A Dutch court heard on Wednesday (June 9) how two defendants discussed the procurement of a surface-to-air missile which prosecutors say was eventually used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014. Judges this week began hearing evidence in the trial of four people - three Russians and a Ukrainian - charged in connection with an attack on the airliner over war-torn eastern Ukraine which crashed, killing all 298 people on board. Russian nationals Oleg Pulatov, Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were charged with murder after the Boeing 777 was blown from the sky on a routine flight between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur. He needed "long-range artillery," after suffering heavy losses in the fighting, Pulatov is heard saying in a telephone conversation played during Wednesday's hearing. During the same call, dated July 17, the day the jet was shot down, Dubinsky is heard telling Pulatov "the BUK will be brought to him" by Kharchenko and it should "be placed near Pervomayski" in the rebel-held eastern Ukraine. Judges also considered evidence showing the Russian-made BUK missile was brought to the Donetsk area with a truck and trailer.<br/>
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LATAM Airlines Group, the region’s largest carrier, said on Wednesday that it had sought to extend until September the deadline to present its restructuring plan as part of the bankruptcy protection process initiated in 2020. LATAM filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States in May of last year, hammered by the world travel crisis generated by the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, it was the world’s largest airline to take such action due to COVID-19. A judge had previously ordered the company deliver its restructuring plan by the end of June, and the company has said it hopes to wrap up the process in 2021. “The extension request is a common alternative contemplated within the process and does not modify the intention of the LATAM group to exit Chapter 11 by the end of this year,” the firm said. Latam also told Chilean securities regulators it has requested a second disbursement for $500m under the DIP Credit Agreement (Debtor-In-Possession). The airline said the additional funds were necessary given “the extension of the health and mobility restrictions imposed by the authorities in the different countries in that the Company operates, as well as the analysis of the Company’s liquidity projection“. The company also received a $1.15b debtor-in-possession loan in October last year. Earlier on Wednesday Latam said it expects to ramp up its June operations to 36% of their pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, bolstered by the quickening pace of vaccination in some countries in the region.<br/>
Cargo has “permanently” grown in importance to Qatar Airways’ network decision-making, to the point where passenger demand alone is not enough justification to launch or relaunch a connection. The Middle Eastern carrier’s chief commercial officer, Thierry Antinori, said: “We do not take a decision now to operate a flight or to resume a flight just because there is passenger demand. “What is very new [is that] we have permanently to think [about] the integration of cargo.” Citing what he describes as the carrier’s “resilience” in continuing to operate a relatively high proportion of its pre-pandemic flights through the crisis, Antinori says Qatar Airways has been able to “read the market maybe a bit faster than the others” as it seeks to “rebalance the network”. Having the right combination of passenger and cargo revenues means “you can cover your direct operating costs”, Antinori explains, even if – in common with the vast majority of the industry – the carrier is losing money overall. That heightened importance of freight also forms part of Qatar Airways’ longer-term aims, which are “to be more agile, more integrated and more sustainable, to have the right fleet, [and] to have a good mix between cargo and [passenger] revenue, without polluting the world”, Antinori says.<br/>