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Korean Air chairman and CE Walter Cho has vowed to act more aggressively against the growing competition from low-cost carriers in its home market. He said that the carrier has been watching the rise of LCCs passively, but that will now change. “In the past we have been very passive in confronting the low-cost carriers but now they are interfering with our side of the business and it has been overgrowing the size of the market. In the future we will be taking more aggressive actions towards this market,” he says. Cho did not elaborate further on what that action may involve. Korean Air was instrumental in establishing budget carrier Jin Air but sold its shares when the carrier launched its IPO. In the short-haul low-cost market, Jeju Air, T’way Air and Eastar Jet have grown strongly in recent years, and are now dominant forces on the domestic and short-haul international markets. Three more carriers were granted air operating licenses in March - short-haul budget carriers Aero K and Fly Gangwon and long-haul, hybrid carrier Air Premia. All three airlines are expected to launch services towards the end of this year, or in 2020. As Aero K and Fly Gangwon will be based in the smaller cities of Cheongju and Yangyang, respectively, they are expected to have a smaller impact on the incumbent carriers. By contrast, Air Premia's plan to operate Boeing 787-9s from Seoul Incheon on long-haul routes is expected to challenge Korean Air and Asiana Airlines.<br/>

The development of a V-shaped, fuel-efficient airplane design known as the Flying-V is getting a boost with the announcement that Dutch national carrier KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will help to fund it. Intended to improve the sustainability of air travel, the Flying-V was conceived by Justus Benad, then a student at the Technical University of Berlin, and developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, also known as TU Delft. Its futuristic design incorporates the passenger cabin, fuel tanks and cargo hold into the wings. It's claimed the plane will use 20% less fuel than the Airbus A350-900 while carrying a similar number of passengers -- the Flying-V will seat 314, while the Airbus A350 seats between 300 and 350. The design also mirrors the A350's 65m wingspan, enabling it to use existing airport infrastructure. "In recent years, KLM has developed as a pioneer in sustainability within the airline industry," said Pieter Elbers, CEO and president of KLM. "We are proud of our progressive cooperative relationship with TU Delft, which ties in well with KLM's strategy and serves as an important milestone for us on the road to scaling-up sustainable aviation." TU Delft project leader Roelof Vos said such innovation was needed as a stepping stone to greater efficiency while technology was still being developed to create large-scale electric airplanes. "Aviation is contributing about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, and the industry is still growing, so we really need to look at more sustainable airplanes," he said. "We cannot simply electrify the whole fleet, as electrified airplanes become way too heavy and you can't fly people across the Atlantic on electric airplanes -- not now, not in 30 years," Vos said. "So we have to come up with new technologies that reduce fuel burn in a different way."<br/>

Boston Logan International airport is Delta's newest hub, in a rare growth move by a US network carrier establishing a new connecting complex. "We've been making significant investments in Boston this year… this has really enabled us to graduate Boston from what we consider a focus city to our newest coastal hub," says Amy Martin, MD of domestic network planning at the Atlanta-based carrier. Delta has announced eight new markets from Boston to-date this year, including Chicago, Lisbon and Washington National, that combined will buoy its schedule at Logan to up to 150 peak day flights, she says. The airline's capacity in Boston is scheduled to increase 14.5% year-over-year in 2019, compared to a roughly 4% increase systemwide, Cirium schedules data shows. It is rare for a US network carrier to announce a new hub. Delta made the last such move with the opening of its Seattle Tacoma hub in 2014. More often the opposite occurs, with carriers closing hubs, including United in Cleveland in 2014 and Delta in Memphis in 2013. Boston will act as a secondary transatlantic gateway for Delta, says Martin. The carrier will serve six points in Europe – Amsterdam, Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London Heathrow and Paris – from Logan this summer, and as well as Manchester, UK, and Rome with its joint venture partners Virgin Atlantic Airways and Alitalia, schedules show.<br/>

Russian airline Aeroflot has scaled back the number of Sukhoi Superjet 100 flights it operates after one of its planes made a crash-landing last month, killing 41 people, according to data provided by a flight tracking website. Flightradar24 data shows Aeroflot has also at times substituted Airbus or Boeing planes for the Superjet, the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed. Fallout from the crash risks undermining the aircraft’s reputation at a time when Russia is promoting another domestically made passenger plane, the M-21, as a rival to Boeing and Airbus. Aeroflot and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, the Superjet’s maker, declined to comment on the data or on the use of other aircraft instead of the Russian plane. Both the airline, Russia’s national flag carrier, and the manufacturer have said in the past that the aircraft meets all relevant international safety standards and will continue to be made and used. The cause of the May 5 crash, the second deadly accident involving the Superjet in nine years of service, has not yet been established. <br/>