Rescuers recovered 97 bodies Saturday from the wreckage of a crashed Pakistan International Airlines domestic flight, which the pilot had said lost power. The plane crashed Friday as it reached the southern city of Karachi, slamming into a residential area on the edge of the airport. The flight was carrying 99 passengers and crew. Two passengers survived and weren’t badly hurt, an escape described as “miraculous” by authorities. Many of the passengers had been on their way to see their loved ones for the Muslim festival of Eid, which falls this weekend, officials said. On Saturday, the provincial government said it had found 97 bodies. Residents of 25 homes on the ground that were damaged by the crash were relocated, said the military, which is helping with the debris-clearance operations. Among the dead was one American. The plane flew into the roofs of low-rise apartment blocks and homes of a middle-class neighborhood, breaking the aircraft up. Fires broke out on the ground. Rubble from the buildings and plane parts littered the narrow streets of the area. Authorities said no residents were killed, but some were injured. An investigation into the crash has been launched, with a four-member team named by the government to run the probe. Story has full details.<br/>
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The bodies were pulled one by one from the ruins of damaged buildings and the smoldering wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines plane that had crashed a day earlier into a crowded neighborhood of Karachi: 97 of them by Saturday. Many were charred beyond recognition, leaving families — some clutching pictures of their loved ones — to depend on DNA results from a laboratory to identify those they had lost. Most of the relatives had spent the night before at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, the city’s largest government hospital, and on Saturday in hot weather at the crash site in the Model Colony neighborhood, waiting for the grim word. To help with the identifications, DNA samples from relatives of 40 victims had been submitted at the forensic lab at the University of Karachi, officials said. Nineteen bodies were identified and handed over to the relatives after DNA tests and identification, according to health officials. And post-mortems were being carried out on the rest of the passengers of the plane, an Airbus A320 belonging to the national airline. An airline spokesman said on Saturday that the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder had been recovered from the crash site. The crash has cast a pall on the nation a day before Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Most of the passengers, including top banking executives, a senior civil servant and military officials, had been returning to Karachi for Eid. The pilot reported having lost engines as he tried to land, declaring, “Mayday, mayday!” PM Imran Khan has ordered an inquiry, and the country’s Safety Investigation Board, comprising senior air force and aviation officials, is leading the investigation.<br/>
One of the two people to survive a plane crash in Pakistan that killed 97 people on board has described jumping from the burning wreckage of the aircraft after it hurtled into a residential neighbourhood. The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane came down among houses on Friday after both engines failed as it approached Karachi airport. The 97 victims had been on the plane, the provincial health ministry said, while four people on the ground were injured after earlier reports on Friday suggested some residents had been killed by the crash. Pakistan's deadliest aviation accident in eight years came days after commercial flights resumed ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Planes had been grounded during a two-month lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. "After it hit and I regained consciousness, I saw fire everywhere and no one was visible," passenger Mohammad Zubair, 24, said from his hospital bed in a video clip circulated on social media. "The cries were everywhere and everybody was trying to survive. I undid my seat belt and I saw some light and tried to walk towards it. Then I jumped out." Zubair had suffered burns but was in a stable condition, a health ministry official said. PIA chief executive Arshad Mahmood Malik told media late Saturday that authorities had also recovered the plane's black box and had handed it over to investigators. A PIA spokesperson said air traffic control lost contact with the plane travelling from Lahore to Karachi just after 2:30 pm (0930 GMT). The pilot made a desperate mayday call after announcing "we have lost engines", according to an audio recording confirmed by the airline. PIA's CE Malik described the Airbus A320 as one of the safest planes.<br/>
EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou has lost his attempt to oust four directors, including the airline’s chairman and CE, following an investor vote Friday. Sir Stelios, the low-cost airline’s biggest shareholder, was dealt the blow after investors voted against each of the four resolutions at a virtual extraordinary general meeting. About 58% of shareholders voted against each resolution, compared with about 42% in favour. The resolutions to remove the directors required the support of more than 50%. Following the defeat, John Barton, chairman of easyJet, thanked shareholders for their support and said the board hoped “to be able to re-engage constructively with Sir Stelios”. He said: “The board’s immediate priority has been to take the necessary steps to successfully guide easyJet through this period of uncertainty.” EasyJet said more than 99% of votes cast by independent shareholders, excluding Sir Stelios, were in support of the board. The budget carrier has been in the middle of a battle with Sir Stelios over the past two months over a multibillion-pound order for 107 Airbus aircraft. The airline held the general meeting in response to Sir Stelios’s resolution to remove four directors, including Barton and CE Johan Lundgren. Sir Stelios said he would “carry on the search” for the reasons behind what he called a “love affair” between easyJet and Airbus.<br/>
Southwest expects flying capacity later this year to be down about 30% from 2019, potentially leaving the company overstaffed, CEO Gary Kelly said. The carrier may be forced into the first involuntary furloughs in its 49-year history if travel demand doesn’t pick up more swiftly over the summer, Kelly said Friday in a video message to employees. Like its rivals, Southwest has offered employee leave programs after industry passenger totals tumbled as much as 95% from last year amid the coronavirus pandemic. “In April, we lost about $1b not counting government support, which just isn’t sustainable,” Kelly said. “Things have to improve quickly over the summer and if they don’t, we’ll have to radically restructure Southwest Airlines. If we do, you’ll see a radically restructured industry for that matter.” US carriers are barred from mass job cuts through Sept. 30 under the terms of $25b in federal payroll aid. Kelly said he didn’t know how many excess employees Southwest may have after that. More than 10,000 of Southwest’s approximately 61,000 employees have taken voluntary time off, saving “millions of dollars,” he said. The company, which expects to cut flying capacity as much as 70% this month and about 50% in June, soon will offer voluntary separation and early retirement plans.<br/>
The president of Emirates expects to have all its planes flying in two years’ time, including its fleet of A380 superjumbo jets. Tim Clark, who heads the Dubai-based carrier, said its current fleet of A380s, which will cease to be manufactured from next year, would continue to play an important part in the airline’s future. He said the carrier, one of the world’s largest, was planning to fully deploy all its aircraft in the summer of 2022 based on its outlook for a recovery in air travel to take up to two years. Clark dismissed suggestions that Emirates would permanently decommission a large portion of its 115-strong A380 fleet. “At the moment, I’ve got 115 sitting there. We’ve always known that up until that point in time . . . in 2022 there are going to be a number that will have to go into long-term storage,” he said. “We’re not getting rid of any of them apart from I think three that are coming out and nine 777s that were scheduled to come out this year.” He added that the A380 had a “place in the Emirates international network on the scale it has before. Albeit not today or fully next year, but the year after I think there will be a place for it and I think it is going to be extremely popular.” Clark would not comment on how many job cuts the airline will have to make. “All I will say is that the optimistic [business] scenario is driving what we do now and therefore the business has to be structured in such a way on the basis of that way forward.” <br/>
The president of India’s largest private airline IndiGo has warned that government intervention to set fares threatens to undermine the restarting of flights after two months of grounding because of the pandemic. Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, president and COO of IndiGo, said that he was not in favour of the price band — with an upper and lower limit — imposed by New Delhi on flights until August. “We were not asking for that,” said Prock-Schauer, “As a matter of principle, we think airlines should be smart enough to do it on their own; let the market forces work.” Analysts said the regulation would hit demand in the world’s fastest-growing aviation market and put pressure on an industry already struggling with the impact of the country’s strict lockdown. “Price caps, even though temporary, set a very bad precedent,” said Kapil Kaul, south Asia chief at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. “The world over, companies are trying to reduce fares to attract people to come back. We have done the opposite.” New Delhi’s unexpected announcement last week that domestic flights would resume on Monday at reduced capacity has unleashed chaos in the industry, which had been preparing to restart at the end of the lockdown on May 31. Many states have also objected to restarting flights, or have proposed putting travellers into quarantine, complicating efforts to resume operations.<br/>
Virgin Atlantic’s lenders have tapped Deloitte to advise them over their exposure to the carrier as it faces a race to secure rescue funding. The banks have at least GBP250m owed to them, Sky News reported, as Sir Richard Branson’s airline conducts emergency talks with the Government and private investors in search of a GBP500m lifeline. It was previously revealed that New York hedge fund Elliott Management, the fund founded by formidable investor Paul Singer, was among the names considering a potential injection of capital into Virgin Atlantic, Other hedge funds including Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Greybull and Centerbridge are also in the mix. A Virgin Atlantic spokesman said: “Discussions with a number of stakeholders continue and are constructive, meanwhile the airline remains in a stable position.”<br/>
Bain Capital is preparing a second-round proposal to become the owner and operator of Virgin Australia Holdings, the US alternative asset manager said Sunday. Its Sydney-based managing director Mike Murphy is leading the team bidding for Virgin Australia, which entered voluntary administration last month. Bain Capital is being advised by KordaMentha and is supported by Jayne Hrdlicka, the former CEO of Jetstar. “We have the strongest capital base of any of the bidders,” Murphy said. “We know aviation isn’t going to return to normal any time soon, but Bain Capital is here for the long haul with deep funding to navigate these difficult times.” Bain is among four shortlisted bidders vying for Virgin Australia, which collapsed in April overwhelmed by about A$6.5b in debt. The carrier’s problems were amplified by years of losses and a severe revenue shortfall from coronavirus-linked travel cancellations. US private equity firm Indigo Partners has said it would like a local partner for its bid. The other two shortlisted bidders are reportedly BGH Capital and Cyrus Capital Partners. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is in discussions with administrators Deloitte over rejoining the bidding for the airline after withdrawing from consideration.<br/>
Ryanair executives preparing for thousands of job cuts warned employees in Spain that the collapse of air travel had left the discount airline with more than 600 surplus pilots and cabin crew in the country. The Irish carrier estimates it has an excess of 266 pilots and 351 cabin crew, People Director Darrell Hughes said on a video conference call seen by Bloomberg News. “That doesn’t mean they’ll all have to be job losses” said Hughes, who was joined by unit CEO Eddie Wilson. Other measures aimed at slashing costs include lower pay rates for new hires and additional rostering flexibility. Part-time work is one solution the company should explore with unions, Hughes said. Two months into a grounding of its entire fleet, the airline is clamping down on costs and digging in for a slow recovery. Ryanair plans to restart operations from July 1 with about 40% of its usual capacity in a bid to salvage part of the summer season, though CEO Michael O’Leary has predicted a price war across a much diminished air-travel market.<br/>
Ryanair’s Laudamotion unit will close its base in Vienna, following through on a threat to cut more than 300 jobs after it failed to reach a deal with unions over cost reductions. The Austria hub, the main base for the carrier founded by the late race car driver Niki Lauda, will close on May 29, Ryanair said in a statement on Friday. Other Ryanair group airlines will operate flights to Vienna instead, said David O’Brien, Lauda’s joint CEO. Lauda’s operations in Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and Palma de Mallorca will continue to operate, O’Brien said, while the 15 Airbus A320 jets based in the Austrian capital will likely be moved. The carrier blamed labor group Vida for the decision, saying that pilots and cabin crew had agreed to the terms of the deal before the union scuttled the plan. “The tragedy of this particular situation is that our pilots in Vienna didn’t need to lose their jobs,” said O’Brien. “Today, we were hoping that we’d be planning on the resumption of services in Vienna. Now we have to work on an alternative plan.”<br/>
Staff at Aer Lingus are facing lay-offs as well as cuts to pay and hours from the latter part of June, the trade union Fórsa has said. The union said Friday the airline’s plans were “premature”. It said “there remains a full month to explore and negotiate available options while unprecedented support from the State remains in place”. Following a meeting between the airline and the group of unions representing staff the company on Friday Fórsa said it had been told the existing arrangements – which see staff receiving half their traditional pay supported by the Government’s wage subsidy scheme – would continue until June 21st. However, unions said the airline “intended to take unilateral measures beyond that date, including lay-offs and further reductions to hours and pay”. Fórsa official Angela Kirk said:”The effect of Covid-19 is not just an issue for Aer Lingus and its staff. It’s the most significant crisis for the entire Irish aviation industry in a generation, with the potential to adversely affect the commercial connectivity of the country. To act unilaterally now, and to abandon the efforts to negotiate a solution to the current crisis, and plan for a future recovery, is to squander the time remaining to negotiate real solutions. Nobody is pretending it will be easy, but to shut the door on discussions with a month of state-subsidised support still to go, is not the way to solve the enormous challenges faced by the industry."<br/>
Travel giant TUI is planning to resume flights to main holiday destinations in Europe by the end of June. “We are planning to start flying again from end June, in time for summer vacation,” CE Fritz Joussen told Rheinische Post in Germany. He said the Spanish island of Mallorca, a favourite hot spot for German travellers, would be likely to be the first destination. “We want to resume flight traffic to Mallorca from mid-to-end June. Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Bulgaria are also well-prepared,” Joussen told the paper. Earlier this month, TUI, the world’s largest tourism group, said it would cut 8,000 jobs and look to shed 30% of its costs as it gears up for a July restart to European tourism. <br/>