Faulty aircraft design and inadequate pilot-training recommendations from the manufacturer led to the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 MAX jet after takeoff from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia a year ago, according to an accident report issued by Ethiopian investigators. The interim report released Monday about the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 provides some new technical analyses along with details about the cockpit drama before the plunge—with pilots pulling back on the controls with more than 180 pounds of force to no avail. But the document indicates that neither pilot errors nor potential airline slip-ups contributed significantly to the tragedy that killed all 157 on board. The findings contrast with a series of other government and industry reports that highlighted the important interplay of causal factors, ranging from Boeing’s misguided engineering assumptions to lax regulatory oversight to at least one significant incorrect pilot command. Monday’s report gives short shrift to such contributing causes and focuses largely on Boeing’s failings in devising a powerful new automated flight-control feature, called MCAS. That feature, which ended up aggressively and repeatedly pushing down the nose of the Ethiopian airliner, is being fixed before the global MAX fleet returns to service.<br/>
star
Specialists appointed to try to save struggling South African Airways said Monday they plan to begin employee consultations on job cuts, a stage of the rescue plan likely to meet fierce resistance from trade unions. “Our intention has always been to preserve as many jobs as possible through this process while still focusing on having a sustainable airline,” the practitioners Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana said in a joint statement, adding that they had notified at least seven different unions. Matuson and Dongwana said that they “contemplate that all 4,708 employees will be affected and the number of jobs that will exist in the restructured organisation will be the subject of the consultation process.” SAA entered a form of bankruptcy protection in December, with administrators taking over management of the state-owned airline, which hasn’t made a profit since 2011. Matuson and Dongwana said in their statement on Monday that the airline had “cumulated losses of some 26b rand ($1.63b) over the past six years.” A court last month rejected an application by two trade unions to block job cuts at SAA.<br/>
TAP on Monday suspended 2,500 flights scheduled for March-May, after cancelling 1,000 flights for this month and next on Thursday, citing a fall in demand for travel due to the coronavirus outbreak. The 3,500 groundings account for 7% of TAP's scheduled flights this month, 11% in April and 19% in May. TAP said Thursday it expected its revenues to be impacted by the coronavirus crisis and it was suspending non-critical investment and evaluating cost cuts. It said on Monday it would contact all affected passengers to "find the best options and alternatives", adding it was waiving ticket alteration fees for flights booked between March 8 and 31. Asked to comment about potential cash difficulties due to the virus epidemic, TAP said it was "successfully implementing its post-privatization transformation plan" and had a "solid shareholder base". TAP was partially privatized in 2015. The state still holds a 50% stake. TAP also said it ended last year with its best cash position ever, despite posting a net loss of E106m, and had also reduced operating costs and slashed this year's debt repayments by 70% after recent renegotiation and extension of debt maturities.<br/>
Mounting concern over the spread of coronavirus was apparently behind a United States flight being diverted over the weekend after passengers became upset over someone sneezing and coughing. United said that the flight - headed from Eagle, Colorado, to Newark, New Jersey - was diverted on Sunday to Denver's international airport. The plane was allowed to continue on to New Jersey after a small group of people who raised a ruckus over fears a passenger who was sneezing and coughing may be sick with the virus were taken off the flight, local media quoted officials as saying. The airline said the incident "was in no way a medical situation". It told local media that the passenger who was sneezing had allergies and was evaluated and allowed to stay on the flight.<br/>
SAS has cancelled 2,000 of the flights it had scheduled for March, equating to 8% of the total, the company told Norwegian broadcaster NRK on Monday. The company last week said that it would cut capacity but did not disclose by how much.<br/>