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A Pakistani girl who was critically injured on the ground last month when a passenger plane went down in a crowded neighborhood of the port city of Karachi has died at a hospital, her relatives and a doctor said Tuesday. The Airbus A320 crash killed 97 passengers and crew members; two passengers survived the crash. The 12-year-old girl was among four local residents who were injured when the Airbus A320 crashed near the Karachi airport on May 22, slamming into the densely crowded neighborhood and setting off a huge fire. She died on Monday from severe burn injuries, said Rubina Bashir, a doctor at a government hospital where the girl was treated. The remaining three injured local residents are still hospitalized. Initial reports have said that the PIA jet crashed after an apparent engine failure. Flight PK-8303 took off from the eastern city of Lahore and was trying to land at the Karachi airport when it crashed. At least 18 homes on the ground were damaged or destroyed.<br/>

Investment firms Bain Capital and Cyrus Capital Partners were selected as top contenders Tuesday to acquire the assets of Virgin Australia, which filed for bankruptcy protection after the coronavirus pandemic brought air travel to a near halt. Both Bain and Cyrus are well funded and have deep aviation experience, said Vaughan Strawbridge, a partner at Deloitte who is one of the administrators overseeing the sale. “We are in a strong place when it comes to delivering the best possible commercial outcome for all creditors," Strawbridge said Tuesday. The interest in the airline suggests that investors still think aviation could be lucrative despite being hammered by the pandemic, which prompted many governments to restrict travel to stop the virus from spreading. Many big airports have said passenger traffic is down more than 90%. Virgin Australia, the country’s No. 2 carrier, was struggling before the coronavirus pandemic. Analysts have said the airline will likely be successful in using the administration process to cut debt and lower costs, though it might need to pare back its international services and lay off staff. Strawbridge said the administrators reviewed five nonbinding proposals for the airline before narrowing the field to the two preferred bidders. Both bidders will work on their final offers, and the administrators said they intend to have a binding agreement in place for the airline by June 30.<br/>

Southwest Monday extended buyout packages and temporary paid leaves to employees in what its chief executive said was an effort to “ensure survival” as the carrier braces for a slow recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, according to documents detailing the packages that were seen by Reuters. Southwest, which has not imposed any layoffs or furloughs in its 49-year history, said its flying capacity would probably be down about 30% in the fall. “While overstaffing isn’t tied 100% to capacity levels, it would be fair to assume that we are overstaffed in many areas by a similar percentage,” Southwest said. Southwest is offering leaves of a minimum of six months with benefits and 50% pay for most employees, excluding pilots, who would receive about 61% pay. The maximum leave period varies, and the airline said it “may return employees to work earlier if needed for operational needs.” Buyouts are being offered to employees depending on their time with the company. <br/>

Air Mauritius administrators are running out of time to save the airline as recurrent expenses pile up, costs of servicing leases for new aircraft accumulate and unions fail to give constructive proposals on job cuts. Cumulative losses for the three fiscal years through March 2021 could reach 9.5b rupees ($237m) if costs are not cut in the short term. At the current rate, the airline will require a cash injection of 10.3b rupees to meet its financial commitments, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. “Constructive and reasonable propositions from the unions with regard to collective agreements will allow us to save as many jobs as possible and to mitigate the social impact of the restructuring,” Sattar Hajee Abdoula, one of the two administrators, said in a separate statement emailed by the Stock Exchange of Mauritius. “We need to bear in mind that the more we delay, the options that we have right now will shrink.” Under voluntary administration since April 22 and suspended from the bourse, MK is facing the biggest challenge in its half-a-century history with the financial strain compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic. <br/>

French flight crew have accused Ryanair of blackmailing them into taking pay cuts or losing their jobs. The Irish airline, which has warned it may cut up to 3,000 jobs in Europe, told staff in France it was imposing 20% salary cuts for flight crew and 10% for attendants. Those who are already on legal minimum wages will have their hours reduced. Staff unions have accused the company of “redundancy blackmail” and acting like cowboys. “France isn’t the wild west,” said Damien Mourgues, a cabin crew union representative. According to confidential documents seen by French media, Ryanair wrote to staff proposing wage cuts take effect from 1 July 2020. The lower wages would be progressively increased over the five years so flight crew would be paid their full current salaries by July 2025. The loss of salary works out at an average 12% over five years for the pilots. Ryanair also proposed to pay new pilots and co-pilots the lower wages. The Syndicat National des Pilots de Ligne said it had been given a maximum of five days to respond to the ultimatum. If not, it said the company warned it would have “no choice” but to lay off 29% of its pilots and 27% of co-pilots in France. The airline also wrote to cabin crew representatives proposing a 10% salary cut during the same five-year period and reducing their paid working time from 2,000 hours a year to 1,600 hours, meaning a loss of E308 a month for those earning E1,539 a month.<br/>

EasyJet has announced plans to restart flights across the majority of its routes this summer, with holiday flights from all its UK airports in July and August. The airline said it would be flying half of its 1,022 routes in July and 75% in August, although with lower frequencies – amounting to just under a third of its normal peak season capacity. The move comes after it announced it would cut up to 4,500 staff because of reduced demand. Last month, easyJet said it would restart some UK and European flights from 15 June, as the rate of Covid-19 infection started to reduce across the continent. It has launched a marketing blitz including a seat sale of 1m flights at GBP29.99 each. Customers may need some tempting after a long wait for many to be refunded for cancelled flights from airlines during the grounding.<br/>

The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) suspended the operation of El Al cargo flights due to the Israeli airline’s debts to the authority, a spokesperson for the IAA said Tuesday. Cargo flights – which have represented the struggling carrier’s main source of income in recent months – scheduled to take off after 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday were cancelled. Debts to the IAA amount to some NIS60m ($17.3m), a source said. The announcement marks another blow for El Al, which has so far failed to reach an agreement following months of negotiations with the Finance Ministry for a $400m government-backed bailout agreement. An emergency El Al executive meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening was attended by new Transportation Minister Miri Regev, Channel 12 reported. Securing a bailout deal is considered vital to ensure the survival of the coronavirus-battered airline.<br/>

Emirates will decide over the next few months on the size of its future fleet, the airline’s president said on Tuesday. It is not clear when Emirates, which flew to 157 destinations in 83 countries before the coronavirus pandemic, will start rebuilding its network after grounding passenger flights in March. It has since flown few, limited services. “We need a little more time to see how this is all going to pan out,” he said. A decision will be made once there is greater clarity on whether demand for travel will start to rebound next year, which Clark said depends on a widely available COVID-19 vaccine being developed soon. The airline is looking at its 115 Airbus A380s, the world’s largest fleet of the superjumbos, and the final eight pending deliveries of the double decker plane, Clark said without elaborating. Emirates is in talks with Airbus to reduce final A380 deliveries, sources have said. The airline is also “looking” at it order for 50 Airbus A350s and orders for 126 Boeing 777x jets and 30 787 jets.<br/>

EasyJet and cruise operator Carnival are set to lose their place in the FTSE 100 index of the UK’s biggest companies following the collapse in their share prices due to the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the travel industry. The budget airline has lost half of its market value since the start of the pandemic as almost all flights have been cancelled, and the aviation industry warns it will take years to convince people to take to the skies in the same numbers they did before the virus struck. EasyJet last week announced plans to cut 4,500 jobs, although it plans to restart flights on the majority of its routes this summer.<br/>

The parent of India's largest airline IndiGo reported a quarterly loss as expenses rose, and did not provide a forecast on capacity due to a hit to operations from the COVID-19 pandemic. Interglobe Aviation, which had been grappling with higher maintenance costs at the carrier amid slowing demand, was forced to halt all operations as India went into a lockdown in March to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Aircraft repair-and-maintenance expenses for Q4 rose 75.6% to 16.81b rupees ($223.71m), raising the company's overall costs, excluding spending for fuel, higher by 45.6%. Cost per available seat kilometer, including fuel, rose 25.8% to 4.21 rupees. Higher expenses led to a net loss of 8.73b Indian rupees ($116.19m) for Q4 ended March 31, compared to a profit of 5.90b rupees a year earlier. Indigo, which dominates the domestic market, in April asked its employees to go on leave without pay for a few days every month, while some of its senior management took pay cuts. After a two-month halt, India last week allowed domestic airlines to start a third of its operations until August 24.<br/>

South Africa’s Comair said on Tuesday it was unlikely to restart operations before November, even after the easing of restrictions on air travel, as the airline requires a substantial cash injection. The company, which operates the local British Airways franchise and budget airline kulula.com, entered bankruptcy protection process last month after a nationwide coronavirus lockdown forced airlines to suspend all commercial flights. Its administrators confirmed on Tuesday they were in talks with six potential funders to secure capital in order to resume domestic operations by November. The administrators also said that the airline would shrink its fleet, which currently consists of 27 aircraft including the grounded Boeing 737 MAX8, to reduce costs and reflect the demand for air travel post the coronavirus crisis. Employees have been placed on unpaid leave and retrenchment proceedings are continuing, said Shaun Collyer, one of the administrators. Comair is in talks with parties interested in buying some of its operating assets as going concerns.<br/>