Indonesia’s air accident investigator will brief relatives of the 62 victims of last month’s Sriwijaya Air crash in Jakarta on Wednesday morning ahead of the release of a preliminary report in the afternoon, a family member said. The briefing follows one held for families on Tuesday in Pontianak, the doomed flight’s destination, and comes as divers search for the missing memory unit from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder. The 26-year-old Boeing Co 737-500 jet crashed into the Java Sea shortly after take-off from Jakarta, marking Indonesia’s third major airline crash in just over six years and shining a spotlight on the country’s poor air safety record. Rafik Alaydrus, whose wife died in the crash, said investigators on Tuesday told family members that the cause had not been determined but that various factors, including the plane’s autothrottle system, were being investigated.<br/>
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The investigation into last month’s Sriwijaya Air crash in Indonesia is focusing on the engine-control system of the Boeing 737-500 jet, potentially dealing another blow to the US manufacturing giant as it emerges from the global grounding of its 737 Max following two other fatal crashes. While Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee is still trying to determine the exact cause of the crash, the left engine throttle lever was trimming back the power output just before the 26-year-old jet plunged into the sea, according to a family member who attended a briefing given by the regulator in Jakarta on Tuesday. “The NTSC hasn’t reached any conclusion on the cause of the crash, but they did say that there was an uncommanded backward movement of the left throttle lever while the autopilot was in operation,” said Rafik Alaydrus, who lost his wife in the disaster. NTSC Chairman Soerjanto Tjahjono and lead investigator Nurcahyo Utomo didn’t immediately respond to messages and calls seeking comment. <br/>
Boeing’s 737 Max model will resume flights in Europe after a near two-year grounding following two fatal crashes, with Czech leisure airline SmartWings planning to bring back its seven-plane fleet. SmartWings will restart operations this month and aims to return all of the aircraft to service by the summer, it said in an email Tuesday. The aircraft will be used on routes to destinations including the Canary Islands, Cape Verde and Madeira in the Atlantic as well as the UAE and Oman. The move comes after the EASA last month cleared the Max to resume flights, a major step in the narrow-body jet’s global rehabilitation after the crashes led to its grounding in March 2019. Airlines in the US and Brazil had restarted commercial flights in late 2020 after regulators the countries cleared a return.<br/>
Dubai’s debts have always been something of a mystery for investors but since the coronavirus pandemic hit its economy, things have got hazier, some say. Over the past 12 months, two firms with links to Dubai’s government and its ruler, respectively, have said they would not meet hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of debt repayments, a rare step in the Middle Eastern business hub, where debts are typically renegotiated and state support is often seen as implicit. One of the firms, Dubai Holding, the investment vehicle of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler, told creditors that it would not service a $1.2b loan owed by its subsidiary Dubai Holding Investments Group and was prepared to pursue liquidation for the unit, according to a source and a document sent to investors in December and reviewed by Reuters.The second firm, state-owned property developer Limitless, told creditors last March it wasn’t able to meet payments for a loan worth about $1.2b, according to a company document. It has since been seeking to restructure the debt. Some investors have been working off the basis that there was an implicit government guarantee, two bankers said, a sentiment reinforced by Dubai’s support for Emirates Group, the state-owned airline, during the coronavirus crisis.<br/>
Allegiant Air will launch 34 new nonstop routes to domestic leisure destinations as the airline continues to plan for customers to return in larger numbers during the summer travel season. The Las Vegas-based airline says on 9 February that it is expanding its point-to-point schedule to and from mainly secondary cities, a strategy that has brought the ultra-low-cost airline success in the past. The flights will launch in May, June and July. “As summer approaches, we expect a lot of pent-up demand for travel, especially for places where people can hike, fish, camp or visit the beach,” says Drew Wells, Allegiant’s senior VP of revenue. “With this expansion, we’ve added even more service to destinations known for their outdoor appeal.” The carrier will be adding flights to airports near popular beaches and theme parks, for example in Georgia, Texas and Florida, but also those near national parks and wilderness areas, like Bozeman, Montana, Boise, Idaho and Bangor, Maine. In addition, the airline will offer nine dedicated routes to Rapid City, South Dakota in August, for participants of an annual motorcycle rally in the region that attracts up to 500,000 people. In 2020, that rally was deemed responsible for one of the biggest coronavirus outbreaks in the USA.<br/>
Frontier Airlines will establish a crew base at Tampa Int'l in May 2021, and plans to open another one at Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson in late 2021. “With our low-cost structure and focus on leisure travel, Frontier is exceptionally well-positioned to increase operations this year and continue to expand in these two growing markets,” said CEO and president, Barry Biffle. He said 390 crew – 140 pilots and 250 flight attendants – would be based at Tampa by the end of 2021, with that number expected to increase in the future. The carrier’s plans at Atlanta will be announced in due course. He said the airline expected good growth in routes serving both cities in 2021. Frontier currently offers nearly 20 nonstop routes from Tampa and more than 15 nonstop options from Atlanta, with a wide range of connections within Frontier’s domestic and international network. “Any time we add a new crew base, it is an indicator of continued growth for our airline and also welcomed news for our crew members, who gain a new home base option, and local communities that reap the economic benefits,” said Biffle.<br/>
Icelandair transported just 14,000 passengers during December 2020, but even this figure was more than the October and November totals combined. Q4 revenues for Icelandair Group amounted to just $60 million to 31 December, down by more than 80%, while pre-tax losses for the period reached $97m. It attributes the heavy impact to the resurgence of the pandemic, and consequential travel restrictions. Icelandair Group says its liquidity over the last three months was “heavily influenced” by large volumes of refund requests which resulted in a net cash outflow of $30m. It says it has “minimised to the extent possible” its cash burn during daily operations – a total of $37.4m – while retaining its ability to restore dormant services quickly as signs of recovery emerge. “Maintaining a strong liquidity position is a vital component in an effective ramp-up process,” it says. The company has reinforced its liquidity by taking steps to “streamline” its long-term cost base and operations, agreeing to sell three Boeing 757-200s. It has also reached a sale-and-leaseback arrangement of its office building near Reykjavik downtown airport.<br/>