United Airlines and Emirates Airline have applied to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for approval to put their airline codes on each other’s flights as per an agreement the two carriers reached last year. “Phase 1” of the deal encompasses hundreds of United’s North American routes from its hubs in Chicago, Houston and San Francisco, and more than two dozen Emirates’ flights from its Dubai hub. The deal could encompass “additional code sharing to non-open skies points that may be launched in the future”, the companies wrote in a DOT filing dated 5 January. “Granting this application is in the public interest because it will provide substantial consumer benefits by enhancing the service options available to the US travelling public for travel between the US, UAE, and points beyond,” the companies say. “United will be able to offer convenient additional online services between the US and points in UAE and beyond, which will enhance competition and travel options available to consumers.” The carriers submitted a list of planned code-share routes. United intends to carry Emirates’ code on 126 routes from Chicago, 105 from Houston and 41 from San Francisco. Emirates plans to carry United’s code on 27 routes from Dubai. Last September, the airlines put aside a contentious trade dispute and launched a new partnership they said at the time would dramatically expand their international presence to the detriment of competitors. The deal brought reconciliation between United and Emirates, which had defended opposing positions during a subsidy-related spat last decade. The new agreement encompasses United, Emirates and discounter Flydubai, which has close commercial ties with Emirates. The deal involves code sharing, with the airlines selling each others’ flights as their own. <br/>
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The bodies of two young men, who were possibly from the Dominican Republic, were found in the undercarriage of an Avianca airplane during maintenance in Colombian capital Bogota, the airline and the attorney general's office of Colombia said on Saturday. "At its arrival to the El Dorado airport in Bogota, personnel from the airline discovered the bodies of two people who flew irregularly (stowaways) in the undercarriage of the airplane," Avianca said in a statement, adding the discovery was made on Friday evening. Avianca expressed sympathy for the families of the two people and added that though it inspects airplanes before every flight, the security of airports and their restricted areas is the responsibility of authorities. "The technical investigation body of the attorney general's office is carrying out urgent actions to identify the nationality and origin of the bodies aged between 15 and 20, Afro-descendent, which were found inside the airplane," the attorney general's office said. Though no identification documents were found with the bodies, one was carrying currency from the Dominican Republic and a suitcase found with the men had paperwork from that country. Those discoveries "infer that the men could have been on the plane since January 3," when it was last in the Dominican Republic, the office said. The plane was last given regular maintenance on Dec. 27, the attorney general's office added, and has since traveled to Bogota, Guarulhos, near Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Santiago.<br/>
The Indian police on Saturday arrested a top executive of a US-based banking company in connection with an episode in late November in which the executive is alleged to have urinated on another passenger on an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi. The executive, Shankar Mishra — who was recently fired from his job as a vice president of the Indian subsidiary of Wells Fargo — faces charges under several Indian laws, including sexual harassment, obscenity and insulting the modesty of a woman. He has been sent to judicial custody for 14 days, according to local media reports. News of the episode, which became public after the airline filed a police complaint on Wednesday, has prompted outrage on Indian social media. The delay between the event and the complaint has also raised questions about how Air India handled the situation. According to a statement from the victim, a 72-year-old woman whose name the police did not release, Mishra appeared to be drunk on the flight where it happened, in business class. In a complaint written to the chairman of Air India on Nov. 27, the day after the flight arrived in New Delhi, the victim demanded the immediate arrest of Mishra upon landing. But against the victim’s wishes, the plane’s crew brought the passenger before her. He apologized and begged to be spared for the sake of his family. “In my already distraught state, I was further disoriented by being made to confront and negotiate with the perpetrator of the horrific incident at close quarters,” she wrote in the statement to Air India’s chairman, which was included in the police complaint filed by the airline. That was not the only issue she had with how the airline had handled the matter. She said that airline staff had refused to touch her urine-soaked shoes and bags, merely spraying them with disinfectant. They provided airline pajamas and socks to change into, she said, but initially refused her request for a different seat.<br/>