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American Airlines Group's pilots said on Friday that their union has agreed to explore a merger with the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents pilots at major US carriers United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. The Allied Pilots Association said its board of directors unanimously agreed to create a merger committee to look at joining forces with ALPA, although members have yet to be appointed. American is the only major US carrier whose pilots are not represented by ALPA. Some American pilots argue that a merger with ALPA would give them greater heft and leverage in contract negotiations and a tie up has previously been discussed informally.<br/>

Airbus and Qatar Airways skirmished on Friday over relations with aviation watchdogs and a deluge of confidential documents as legal claims over grounded jets hit $2b. Filling a large courtroom in the London High Court, the latest procedural hearing in a high-stakes contractual and safety dispute laboured over the intricate details of "shared drives" and "search terms" as each side looked for a smoking gun showing cosy relations with regulators. "A short-cut ought to be taken," Judge David Waksman said after sometimes testy arguments about how to handle more than 100,000 documents that may hold the key to a possible trial next year in which the reputations of major players are at stake. The hearing comes after Reuters reported on Thursday that French and Qatari leaders discussed the dispute in December 2021. Qatar Airways is suing Airbus over damage to the painted surface and underlying anti-lightning system of A350 jets, which has prompted Qatar's Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) to ground 29 of the planes over its concerns of a potential safety risk. Backed by European regulators, the world's largest planemaker acknowledges quality flaws in part of the worldwide A350 fleet but maintains its premier long-haul jet is safe. Qatar Airways said Airbus had sought to exert influence over the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) by providing the agency with a "Line to Take" document. Public relations experts say this kind of document covers talking points for answering media queries and high-level conversations.<br/>

Qatar Airways CE Akbar Al Baker was in a defiant mood as he helped to officially open an expansion of Doha’s Hamad International airport on the eve of the FIFA World Cup in the country. Hailing the airport’s recent receipt of the Skytrax ‘World’s Best Airport’ award for the second year running – Singapore Changi having won every year from 2013 to 2020 – and dismissing negative press coverage of Qatar’s hosting of the global football tournament, he said: “You can see that we always rub salt into the wounds of our competitors and of course our adversaries, as you can see the major negative media campaign against my beloved country Qatar.” That widespread coverage has frequently questioned FIFA’s decision in 2010 to award this year’s World Cup to Qatar, focusing on concerns such as the country’s anti-homosexuality laws, its broader human-rights record – including the plight of the migrant workers used to build the World Cup stadiums – and the fundamental suitability of a small country that lacked football heritage and the existing infrastructure for an event of its size. “People cannot accept that a small country like the state of Qatar has won the world’s largest sporting event,” Al Baker says. And on the air transport side of the World Cup planning, he says the country is ready. “We have already made sure that all the capacity that is involved with extra flights and charter flights meets the maximum capacity per hour at each of the two airports,” he says, in reference to Hamad International and the reopening of the country’s old hub, Doha International airport, to some commercial flights during the World Cup period. <br/>

One Cathay Pacific pilot had been with the airline for more than five years and planned a long career. But at the end of September, he quit the Hong Kong carrier, packed up his belongings and headed to Australia for a lower-paying job at a flying academy. Cathay and its long-suffering pilots have been big casualties of the pandemic, as severe job cuts and punishing Covid-19 restrictions have disrupted operations and hit profits. “I just needed a break from everything . . . I don’t want to work for Cathay anymore,” said the pilot, who asked not to be named. He added the constant Covid tests and restrictions had sapped his morale and left him tired and stressed. Working conditions were badly disrupted when Cathay sacked 8,500 people, almost a quarter of its staff, at the height of the pandemic in 2020. A flood of pilot resignations followed a year later because of anger over pay cuts of up to 60% and irritation with tough Covid-19 curbs. By the third quarter of this year, pilot headcount had slipped to a total of 2,412, according to an internal document seen by the Financial Times, down more than a quarter from 2019, with many of Cathay’s most senior staff — captains and first officers — among those having quit. Between 30 and 50 pilots are still resigning each month, according to the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association, the pilots’ union. Much of the discontent has stemmed from “closed-loop” rosters, which involved completing multiple flights in stretches of up to four weeks without being allowed home, followed by mandatory hotel quarantines. This meant not seeing friends or family for up to seven weeks. In total, staff spent 73,000 nights in quarantine last year, the airline said.<br/>

Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways said Monday it expected to operate 70% of its pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity by the end of 2023, up from a planned 33% by the end of 2022, as it pressed ahead with recruitment and training. The airline said it aimed to make a return to full pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity by the end of 2024. Cathay last week announced long-serving executive Ronald Lam would take over as CE on Jan. 1 as it scrambles to return aircraft from storage and add 4,000 staff over the next 18 to 24 months to meet rising travel demand after Hong Kong lifted quarantine rules. Rival Singapore Airlines has made a much quicker recovery, with passenger capacity set to reach 81% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year. The Cathay pilots' union last month said the Hong Kong airline faced unprecedented staffing and training shortages that would keep airfares high and impede the city's return to its role of global aviation hub. Cathay's outgoing boss Augustus Tang said Monday that his airline was taking a "measured and responsible approach" to managing its recovery given the challenges that came with having borders closed for longer than other markets. "Importantly, we have sufficient pilots, cabin crew and operational employees to support our current flight schedules, and we are confident that our ongoing recruitment plans will ensure this remains the case throughout the recovery," he said. "The short-term bottlenecks lie in the recertification of pilots who have not been flying regularly for a long period of time and the reactivation of aircraft," he added. "We have been bolstering our capabilities to expedite this process."<br/>

Each night before bedtime in the small Dutch town of Vleuten, Evert van Zijtveld lights two candles at a concrete shrine next to his front door to remember his murdered children. Eight years and four months ago, his daughter Frederique, 19, and son Robert-Jan, 18, died with 296 others when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot from the sky over war-torn Ukraine. Now, the 67-year-old is hoping for justice and closure in a high-security Dutch courtroom on Thursday, where judges will deliver their verdicts on four suspects who remain at large. “Those who are responsible for downing MH17 should be sent to prison. If they are guilty, the international community should hunt them down,” Van Zijtveld said. For Van Zijtveld and others who lost loved ones when the Boeing 777 travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by what prosecutors say was a Russian-supplied missile, the loss is still raw years later. Large photographs of Frederique and Robert-Jan adorn the home of Van Zijtveld and his wife Grace, who also lost her own mother, Neeltje Voorham, 77, and stepfather, Jan van der Steen, 71, in the disaster. Prosecutors say the four suspects – three Russians and a Ukrainian – played a key role in supplying the missile and have demanded life sentences if the men are convicted.<br/>

Qantas has agreed to sell its 12.4% stake in Helloworld for A$33m. The news also means Andrew Finch, the airline group’s general counsel, has stepped down as a director of the travel agent. The sale was priced at $1.72 per share, and the transaction will be recognised in Qantas’ FY23 accounts. Qantas has been a shareholder since 2008 when the company was spun off from a merger of Qantas Holidays and Jetset Travel. Helloworld itself was launched in 2013 after the consolidation of Harvey World Travel, Travelscene, Jetset and Travelworld. A merger with the AOT Group followed in 2016 before the business name was changed to Helloworld Travel in 2017. It today employs more than 600 staff throughout Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Europe. Qantas’ CFO, Vanessa Hudson, said, “Our stake in Helloworld has reduced over several years and now is the right time for us to exit as shareholders. We’ve announced some major investments this year as we focus on what is core to the Group going forward, including fleet renewal, growing our network and a successful expansion into the e-commerce holiday booking space with TripADeal.”<br/>