The administrators of SAA hope to hand control of the business back to management by the end of the month, the state-owned airline said in a letter to affected parties. SAA has been under a form of bankruptcy protection since December 2019, and its fortunes worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. All operations were mothballed in September 2020 when funds ran low. The letter, dated March 18, said SAA’s board of directors and management were working on a plan to resume flights, without giving a date when that might happen. The administrators said they had received 7.8b rand ($529m) out of a 10.5b rand bailout allocated in the government’s October mid-term budget. Out of that, around 360m rand has gone towards paying unpaid salaries, 1.5b rand has been spent on severance packages and 400m rand has been transferred to creditors who lent money after the airline entered administration.<br/>
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Emirates will boost its flights to Auckland from Dubai from the end of March to six a week while Air New Zealand is taking bookings for dozens more Australian flights a week from mid-April. A year since aviation collapsed, talk of a two-way transtasman bubble has led Air New Zealand to load more flights into its booking website for Australian cities it has flown to with a skeleton schedule and return to places such as the Sunshine Coast, Cairns and Adelaide - routes it stopped flying last year. Non-stop flights out of Queenstown to Australia are also showing up Air New Zealand's site from April 19. This start date coincides with all of the New Zealand school holidays and would capture a week of Australia's school holidays and include Anzac Day, an important shared day on both sides of the Tasman. Air New Zealand plans to restore its Australian network of nine cities and add another - Hobart - when a two-way quarantine-free travel bubble is launched.<br/>
Air India’s divestment will bring in much-needed reforms in the aviation sector as the proposed privatisation will equalise the competitive landscape in the country, the head of the IATA told ET. “It will improve the competitive condition in India because no one will be able to claim that they have special support from the government… I have heard many operators complain about the support received by the flag carrier,” said Alexandre de Juniac, DGand CEO of IATA. “It (divestment of AI) will equalise the competitive landscape in the country.” The government is in the process of selling 100% of Air India and its low-cost international subsidiary Air India Express, as well as 50% in the ground-handling unit AISATS. It has received initial inquiries from multiple parties after a failed divestment attempt in 2018 and several extensions in 2020.<br/>
A man has been arrested and charged with assaulting two passengers on a flight from New Jersey to Florida last week. Authorities said United Flight 728 took off shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday from Newark Liberty International Airport bound for Miami. About 50 minutes into the flight, John Yurkovich went to the rear of the aircraft and acted erratically upon return, yelling and demanding water before taking a pill, a passenger told authorities. Authorities said Yurkovich was found to have about 2 grams of methamphetamine and is also facing a state drug charge. According to the criminal complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Joseph Hamski of Charleston, to which city the flight was diverted, the passenger said Yurkovich backed into him, and when he tried to keep Yurkovich from falling onto him, the other man became enraged. The passenger said the defendant removed his mask and began spittle-laced screaming into his face, then punched him several times, Hamski said. Federal authorities have charged Yurkovich with assault and assault resulting in serous bodily injury as well as criminal acts on an aircraft.<br/>