Canada's transport minister said Wednesday his country is demanding official status in Iran's investigation of the crash of a Ukraine International Airlines jet in Tehran last week. Iran admits its air-defense forces shot the plane down, having not identified it as a commercial airliner. All 176 people aboard were killed, including 138 people who were headed for Canada and 57 Canadians. Transport Minister Marc Garneau said two Canadian investigators are in Iran as part of an international team and have been getting good co-operation, but he wants their participation in the probe formalized. He said the plane's "black boxes" are in Iranian hands, but another two investigators are ready to go wherever and whenever the recorders are examined. Canada is organizing a meeting in London on Thursday with representatives from several countries that lost citizens in the crash, to co-ordinate dealings with Iran.<br/>
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EasyJet’s move to resume flights to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh this summer marks a further return by a UK operator to what had been a key leisure destination. UK carriers had been prohibited from flying to Sharm el-Sheikh because of security concerns after a Russian-operated Airbus A321 crashed in Sinai in October 2015 – a loss which Russian authorities believe was the result of sabotage. While other countries that had similarly implemented a ban in the aftermath of the crash, such as Germany and Turkey, lifted the restrictions within a year, the UK continued to block its carriers from flying into Sharm el-Sheikh airport. The UK finally lifted the restrictions in October 2019. Travel group TUI UK had already in November outlined plans to restore Sharm el-Sheikh services. TUI will begin flights to the Egyptian resort from London Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester in February, adding further connections from Bristol and Doncaster Sheffield in May. Now EasyJet has announced it will operate twice-weekly flights to the Red Sea resort from both Gatwick and Manchester. The Manchester service will begin on 7 June, followed by Gatwick on 30 September.<br/>
Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo is set to launch Doha and Dubai services from Kolkata in the coming weeks, bringing low-cost competition to the routes. The airline will begin the Dubai service on 16 February, and the Doha one on 1 March. IndiGo’s booking engine indicates that it will operate Airbus A320s on the two routes, without specifying whether the 180-seat A320ceo or 186-seat A320neo will be used. IndiGo’s entry into the Kolkata-Dubai market would likely grow the overall capacity from 5,048 seats per week to around 6,300. Emirates leads the market with 4,400 seats spread across its 11-times-weekly service, followed by Air India with 648 seats across four flights per week. Qatar Airways, which has a codesharing agreement with IndiGo, is currently the sole carrier to fly the Kolkata-Doha route. Its daily service provides 1,784 seats per week. IndiGo’s entry to the Kolkata-Doha market will raise the number of seats available to around 3,000-3,100 per week<br/>
As digital disruption continues to weigh heavy on future job security, Southeast Asian airline AirAsia has teamed up Google to launch a new tech academy to reskill employees. The first of its kind “AirAsia Google Cloud Academy” will be managed by AirAsia’s venture arm, RedBeat Ventures, and will offer courses including digital marketing, software engineering and tech infrastructure design — all of which will be accredited by the Silicon Valley tech giant. Google Cloud’s Southeast Asia regional director Tim Synan said that the deal would enable participants to better understand its technology. “Together we’re working to upskill AirAsia AllStars with relevant expertise in Google Cloud technologies and build deep technical knowledge and Cloud expertise including Kubernetes, smart analytics, Cloud AI and more,” he said. AirAsia has partnered with Google since 2018, when it struck a deal to integrate Google Cloud’s machine learning capabilities to improve its digital capabilities. AirAsia did not immediately confirm further details on the training facility. AirAsia’s head office is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.<br/>