United Airlines is adding five new transatlantic routes in Spring 2022 in anticipation of rebounding demand for travel. The Chicago-based airline said Thursday it will add 10 new flights and five new destinations that include Amman, Jordan; Bergen, Norway; Azores, Portugal; Palma de Mallorca, Spain; and Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands. United Airlines is adding five new transatlantic routes in Spring 2022 in anticipation of rebounding demand for travel. The Chicago-based airline said Thursday it will add 10 new flights and five new destinations that include Amman, Jordan; Bergen, Norway; Azores, Portugal; Palma de Mallorca, Spain; and Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands. United said the new routes are not served by any other North American carrier and mark the company's largest transatlantic expansion. Next year, United will add flights to five major European cities including Berlin; Dublin, Ireland; Milan, Italy; Munich, Germany; and Rome. United will also resume service to routes interrupted by the pandemic including Bangalore, India; Frankfurt, Germany; Tokyo's Haneda Airport; Nice, France; and Zurich, Switzerland (subject to government approval).<br/>
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Greece’s largest carrier Aegean Airlines said on Thursday it has raised its stake in Romanian Animawings to 51% from 25%, strengthening its presence in the Romanian market. The Greek company said its total investment for the 51% stake amounted to E1.3m. Aegean, a member of the Star Alliance airline group, acquired its existing stake in Animawings, a member of tour operator Memento Christian Tour, in early 2020. For 12 years Christian Tour, one of the largest tour operators in Romania, was a steady customer for Aegean, arranging chartered flights from Romania to Greece. From the start of the new tourism season Animawings will operate with three aircraft from Aegean’s fleet, serving chiefly outgoing Romanian tourists via chartered and regular flights, Aegean Airlines said.<br/>
Tata Sons' acquisition of troubled national carrier Air India for 180b rupees ($2.4b) last week is not only expected to face a political storm but could be a daunting task for the group, which has a checkered history in turning around companies. Sale of the airline, which lost 97b rupees in the pandemic-hit fiscal year ended March, is already taking flak from India's opposition parties. Thomas Isaac, former finance minister of the southern state of Kerala, said Narendra Modi's government sold Air India for "peanuts." Subramanian Swamy, a parliament member from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and former cabinet minister, said he would try to block the deal in court. Opponents are unhappy that cash flow-generating assets have been sold to Tata Sons while 460 billion rupees of Air India's debt will still be parked with a government-owned entity backed by real estate assets that may not cover the debt. Yet analysts are not certain Tata got the best of the deal. Since 2009, Indian taxpayers have poured 1.1t rupees into bailing out the airline, government officials said in the news conference to announce that Tata Sons subsidiary Talace Pvt won the bid for the airline. The sale plugs the financial drain for the government but shifts the burden of future investment onto Tata. Statements by Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran and group patriarch Ratan Tata were long on nostalgia and short on detail about the strategy behind the deal. Story has more.<br/>
Korea's airline industry is expecting travel demand to boom again after more than a two-year slump due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the government takes steps to initiate a phased return to normal starting from the second week of next month. However, the process of Korean Air acquiring rival Asiana Airlines, which began in November of last year, is taking longer than expected. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) is raising concerns over Korean Air's possible monopoly in the domestic market if the acquisition is approved. The top antitrust watchdog says the combination of two full-service carriers can infringe on free competition in the flight service market. Top regulator Joh Sung-wook told lawmakers that the KFTC will try to conclude its review by the end of this year. But with the start of a phased return to normal next month, the KFTC is facing calls to speed up its review, because the airline industry is one of Korea's key business sectors. The acquisition proposal is subject to approval from countries or regions whose industries will be affected by the merger. Korean Air has sought relevant approvals however only Turkey, Taiwan and Thailand have given the deal the green light, while China, the EU, Japan, the U.S., and Vietnam are still reviewing the plan.<br/>