, which were previously considered oversized baggage, will now be covered by the regular $30 fee for checked luggage, as long as the item weighs less than 50 pounds “I’m very surprised by it because these pieces...they are a hassle to handle, so typically what you do is you assign a higher cost to that because they’re nonstandard,” said one airline revenue consultancy. “More than anything else it is an early sign that American is shifting their public persona to be more friendly.” <br/>

American Airlines may have yet to realise the full revenue benefits of its 2013 merger with US Airways, suggests Moody's Investors Service in a new report. "American's inferior operating margins imply that the company has yet to capture the operating benefits of the 2013 merger with US Airways," the rating agency said in a credit opinion Tuesday. Moody's expects the carrier's operating margin to lag peers Delta Air Lines and United Airlines by at least 350 basis points in 2019, it says. It cites American's significantly smaller international network – it only represented roughly 27% of revenues in 2018, compared to around half at its competitors – among reasons for this discrepancy. The suggestion that the American-US Airways merger has not lived up to its promises is likely to raise questions. <br/>

American Airlines is confident that 2 stakeholder gatherings in the coming days will help provide clarity on when the Boeing 737 MAX fleet will be cleared to fly again, a top executive said. “Both of these are really big meetings, I think,” American president Robert Isom said Tuesday. “I expect, and I hope, that we have some better clarity to the path to get the aircraft back up and flying.” American operated 24 of the grounded MAXs and has removed them from its schedule through Aug 19. Isom said the carrier will decide in early June if further adjustments are needed. “We’ve got some dates in early June where we’ve got to really take a look and make sure that we’ve got a path forward and clearly laid out,” he said. “If not, we’ll make the decisions to ensure that we’re taking care of our team and customers." <br/>

Finnair has entered a codeshare partnership with China Southern Airlines, the second Chinese carrier it has partnered with in recent weeks. The airline says that the arrangement starts from June 1, will see China Southern place its code on the Finnair-operated flights on the Helsinki-Guangzhou route, and onwards from Helsinki to European destinations like Copenhagen, Amsterdam, as well as Paris. Finnair will add its code on China Southern-operated domestic flights from Guangzhou to destinations such as Xiamen, Changsha and Nanjing. Finnair is the only airline operating the Helsinki-Guangzhou route, flying it 4 times weekly with an Airbus A350-900. The codeshare follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two carriers in Dec 2018. <br/>