Southwest said Tuesday it will continue to limit bookings on its flights until at least September to maintain space between passengers. Social distancing on planes, along with other safety measures, are helping airlines to restore confidence in air travel after the coronavirus outbreak. Southwest also said customers would be allowed to pick their seat, and the airline will not block or direct seating. Other US carriers have been following similar moves to maintain social distancing norms in the air.<br/>
unaligned
Iran has said it will "soon" send France the black boxes of a Ukrainian jetliner its forces mistakenly shot down in January, Canada's PM said Tuesday. "The black boxes are supposed to be sent to France soon," PM Justin Trudeau told a daily briefing, adding that the coronavirus pandemic had delayed the handover. "We're going to continue to put pressure on the Iranian regime alongside our international partners to get answers, to get justice, to get compensation for the families," he added. The prime minister said he raised the analysis of the black boxes in a telephone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky "a couple of days ago." Many of the passengers on board the downed airliner were Canadian, and Ottawa has demanded for months that Iran, which does not have the technical means to decode the black boxes, send the items abroad so that their content can be analyzed. On Monday, Iran said the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen most international flights canceled, had slowed its plans to send the black boxes overseas.<br/>
Icelandair Group has pushed back by two weeks a provisional deadline for reaching restructuring agreements with various partners, forcing it to revise the timeline for a planned share offering. It has notably yet to reach a deal with cabin crew representatives, and the company is expressing “concern” that no “significant progress” has been made with talks since they stalled about three weeks ago. Negotiations with the pilots and aircraft mechanics unions have been successfully completed. The company had aimed to complete negotiations and sign agreements over the restructuring with key stakeholders – partners, lenders and lessors – by 15 June. But it has moved this back to 29 June, the date from which it had originally expected to commence the share offering.<br/>
Emirates airline has opened flights to Bahrain from Dubai, marking the return of regular flights between the Kingdom and the emirate, a government statement said. This brings to 30 the number of cities served by the airline, allowing travellers flying between Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas to connect safely and efficiently through Dubai. An Emirates Boeing 777-300ER aircraft landed in Bahrain Monday. The Dubai-based airline will now offer seven flights per week from Bahrain to Dubai, allowing passengers to connect through Dubai onwards to other destinations. Travel restrictions remain in place at most destinations, and the airline continues to take a measured and phased approach to flight resumption and rebuilding connections between Dubai and the rest of the world. Story lists destinations. <br/>
AirAsia Group is mulling flying thorny, pungent durians around the region as part of a plan to use its trucks and planes to send food straight from farms to restaurants. The airline’s agriculture e-commerce platform Ourfarm has a network of 7,000 trucks for pickups and deliveries in the Kuala Lumpur area, and is readying planes to quickly transport fresh produce including fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, into Singapore and Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak in the next three to four months. “It’s the durian season now and we’re working very hard to get them on board,” Ourfarm CEO Lalitha Sivanaser said. “The Singaporeans, the Thais, as well Indonesians have reached out for durian exports using our platform.” The coronavirus pandemic triggered disruptions in food supply chains around the world, snarling logistical operations and choking transport of fresh produce as multiple government lockdowns shut borders, closed ports and curbed trade. The crisis has also roiled the airline industry. “From an AirAsia perspective, the crisis has created an opportunity for us, by looking at a way for us to utilize our airlines facilities to build traffic for us,” Sivanaser said. <br/>