Ukraine and Canada rejected an Iranian report into last year’s shooting down of a Ukraine International Airlines passenger plane as cynical, incomplete and aimed at absolving the Islamic Republic of responsibility for the disaster. The report, published by the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran on Wednesday, contained “no hard facts or evidence,” Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau and the country’s Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said. They said they “remain deeply concerned about a lack of convincing information” on what led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to strike the Boeing 737 plane with two missiles in the early hours of Jan. 8 2020, shortly after taking off from Tehran. Canada is set to release the findings of its own investigation within the coming days, according to the two Canadian ministers.<br/>
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Airline IPOs are taking off, fuelled by a jump in investor appetite for stocks expected to get a big lift from economic reopenings and an anticipated rebound in travel as Covid-19 vaccination programmes accelerate. Investors on Wall Street sent shares of Apollo-backed Sun Country Airlines up more than 50% in their debut on Wednesday, which came weeks after Norwegian start-up carrier Flyr listed in Oslo. It is shaping up to be one of the busiest two months in years for airline listings, with Frontier Airlines set to go public on the Nasdaq in the coming weeks. Sun Country’s shares closed their first trading session at $36.38 on Wednesday, giving the company a market value of around $2b. That was well above the $24 the shares were initially priced at on Tuesday and higher than the $21 to $23 range the Minneapolis-based budget airline had originally sought for its listing. The offering was roughly 15 times subscribed, according to people familiar with the deal. Both Sun Country and Frontier are going public after a challenging year. Frontier booked a net loss of $225m last year, after earning $251m a year prior. Sun Country was able to retain more than half of its 2019 operating revenue throughout the past year, owing in large part due to a deal to fly cargo for Amazon. The decline in bookings nonetheless left it with a $4m loss. <br/>
Sun Country Airlines Holdings, flush with cash after a successful stock market debut on Wednesday, could use the funds to accelerate the purchase of used jets and fuel its growth strategy over the next year, CE Jude Bricker said. The US low-cost carrier backed by private-equity firm Apollo Global Management raised $218.2m in its IPO and shares jumped around 44% in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq. The debut comes as US airlines begin to emerge from a pandemic-driven crisis that has created opportunities in the used jet market after airlines around the globe reduced their fleets or filed for bankruptcy. “There are plenty of planes out there and we intend to get some new deals,” Bricker said. Prices for second-hand jets have fallen by about 25% since the onset of the pandemic, said CFO Dave Davis. Minnesota-based Sun Country, which operates passenger, charter and cargo flights, has based its business model around mid-life Boeing 737 NGs. Sun Country plans to increase its passenger fleet to 50 from 31 by 2023.<br/>
A four-year-old boy with autism was removed from a flight in the US after the airline refused to recognise his disability and insisted he should wear a face mask, his mother said. Spirit Airlines told US media that all their passengers except those aged under two must wear a mask. US guidelines say travellers with a medical exemption should not be required to wear a face covering. The boy's mother said he loved planes and was distraught after being removed. Callie Kimball told US media that she was travelling with her son Carter and her husband from Las Vegas on Monday and had a medical note explaining her son's condition. "He's exempt from wearing masks because whenever he wears a mask he holds his breath or he starts freaking out and he will harm himself," she explained, saying that her son has autism and is non-verbal.<br/>
Malaysia’s high court on Wednesday granted a restraining order for three months on 15 of AirAsia X’s creditors over the debt recast talks for the airline. The order, applied for by AirAsia X to address its obligations in a timely manner, gives the creditors an opportunity for amicable discussions without “extraneous considerations,” according to an exchange filing. The order comes with certain carve-outs, which means some creditors can continue legal proceedings subject to not executing the judgment pending the lapse of today’s order, according to Kwan Will Sen, a lawyer representing Malaysia Airports and BOC Aviation. AirAsia's long-haul arm in October proposed a sweeping restructuring plan that would wipe out almost 63.5b ringgit ($15b) in debt and save the Malaysian carrier from being dragged under by aviation’s worst-ever crisis. <br/>
Scoot is the latest airline to trial digital verification of Covid-19 test results, as the aviation industry ramps up preparations for the gradual reopening of borders. Scoot is also trialling an online portal that lets customers departing on flights from Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong book pre-departure Covid-19 tests more conveniently. Its parent carrier SIA had earlier started trials for both initiatives. Scoot said in a statement on Wednesday that the two initiatives being tested will complement each other. It said the portal - which can be accessed via the Scoot website or mobile app - links customers to accredited partner clinics for the Covid-19 tests. It will let them pay for the tests and get a digital certificate within 36 hours. Covid-19 test results obtained through the portal will have QR codes that can then be verified by an app from Temasek-founded company Affinidi.<br/>