A cargo airline whose plane ditched into the ocean off Hawaii has been grounded after investigators looked into the company’s safety practices before the accident. The FAA said Friday that it will bar Rhoades Aviation of Honolulu from flying or doing maintenance inspections until it meets FAA regulations. The agency did not detail Rhoades’ alleged shortcomings. The company did not immediately respond to phone and email messages for comment. The decision to ground the carrier, which operates as Transair, is separate from the investigation into the July 2 ditching of a Boeing 737, the FAA said. Two pilots were rescued by the Coast Guard after the nighttime crash. The company had one plane still in operation this week, a Boeing 737-200 like the one that crashed.<br/>
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Mexican discounter Volaris is grabbing growth opportunities at home and venturing further south in Latin America as travel rebounds from the Covid-19 pandemic. The airline plans to add 25 Airbus A320neo family aircraft to its fleet by the end of 2022, when it anticipates flying 113 planes total, fueling elevated capacity growth that will surpass pre-crisis levels. These planes will allow Volaris to increase its share in the key Mexico City market; expand in other Mexican cities, particularly Guadalajara and Tijuana; and launch a new subsidiary in El Salvador. “We’re one of the most profitable airlines worldwide with room to grow,” said CEO Enrique Beltranena during a quarterly earnings call on Friday. The airline reported a rare pandemic profit free of government aid of MXP1.54b ($78m) in Q2. Domestic Mexican growth is Volaris’ top priority over the next year-and-a-half. The carrier has the unique opportunity to fill the gap left by Interjet, which suspended flights in December 2020 and few expect to resume operations, and cuts at Aeromexico that is restructuring under US Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Volaris is actively adding flights in slot-constrained Mexico City where, as executive vice president Holger Blankenstein put it, they see the “biggest capacity gap compared to pre-Covid levels.”<br/>
All 18 people on board a Russian Antonov An-28 passenger plane that vanished from radars were found alive on Friday after the aircraft was forced to make a hard landing in Siberia, the emergencies ministry said. Fears had swirled over the fate of the plane after it went missing as it flew from the town of Kedrovy to the city of Tomsk. Rescuers were dispatched to search for the plane and located the survivors in a wooded area near the damaged aircraft. "We all believed in a miracle and thanks to the professionalism of the pilots it happened, everyone is alive," regional governor Sergei Zvachkin said. The damaged body of the plane could be seen lying overturned in a wooded field in footage published by TASS news agency. "The AN-28 plane turned over during its hard landing. Its nose has been damaged as well as its landing gear," TASS cited an emergency services source as saying. The crew was forced to make an emergency landing due to what looks to have been engine failure although that is not yet conclusive, TASS cited a source as saying. The ministry said all 18 people on board had survived and were now being evacuated from the site. The aircraft was operated by SiLA, a small airline that offers regional flights in Siberia. <br/>
The UAE has extended a flight ban on passengers from four major south Asian nations, Emirates airline said on Sunday. Restrictions on travellers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were extended from July 21 to July 25 because of the Covid-19 situation. "In line with UAE government directives, Emirates will be suspending the carriage of passengers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to Dubai until 25 July 2021," the airline's website said. "Furthermore, passengers who have connected through India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka in the last 14 days will not be accepted to travel from any other point to the UAE." Emiratis, holders of UAE golden visas and members of diplomatic missions may be accepted for travel. People in this category must quarantine for 10 days on arrival, officials said previously.<br/>
AirAsia is hunting for deals across south-east Asia to grow its nascent digital business, as the budget carrier seeks to accelerate a pivot to ecommerce and ride-hailing after being battered by Covid-19. Tony Fernandes, owner and CE of the Malaysian airline, told the Financial Times that AirAsia was looking at potential acquisitions in the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam after buying the Thailand operations of Gojek earlier this month. The airline is also exploring merging its digital operations with a special purpose acquisition company (Spac), or blank-cheque vehicle. “This wasn’t a one-off transaction,” said Fernandes, referring to the Gojek deal, adding that he expected to announce more collaboration with the Indonesian ride-hailing, food delivery and payments group. AirAsia was keen to tie up with other tech players in the region and had already received approaches from some, he added. “That’s really interesting and we’re very open to that because . . . we’re buying tech, we’re buying people, we’re buying experience and of course some data,” Fernandes said. The pursuit of regional acquisitions comes as the carrier’s fintech unit BigPay is set to announce a $100m investment from “a very big conglomerate” in the next two weeks, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, the first fundraising for AirAsia’s digital business. BigPay earlier this month applied for a digital banking licence in Malaysia. “Tony Fernandes has obviously got strong supporters out there. He has a base and a well-known brand, everyone knows AirAsia,” said Angus Mackintosh, founder of CrossASEAN Research. “That is not his problem. It’s transforming that into being seen as a tech company.”<br/>