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The search for one of the black boxes from the Sriwijaya Air passenger jet that crashed in the Java Sea on Saturday has been suspended due to bad weather, Indonesian officials said. Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 plunged into the sea with 62 people on board shortly after taking off from Jakarta at 2:36 p.m. Rescue workers have been bringing human remains and plane parts ashore for identification. The jet’s flight-data recorder was retrieved Tuesday, but the other black box that captures pilot communications and sounds from the cockpit hasn’t been recovered. “The weather is still not conducive, so operations that are focused on underwater haven’t been carried out for the safety of the divers,” Bambang Suryo Aji, a director at the National Search and Rescue Agency, said during a televised briefing. The locator beacons on both boxes were dislodged by the force of impact. The retrieved flight-data recorder is “in relatively good shape,” Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee Chairman Soerjanto Tjahjono said. The box is being dried out and the contents should be downloaded within five days, he said. The plane was a Boeing 737-500. It had been in storage due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced airlines around the world to park away aircraft due to a lack of flying demand. <br/>

The aging plane flew during a heavy storm in a country with a long history of flight disasters. It had also been out of service for nine months. According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation, Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, which plunged into the Java Sea on Saturday afternoon, killing all 62 passengers and crew members on board, had been in a hangar for most of last year after the coronavirus pandemic wiped out much of commercial flight. The effect such a hiatus may have had on the 26-year-old Boeing 737-500 is still unclear, but experts have warned that the continuing collapse of air travel could pose potential safety risks from mothballed planes. “There’s a major problem starting to raise its head in terms of restoring these aircraft because while out of service for nine or 10 months, they need to be kept operating, otherwise they deteriorate,” said Hugh Ritchie, CE of Aviation Analysts International, an Australian air safety consulting firm. The period of dormancy creates extra burdens for inspections and maintenance to repair parts that may have deteriorated. In addition, pilots who may not have been flying actively during the downturn need time to get back up to speed, Ritchie said. “All of these aircraft have to be brought slowly back into service,” he added. “The same can be said about pilots.” Like most commercial airlines, Sriwijaya Air was forced to scale back operations in the pandemic. At one point it was down to operating just five of its 18 planes. The Boeing 737-500 that crashed was put in a hangar on March 23 and did not operate again until the end of the year, according to the Ministry of Transportation.<br/>

Wizz Air is set to pay borrowing costs of little over 1% on its debut bond, underscoring how buoyant credit markets remain in the face of fresh lockdowns and the spread of a new virus variant in Europe. The London-listed Hungarian carrier followed a string of European companies that have issued debt at low interest rates in the first two weeks of 2021, highlighting investors’ confidence in central banks’ ability to mitigate the protracted economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis. Wizz Air’s three-year deal shows how fund managers are increasingly willing to buy bonds from even deeply-troubled sectors such as the airline industry, where activity has ground to a near halt for the best part of the year, in the search for any form of returns. In December 2020, 665,722 passengers travelled with Wizz Air, an 80% drop compared with the same month in 2019, according to the company's figures. The European corporate bond market has experienced a frenzied start to the year, with investment-grade rated companies, those at the higher end of the ratings scale, borrowing at historically low yields from investors flush with cash. German energy company Eon raised €600m at a coupon of 0.1% earlier this week, while Swiss engineering group ABB was able to borrow E800m with no interest payments. “Available funding costs have never been better,” said Mark Lynagh, co-head of Emea debt markets at BNP Paribas.<br/>

EasyJet said the National Health Service (NHS) would train hundreds of its cabin crew to administer COVID-19 vaccines under a fast-track scheme designed to help boost the country’s vaccination efforts. With a highly transmissible new variant of the virus surging across Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put the country into a third lockdown and is rushing out vaccines. The government plans to vaccinate the elderly, the vulnerable and frontline workers - around 15 million people - by mid-February and is opening up centres and recruiting volunteers to help it meet its target. With travel at very low levels due to the lockdown, many of easyJet’s 3,000 cabin crew are not working but are both first aid trained and security cleared, making them attractive candidates to the NHS to help with the programme. EasyJet said on Wednesday it expected hundreds of crew to sign up as vaccinators, similar numbers to last year when its staff also volunteered to support the NHS. The airline is, like most European carriers, keen for the vaccine to be rolled out so travel can restart. Its finances have been squeezed by 10 months of minimal flying, forcing it to axe staff and take on more debt.<br/>

Ryanair and Virgin Atlantic have been rated the worst airlines for customer service by people who tried to get a refund after their flight was cancelled. Both airlines scored “abysmally low” in a survey conducted by Which? Travel, with eight out of 10 customers saying they were dissatisfied with the refund service they received after their flight was cancelled in 2020. Millions of flights were grounded in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus crisis, leaving people fighting for refunds which they are legally entitled to receive within seven days of cancellation. The survey, which was conducted in September 2020, also found that a third of respondents who had a flight cancelled by Ryanair or Virgin Atlantic waited more than three months for their refund. None of the Ryanair passengers surveyed received their refund within the legal time frame. A Virgin spokesman acknowledged that refunds were delayed at the height of the pandemic but said it returned to dealing with them within the required timeframe in November 2020. Of the six airlines Which? asked about Jet2 came out top with a satisfaction score of 76%. <br/>

The head of one of Boeing’s biggest customers, Dubai’s Emirates, wants the planemaker to demonstrate fundamental changes after producing a flawed 737 MAX jet and has urged it to recognize “culpability and accountability” from the very top. Influential Emirates President Tim Clark said a crisis over crashes of its 737 MAX had damaged the air travel industry as a whole, but he was confident the redesigned jet was safe. “Boeing need to take a good hard look at themselves; I’m sure they have,” Clark said. “But they have to (show) evidence to people like the airline community, the traveling public, that they have made the changes that are required of them in a transparent manner,” he said, while also suggesting a shift of emphasis on financial matters. That (can) only be done at board level and executed ... at senior level,” Clark said. “I believe they still have work to do in Boeing to get themselves sorted out ... There is a top-down culpability and accountability and they need to recognize that.” Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The comments from the head of one of the world’s biggest carriers, with Boeing jets worth over $50b at list prices on order, are among the most direct airline criticisms since a 20-month ban on MAX flights was lifted in December.<br/>

Emirates Airline President Tim Clark on Wednesday said Boeing’s 777X might not enter into service with airlines until 2023 or even later, amid uncertainty over the development timeline of Boeing’s biggest twin-engine jet and when it will be certified. Boeing has been developing the widebody jet, a new version of its popular 777 aircraft, with the goal of releasing it in 2022, already two years later than planned. The 777X will be the first major jet to be certified since software flaws in two Boeing 737 MAX planes caused fatal crashes and prompted accusations of cozy relations between the company and the US FAA. “It is a question of when that aircraft is going to be completed and certified and offered for entry of service. That could be ‘22, could be ‘23, it could be even longer,” Clark said. “So we will just wait and see as to what Boeing will do with regard to that and we will take a view as to how they fit into the fleet at that particular time.” Boeing could not be immediately reached for comment. Clark said he expected regulators to place the new jet under higher level of scrutiny as a result of the MAX crisis, and Boeing’s CFO Greg Smith has warned the market entry would be influenced by the requirements of regulators. But Clark doubted this would add significantly to existing delays. “This is essentially a modern 777, which of course is a workhorse for international travel and it has been a thoroughly reliable, excellent bit of Boeing design so I don’t see why the 777X should be any different,” Clark said.<br/>

African carrier Congo Airways has ordered another pair of Embraer E2 regional jets, with an agreement to take two E195-E2s. Congo Airways had previously ordered two of the smaller E190-E2. Embraer values the overall package of four aircraft at $272m, at catalogue prices. The Congo Airways order will be included in the Brazilian airframer’s fourth-quarter backlog figures for 2020. Deliveries are set to commence in 2022, although Embraer says it will continue to review the date with the airline. Congo Airways CE Desire Bantu says the airline sees an “opportunity in our market” for the operator to “emerge stronger”, despite the air transport crisis. “These new jets will allow us to extend our passenger and cargo operations regionally to high-demand destinations such as Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Abidjan,” he says. “We will have the flexibility, and the right-sized, most efficient aircraft, to serve our customers as the market returns.”<br/>

Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia Group's travel, e-commerce and fintech unit airasia.com is in partnership talks with several Middle Eastern and European airlines, its CE said Wednesday. Airasia.com CEO Karen Chan said the company was working on selling more flights on the online platform. "Apart from just selling AirAsia flight tickets, we are now selling any airline's flights tickets. We are now in serious discussions with quite a few full-service carriers," Chan said. She said the company is working closely with Middle Eastern airlines to drive traffic to pilgrimage destinations. "Religious travel has taken a huge delay, and already we are getting a lot of requests from customers for pilgrimages," she said. Airasia.com is also in talks with some European airlines, she said. "Once the international borders are open, all of us are banking on the pent up demand," she said without providing details. Last November, airasia.com announced a strategic partnership with Turkish Airlines for cross-promotion of its flight inventory with AirAsia flights, and offer travel itineraries with discounted fares.<br/>