The new Aer Lingus Regional service began selling flights on Thursday ahead of a planned take off on St Patrick’s Day. Emerald Airlines, run by well-known aviation industry figure, Conor McCarthy, signed a deal with Aer Lingus to operate the larger carrier’s regional franchise earlier this year. The pair announced on Thursday that Emerald will begin flying 340 times a-week across 11 routes between Ireland and Britain from March 17th 2022. Tickets for the flights went on sale at the same time. Emerald intends flying high-frequency routes including Dublin-Edinburgh and Dublin-Glasgow up to four times daily. The airline will re-establish flights from Ireland to British regional airports, including Bristol, Leeds, Newquay Cornwall, Exeter and the Isle of Man. The announcement adds over 60 UK-US routes to the Aer Lingus network by connecting British regional airports to the airline’s flights to the likes of New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Seattle, via Dublin.<br/>
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Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and Britain on Thursday said they could consider new steps in line with international law against Iran if it failed to respond by Jan. 5 to demands for reparations after the downing of a passenger airliner last year. Most of the 176 people killed when Iran shot down a Ukrainian jet in January 2020 were citizens from those four countries, which created a coordination group that seeks to hold Tehran to account. "The Coordination Group's patience is wearing thin," it said in a statement, adding that the group had pressed Tehran to open talks on reparations and to deliver justice but said Iran had shown it was reluctant to respond in a timely manner. It said Iran should respond by Jan 5 or the group would "have to seriously consider other actions to resolve this matter within the framework of international law" but gave no details.<br/>
A Malaysian court has approved a restructuring scheme for budget long-haul carrier AirAsia X Bhd that will pay just 0.5% of debt owed and end existing contracts, the airline said in a Thursday filing. The High Court of Malaya granted a sanction order at a hearing on Thursday and “the proposed debt restructuring will take effect upon lodgement of the sanction order with the Registrar of Companies of Malaysia,” the filing said. Last month, AirAsia X’s creditors agreed to the scheme to restructure 33.65b ringgit ($8b) of liabilities. Around half was owed to its largest creditor Airbus SE for terminating airplane orders. It first proposed restructuring in October last year, but faced more than a dozen creditors including lessors who sought court action to dismiss its scheme. The airline, a sister carrier to cash-strapped AirAsia Group Bhd, had warned of liquidation if creditors did not agree to the plan, which will be followed by a 500 million ringgit equity raising. AirAsia X will now start a recapitalisation, expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022.<br/>