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Delta expects low ticket prices to be widely available as vaccines begin to corral the coronavirus pandemic over the next 90 days, triggering a spring surge in travel demand for the battered industry, CEO Ed Bastian said. “There’s going to be great bargains,” Bastian said Wednesday. “When the demand comes, that’s when there will be an opportunity to firm up pricing. But for now, it’s OK. Pricing is going to lead the recovery,” including at hotels and cruise lines. Delta has led US carriers in emphasizing an upbeat outlook once it gets through a bleak winter, forecasting that it will halt its cash burn in the second quarter and have a “good shot” at turning a profit in the third. But with domestic travel stuck at about 40% of 2019 levels, the timing depends on growth in coronavirus vaccinations. A resurgence of international demand, which has been harder hit, is about a year off, Bastian said.<br/>

The Paris public prosecutor wants Air France and Airbus to stand trial over the 2009 crash of flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which killed all 228 people on board, Le Parisien newspaper said on its website. In 2019, French judges dropped charges against the airline and plane manufacturer over the crash, blaming the pilots for losing control of the plane. French investigators found the crew of AF447 mishandled the loss of speed readings from sensors blocked with ice from a storm, and caused the aircraft to stall by holding the nose too high. However, the Paris prosecutor now says there were “blameworthy infringements” on the part of Air France, notably in crew training, and blames Airbus for under-estimating the risks posed by ice on the sensors, Le Parisien said, without saying where it obtained the information.<br/>