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Pakistan’s national airline has been barred from flying to the US as a result of a scandal in which almost one-third of the nation’s pilots were found to have faked certifications. The US DoT notified PIA’s lawyers in Washington on July 1 that its authorization to operate to U.S. destinations was being immediately suspended. The department released a copy of the letter on Thursday. PIA has been wracked by years of financial losses and on May 22 suffered a fatal crash in which 98 people died after pilots attempted to touchdown without lowering the landing gear, damaging the engines. The flight crew tried to lift off again, but the engines failed a short time later. The FAA had notified the department on June 30 that all of PIA’s operations to the US should be terminated as a result of the pilot-certification scandal.<br/>

Malaysia has temporarily suspended pilots employed by domestic airlines who hold Pakistani licenses. Malaysia aviation regulator's decision comes in the wake of Pakistani government disclosure that 150 pilots of the PIA had dubious licences. Aviation authorities of different countries have sought verification of credentials of Pakistani pilots and engineers working there. The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) said last week that the decision came after an evaluation of all foreign pilots in Malaysia, Dawn reported. Malaysia Airlines, Malindo Air -- the Malaysian arm of Indonesia's Lion Air, and AirAsia said they don't have any Pakistani pilot. CAAM said the pilots were employed with local operators, such as flying schools, flying clubs and training organisations. "Currently all operators are required to temporarily suspend their pilot who is issued with Pakistan pilot licence from operating flights until their licences can be verified by Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA). Once verification has been carried out, the CAAM will inform operators for their reinstatement immediately," the letter emailed to the Pakistan Aviation Authority said.<br/>

AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes said Thursday that the carrier would emerge "stronger" from the coronavirus pandemic despite a warning about its future, and said the airline was hopeful of raising a sizeable cash injection. The CE said he never imagined the industry could face such a crisis, which has triggered massive layoffs worldwide and led to some carriers collapsing. "I never believed the aviation industry could be hit this hard. But ... we are still flying," he said. "This will not go on forever. We will come out stronger." The Malaysian carrier reported dismal first-quarter results this week after grounding almost its entire fleet due to the virus, prompting auditor Ernst & Young to warn of "significant doubts" about its future. Fernandes said the airline could not "run away" from the assessment but added: "We had four months of no revenue, that does not mean liabilities will exceed assets for the rest of our lives." AirAsia was taking steps to minimise costs, including cutting about 7.5% of 23,000 staff across its businesses, he said, but added he hoped there would not be any further job losses. Fernandes said the airline was in talks with international and local lenders to raise funds to weather the crisis, adding he was hoping to raise "more than RM1b" (US$230m) - and possibly up to double that within six months.<br/>

JetBlue Airways will make Los Angeles International its primary base in Southern California, abandoning Long Beach Airport after years of tension. Daily flights will double to 70 by 2025 as part of a five-year expansion plan at Los Angeles International, or LAX, the airline said in a statement Thursday. The carrier will add domestic and international flights as it competes for a bigger share of the busy Los Angeles market. JetBlue will be expanding in a highly competitive airport, where each of the four largest US carriers holds at least a 15% share of passengers. The airline will leave behind a troubled relationship with Long Beach, where city officials blocked the carrier’s plans to add international flights in 2018 and imposed fines for flights that violated a local 10 p.m. noise curfew. Contentious talks between the two sides delayed construction of a $45m terminal. “The transition to LAX, serving as the anchor of our focus city strategy on the West Coast, sets JetBlue up for success in Southern California,” Scott Laurence, head of revenue and planning, said in the statement. “We continue to seize on opportunities to emerge from this pandemic a stronger competitive force in the industry.”<br/>

Emirates laid off more pilots and cabin crew this week in another round of job cuts as the airline shrinks its workforce due to the coronavirus pandemic, four sources said. A spokesperson for the airline said: "“We can confirm that we are still in the process of implementing the redundancy exercise across our Group, as previously communicated. While we have slowly restarted operations wherever it is safe and commercially viable, our footprint today is significantly smaller than before and it will take a while for us to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Like other airlines and travel companies, COVID-19 has hit us hard, and as a responsible business, we simply must right-size our workforce in line with our reduced operational requirements. Our people have always been a big contributing factor to our success, so this is not an action that we relish, nor one that we take lightly. We continue to take every possible action to reduce costs, restore revenue streams, and preserve jobs.” A company spokeswoman on Thursday did not say how many employees had been made redundant in this week's job cuts or from which departments. The airline has a workforce of 4,300 pilots and nearly 22,000 cabin crew.<br/>

Emirates will resume flights to Geneva (from 15 July), Los Angeles (from 22 July), Dar es Salaam (from 1 August), Prague and Sao Paulo (from 2 August), and Boston (from 15 August), the airline announced on Thursday (July 9, 2020). The new routes will offer customers even more travel options. This will take the airline's network to 58 cities by mid-August, including 20 points in Europe and 24 points in the Asia Pacific. Adnan Kazim, Emirates' CCO said: "We've seen an uptick in customer interest and demand since the announcement of Dubai's re-opening, and also with the increased travel options that we offer as we gradually re-establish our network connectivity. We continue to work closely with all stakeholders to resume flight operations while ensuring that all necessary measures to safeguard the health and safety of our customers and employees are in place."<br/>

Boeing’s new 777X jet is likely to miss its planned debut next year, according to the aircraft’s top customer Emirates, which doesn’t expect to receive any planes before 2022. Deliveries of the wide-body jet, which first flew in January, will probably be held up by Boeing’s shutdown at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, together with a lengthy certification process, Adel Al Redha, the Gulf carrier’s COO, said Thursday. Emirates is also considering whether to seek a swap of some of the 115 777Xs it has on order -- representing more than a third of the total backlog -- for the smaller 787 Dreamliner, which might be better matched to demand, he said. Accelerating deliveries from an earlier Dreamliner order is a “possibility,” he said. “We will be discussing with Boeing in that regard, if we look what we can do with the 787,” Al Redha said. “We are in a fluid discussion and in the peak of re-examining all these kind of things. It does require re-examination, it does require re-thinking, it does require renegotiation.”<br/>

Cabin crew members at Icelandair Group have voted against a provisional collective bargaining agreement that was struck between the airline and flight attendant union FFI in June. The carrier says it will “evaluate its options” after union members “declined” the pact, an important part of its restructuring plan. Icelandair has already reached new deals with its pilots and aircraft mechanics, but it was struggling to secure an agreement with the cabin crew union. Talks had stalled for a period but the company subsequently managed to achieve a tentative deal with FFI representatives, with terms set to run to September 2025. The objectives of the cabin crew agreement were “to ensure the long-term competitiveness of the company and, at the same time, protect good compensation and working conditions for cabin crew”, says the airline.<br/>