One Two Three Airlines (OTT Airlines), a subsidiary of China Eastern, launched in February to expand domestically-produced aircraft to more markets, completed its maiden commercial flight on Monday. The nearly two-hour flight from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport will be followed by the opening of new routes to Nanchang, Hefei and Wenzhou over the next three months, according to the airline. The Shanghai-based company used an ARJ21 jet for the flight, China’s first domestically made plane for the regional aviation market. The single-aisle model, made by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), went into service in 2016, has a range of 4,000km and a flying altitude equal to other commercial aircraft, Chinese media reported. With 90 seats in 18 rows, the ARJ21 competes with the ERJ model made by Brazil’s Embraer and the A220 designed by Canada’s Bombardier, but marketed by Airbus. There have been several breakthroughs in China’s home-grown aircraft industry in recent years, which has developed alongside the rapid growth of the aviation market. The C919 – a larger, narrow-body aircraft made by Comac that China hopes will challenge the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus 320neo families – started cold-weather test flights last week in the far northern city of Hulunbuir. The plane is also being tested in other parts of China, putting it on schedule for official deliveries at the end of next year, media in the mainland have reported. <br/>
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Emirates says it does not expect to take delivery of its first B777-9 earlier than 2023, three years behind the original schedule. The Emirati carrier revealed its latest estimate for the Boeing widebody's service entry date in a press release announcing the introduction of a new premium economy class onboard its A380-800s. It did not go into any details about the reasons for the new delay nor did it break down the delivery schedule per year. Emirates initially expected to be one of the type's first operators, alongside Lufthansa and Qatar Airways, with deliveries expected to have commenced in 2020. However, a series of production delays, caused partially by issues relating to its General Electric engines and to the COVID-19 pandemic, have forced Boeing to protract the B777X's certification process; its maiden test flight took place in early 2020, rather than in 2019. As such, Boeing's latest official timeline forecasts deliveries to start in 2022.<br/>
PIA could see its assets attached by the High Court of Justice in the British Virgin Islands, where it is incorporated, over a longstanding dispute between its shareholder, the Pakistan state, and gold and copper exploration giant Tethyan Copper Company (TCC). TCC has asked the High Court to enforce a US$5.97b award against Pakistan by the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitral tribunal granted on July 12, 2019. The settlement award related to the Pakistan Province of Balochistan in 2011 having refused TCC a mining lease for the development of a US$3.3b copper-gold mine at Reko Diq in Balochistan. This resulted in TCC filing a case against Pakistan with the ICSID in 2012. The enforcement of the award was provisionally stayed in September 2019, which was again extended on September 17, 2020, after the Pakistan government had applied for its annulment. In a statement in December 2020, the office of the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) confirmed that TCC had initiated proceedings for the enforcement of the award before the High Court of Justice in the British Virgin Islands and that TCC sought the attachment of certain assets belonging to Pakistani institutions.<br/>