A long-haul Boeing 777 airliner made an emergency landing in Moscow on Friday after pilots received an indicator warning of possible engine failure, Russian officials said, reviving concerns about the Boeing planes. An engine failed last weekend on another Boeing 777, scattering debris over the Denver area, while a similar mishap occurred on a Boeing 747 cargo plane over the Netherlands. Both planes managed to land safely. Both of those equipment failures involved Pratt & Whitney engines, raising concerns about metal fatigue in the fan blades of the engines, some of them dating to the mid-1990s. But the plane that landed in Moscow was equipped with different engines, made by General Electric. The plane, operated by a Russian company, Rossiya Airlines, was flying from Hong Kong to Madrid when it diverted to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport shortly before 5 a.m. local time. A regional division of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reported the landing on its website. The airport’s director had alerted the emergency services because “an instrument light activated for failure of the control channel for the left engine.” The plane was being operated mostly as a cargo flight, carrying 36 metric tons of cargo and 25 people, the report said. “The aircraft landed safely and nobody was harmed,” it said. It was unclear whether the engine indeed malfunctioned or the instrument light activated incorrectly. The Russian report also did not clarify whether the pilots shut down the engine before landing.<br/>
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Norwegian Air booked an impairment charge of 12.8b crowns ($1.5b) in Q4 as it cancelled a major Airbus order and plans to shrink its current fleet to avoid bankruptcy. Norwegian received protection from bankruptcy late last year in both Norway and Ireland, where most of its assets are registered, and it aims to come out of its restructuring process with fewer aircraft and less debt. “We are doing everything we can to emerge as a more financially secure and competitive airline with an improved customer offering,” CE Jacob Schram said on Friday. “As soon as Europe begins to reopen, we will be ready to welcome more customers on board.” The company said its restructuring in Norway and its examinership process in Ireland, under which it aims to get rid of 78 aircraft, were progressing as planned and expected to end during the second quarter.<br/>
Job losses at Aer Lingus could near 600 as the Irish airline continues to grapple with Covid-19 travel restrictions, says CE Donal Moriarty. Speaking after the carrier reported that pandemic travel restrictions left it with a E563m loss last year, Moriarty indicated that it was discussing voluntary redundancy with 250 workers. Two thirds of those involved are among 500 who opted to leave last year. On that basis, he confirmed that the final number of job cuts at the airline was likely to be between 500 and 600. Aer Lingus said staff reductions would be 500 when it announced restructuring plans last year. “We actually have 1,000 fewer employees than would have been the case had the crisis not happened,” Moriarty said. He explained that this total included those leaving Aer Lingus and people who would have joined the business. Moriarty urged the Government to work with aviation to restart air travel as quickly as is possible, saying that should involve plans for vaccination verification and airport testing.<br/>
Russian budget carrier Pobeda is to open services from a second Moscow base, operating from the capital’s Sheremetyevo airport. Pobeda is part of Aeroflot Group alongside Aeroflot and Rossiya. Moscow Sheremetyevo is Aeroflot’s main base. The expansion will involve Pobeda’s opening services to 12 cities in Russia, as well as the Turkish resort of Antalya. Aeroflot Group has embarked on a strategic development plan which involves restructuring the route network and will take into account routes where demand for low-cost flights is greatest. Pobeda’s entry to Sheremetyevo is part of this re-organisation. The airline has been operating from Moscow Vnukovo and had previously considered branching into Moscow Domodedovo, owing to a lack of available capacity at Sheremetyevo.<br/>
AirAsia X’s net loss widened by 82% in Q4, it said in a stock exchange filing on Friday, for a seventh straight quarterly loss as operations remain grounded because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline recorded 174.3m ringgit ($43.06m) in losses for the October-December period, compared with 95.8m ringgit in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue plunged 95% to 54.7m ringgit. AirAsia X, an affiliate of AirAsia Group, is seeking a restructuring of its debt. A Malaysian court this week granted it leave to convene meetings with creditors to vote on a plan to reconstitute 64.15b ringgit of debt. “This decision by the court to allow the company to seek concessions from its creditors represents an important step forward in the restructuring process,” AirAsia X said. <br/>
Bangkok Airways’ losses widened in 2020, as it reports a 69% decline in operating revenue to Bt7.95b ($262m) for the year. Revenue from its airline business, which accounted for 55% of the company’s total revenue in 2020 versus 67% in 2019, was down 70% year-on-year to Bt5.64b compared to 2019. Costs relating to airline operations more than halved to Bt10.9b. Likewise, revenues from the company’s airport and airport-related businesses declined by 67.6% and 57.5%, respectively. On the whole, the group recorded a loss before interest and taxes of Bt3.56 billion for the year ending 31 December 2020, widened from a Bt364 million loss in 2019. ASKs were cut by 69% for the year, while RPKs declined by a comparable percentage. Passenger load factor fell from 68.1% in 2019 to 62.9% in 2020.<br/>
Regional Express Holdings said Monday it would start flights to Adelaide and Australia’s Gold Coast by April 1 as it begins to challenge Qantas and Virgin Australia on the country’s big-city routes. The airline’s first Melbourne-Sydney flights are planned for Monday morning, at a time when domestic air traffic remains low due to the pandemic. Rex had previously planned to launch Sydney-Brisbane flights next to add a second route highly popular with business travellers, but it said it would instead launch the more leisure-oriented Melbourne-Adelaide, Sydney-Gold Coast and Melbourne-Gold Coast routes in time for the Easter long weekend in early April. Rex, which until now operated only ageing 30- to 36-seat turboprops on routes like Sydney-Wagga Wagga, is using six leased Boeing 737s that used to fly with Virgin to take on the incumbent players.<br/>