The judge hearing the US Justice Department's antitrust case against American Airlines Group and JetBlue has set a trial date for the second half of next year. US District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston scheduled the case to begin Sept. 26, 2022, according to court documents filed on Friday. The trial stems from an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and six states over what is called the "Northeast Alliance" partnership between JetBlue and the world's largest airline, American Airlines. The suit alleges the deal would lead to higher fares in busy Northeastern US airports and seeks to block the plan, which was announced in July 2020 and approved by the US DoT.<br/>
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Finland and China agreed to abandon all restrictions on routes and waypoints for air travel, giving carriers operating in the Nordic country more freedom to choose their destinations in China. The announcement is welcome news for national carrier Finnair, which like the rest of aviation industry, has been heavily hit by the pandemic. The airline has staked its strategy on providing faster transit connections between Europe and Asia, banking on shorter travel times thanks to a more northerly flight path. The countries also agreed to increase the number of weekly routes to Shanghai from Finland to 14 from seven, according to an emailed statement from the government in Helsinki. There’s still a cap of 43 weekly flights to China in total, Paivi Jamsa, chief senior specialist at the Ministry of Transport, said by phone. In practice, the new routes can be deployed once pandemic-related travel restrictions are lifted, the government said. <br/>
Qantas is doubling down on its move into India, launching direct flights between Melbourne and New Delhi for the first time in its history alongside a new service from Sydney set to start next month. The airline’s CE Alan Joyce said he expected strong demand for the service given Melbourne has a large Indian community, and based on the “unbelievable” number of bookings on its new Sydney-Delhi service since they went on sale last month. “In December there are only nine empty seats on our operation for that month, and we saw a lot of connecting traffic from Melbourne to Sydney, and that gave us confidence to fly direct from Melbourne to Delhi,” he said from Melbourne Airport on Monday. Qantas has not flown direct commercial flights to India for almost a decade, instead servicing the country via Singapore where passengers connected on its codeshare partner Jet Airways, which went bankrupt in 2019. But Joyce said that since the COVID-19 pandemic customers wanted to fly to their destination directly and avoid transferring through an overseas hub.<br/>