Panama’s Copa AirlinesWednesday reported a quarterly profit of $50.9m, roughly the same as a year ago, in spite of the prolonged grounding of its most cost-efficient planes, the Boeing 737 MAX, following two deadly accidents. Copa was expecting to receive seven MAX planes since the grounding began, bringing its MAX fleet to a total of 13, the company said in a securities filing. It operated a fleet of 104 planes in the quarter.<br/>
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Lufthansa will add a slew of US destinations from Frankfurt and Munich next summer mainly using its low-cost Eurowings arm in a bid to attract more leisure travellers. Europe’s biggest airline group will serve Phoenix, Anchorage in Alaska and Orlando, Florida, with Eurowings jets, according to a statement Wednesday. Flights to Las Vegas due to begin with the division’s first Frankfurt routes this winter will also be retained, and a new service from Munich added. Lufthansa itself will start operating to Seattle and Detroit. Low-cost airlines have generally struggled to turn a profit on long-haul flights, where travel times make it tougher to improve aircraft utilization and passengers are more willing to spend money on a higher standard of service. Lufthansa announced in June that it would focus Eurowings on short-haul routes, maintaining inter-continental operations only from its hubs in Frankfurt and Munich where connecting planes help fill seats. Harry Hohmeister, the group’s CCO, said the combination of Lufthansa’s marketing might with the lower cost base of Eurowings will help tap a long-haul tourism market that is “rising sharply.” Eurowings will make its debut at Lufthansa’s main Frankfurt base in October with flights that will include the holiday islands of Barbados and Mauritius, as well as Windhoek in the former German colony of Namibia, a destination that will also be retained for the summer.<br/>
French investigators are probing a ground incident during which a ramp worker suffered serious injuries during a pushback operation. The 24 July event occurred at Paris Charles de Gaulle as an Air Canada Boeing 777-300ER was preparing for a service to Toronto. French authority BEA states that part of the towbar fractured and that, when it disconnected from the tractor, the aircraft advanced. The bar, under tension, struck the ramp worker's legs. BEA has not disclosed the extent of injuries, but describes the event as "serious".<br/>