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Southwest said Thursday it has removed the grounded Boeing 737 Max from its schedule for another two months during the peak summer travel season and will drop about 9% of its planned flights as a result. Southwest said it took the plane out of the schedule through Aug. 10. It was the latest move by airlines to acknowledge that the plane won't be ready to fly as soon as they — or Boeing — had expected. Southwest had previously removed the Max from its schedule through June 6.<br/>

South African state airline SA Express is under a form of bankruptcy protection known as business rescue, a spokeswoman for the airline said Thursday. Her comments come after SA Express lost a court battle with a contractor, logistics firm Ziegler, earlier this month. SA Express, which flies to domestic and regional destinations, is a separate business from much larger state carrier South African Airways (SAA), which entered business rescue in December. Under business rescue, a restructuring expert takes over the management of a distressed company to try to salvage the business or at least deliver a better return to creditors than a formal liquidation. “The business rescue process is well-coordinated with no disruptions to customers and employees,” SA Express said.<br/>

South African airline Comair said Thursday it expects a half-yearly loss, hit by the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes, while compensation talks with the US planemaker are underway. Comair said it expects headline earnings per share to fall more than 170% for six months ended Dec. 31, which will result in a loss. It reported half-yearly HEPS of 27.2 cents a year earlier. HEPS strips out certain one-off items and is the main profit measure in South Africa. “No accrual for compensation from Boeing has been raised to date, however, negotiations are underway,” said Comair, which operates flights in southern Africa under a licence from BA.<br/>

Ryanair’s CCO Thursday denied any interest in buying Air Italy after press reports linking his group to the loss-making airline, which was put into liquidation by its owners earlier this week. Air Italy’s owners Qatar Airways and regional carrier Alisarda blamed “persistent and structural market problems” for the decision to pull the plug Tuesday. Asked about Italian press reports that Ryanair was preparing an offer, CCO David O’Brien said his group was not interested and had not been approached. “Let’s clear the room ... We have no interest whatsoever in buying Air Italy. It would be pointless,” he said.<br/>

A British woman who in a drunken fit tried to open the door of a passenger plane thousands of feet above the North Sea has been jailed for two years and barred for life from the airline, officials said. The woman, Chloe Haines, was on an evening flight with Jet2, a British budget airline, from Stansted Airport, east of London, bound for Dalaman, in southwestern Turkey, when she leapt for a door of the plane, scratched a member of the crew and shouted, “I’m going to kill you all.” Fellow passengers helped the plane crew restrain Haines, a spokesman for Jet2 said in July. Military jets were scrambled to escort the plane back to Britain, where she was arrested. In testimony on Wednesday at Chelmsford Crown Court in England, “the prosecution said that she was drunk, loud and argumentative,” her lawyer, Oliver Saxby, said Thursday. Haines, 26, pleaded guilty to “endangering the safety of an aircraft and common assault” during the flight, Saxby said.<br/>

Norwegian Air Shuttle is making further cuts to its long-haul network in a bid to return the troubled low-cost carrier to profitability this year. The airline is fast reversing a strategy of growth at all costs that increased debt to untenable levels, and will now focus its long-haul routes on London, Rome, Paris, Barcelona and the US, according to a statement Thursday. Norwegian had already reversed the course set by co-founder Bjorn Kjos, who stepped down last July, by selling assets, trimming routes, delaying aircraft deliveries, changing loan terms and raising fresh cash. The moves have shown results with increased efficiency in recent months. And it brought in a new CEO, Jacob Schram, a retail specialist who took his new position on Jan. 1. Norwegian now plans to reduce capacity by 13% to 15% this year compared with an earlier target of 10%, it said while reporting Q4 results. The carrier is also renegotiating contracts with vendors to reduce costs, CFO Geir Karlsen said.<br/>

Spirit Airlines and Tennessee officials say the low-cost carrier is moving its operations control centre from Florida to the Nashville area. The project to move the operations centre from Miramar, Florida, to Williamson County, Tennessee, represents an investment of $11.3m and will bring 345 jobs to Tennessee over the next five years, officials said Thursday. Spirit will move more than 240 positions from Florida to Tennessee, officials said. The centre handles flight dispatch, crew scheduling, maintenance control, aircraft routing, air traffic control coordination and other aspects of the business.<br/>

Nigerian carrier Green Africa Airways has tentatively agreed to acquire 50 Airbus A220-300s, a potentially strong order for the twinjets. The agreement for the Pratt & Whitney PW1500G-powered aircraft has been disclosed by the airframer, following the signature of an MOU. It comes more than a year after the company provisionally signed for up to 100 Boeing 737 Max jets, before the Max family was grounded in early 2019. Green Africa Airways founder and CE Babawande Afolabi says the A220 deal will be the “largest ever order” on the continent for the type.<br/>

Over 250 Jetstar crew and baggage handlers prepare to walk off the job for 24 hours, demanding action on poor working conditions. The action is a dramatic escalation in the industrial dispute, and comes after the TWU held two-hour work stoppages in December which caused 28 flights to be cancelled and others to be rescheduled. Jetstar CE Gareth Evans said Friday the airline would be doing "everything possible" to disrupt customers as little as possible. Passengers booked to travel on February 19 can cancel their flight and receive a full refund, or move their booking to an earlier date at no extra cost. “The TWU’s decision to disrupt air travel at a time when local tourism and the economy is hurting is unforgivable," Evans said. <br/>