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United to seek compensation for 737 Max grounding

United Airlines will seek some form of compensation from Boeing for the impact of the 737 Max grounding, says CE Oscar Munoz. "There will be recompense of some sort over time," he said Thursday. "The discussion of that is a bit early. Let's get that aircraft back to flight safely." United has not specified the financial impact of the grounding which affected United's 14 in-service 737 Max 9s. The grounding forced United to cancel flights starting in April, and the company recently extended Max-related cancellations until Aug 3. It has reduced capacity growth by a percentage point, to up 4-5%, in 2019. The cumulative cancellations will impact roughly 3,440 United flights from April through July – around 0.5% of its global schedule during the period. <br/>

United Airlines overhauls Avianca management structure

United Continental has indicated plans to extend a loan to Avianca Holdings, after the two companies agreed on a leadership reshuffle that involved a loss of voting rights for Avianca’s largest shareholder. The management overhaul comes after former Avianca CE Hernan Rincon resigned in April. The shake-up was prompted the default on a US$456m loan from United by majority shareholder BRW Aviation, a subsidiary of Synergy Aerospace, which owns 78.1% of Avianca’s common stock. BRW is owned by Germán Efromovich. “While Avianca will remain an independent company and continue to run their own airline, United strongly supports their company-wide focus on transformation,” a United spokeswoman said. "We will see better benefits for our customers and for our company if Avianca is a reliable, successful partner.” <br/>