Air Canada, the foreign carrier with the most flights into the United States, said its transborder operations would be affected by a US system outage on Wednesday, but it was too early to determine the full impact. Canada's largest carrier said on Wednesday it will put in place a "goodwill policy" for affected customers to change their travel plans, after the FAA scrambled to fix a system outage overnight that forced a halt to all US departing flights. <br/>
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On Tuesday, Avianca inaugurated one of its brand new routes, connecting Cartagena International Airport (CTG) in Colombia with São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) in Brazil directly for the first time in history. First announced last year, Avianca began operating today its new route between Cartagena and Sao Paulo, flights AV130 and AV131. This new service has three flights per week, with the airline deploying Airbus A320 family aircraft to operate it. The first leg from Cartagena departs on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, while the return departs on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Gustavo Esusy, Avianca’s Commercial Manager for Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, said, “Following our commitment to offering more and more point-to-point routes, we begin 2023 inaugurating the São Paulo-Cartagena route, the best way for Brazilians to reach the Colombian Caribbean directly, without stopovers, and without the need for a visa. The objective of an "Avianca for all" is already a reality, according to Esusy: "We are committed to making it possible for more and more Brazilians to visit Colombia's best destinations.”<br/>
Court papers from SAS’s restructuring process show that the carrier is intending to enter a sale-and-leaseback covering 10 Airbus A320neo twinjets. The agreement involves US lessor Aviation Capital Group and one of SAS’s affiliate entities, Gorm Asset Management. SAS is re-organising its business, including its fleet, under US Chapter 11 protection. Court documents filed on 10 January state that the sale-and-leaseback is the subject of a letter of intent dated 21 December 2022. The documents request confidential treatment of commercially-sensitive information contained in the agreement – including the purchase price for the aircraft and the lease payments, as well as maintenance and insurance obligations. According to the filing the transaction terms agreed were the result of negotiations aimed at progressing the airline’s ‘SAS Forward’ restructuring programme.<br/>
Air India – now owned by the Indian industrial giant Tata Sons – is reportedly close to placing what may end up being the largest commercial aircraft order in the industry’s history. The market is a key one for Boeing, especially right now, after it has been locked out of China because of geopolitical tensions. Air India, in particular, is said to be negotiating with Boeing to take up to 50 737s originally built for Chinese airlines, as part of a massive order that could total 500 planes. As LNA reported back in September, Boeing has about 140 737 MAXes ordered by Chinese airlines or leasing companies ordering on their behalf. That’s about 50% of the total number of built but undelivered MAXes Boeing had in storage going into last year’s fourth quarter. It’s fortunate for Air India and Boeing both that the airline has a need for a lot of new aircraft at a time when Boeing needs to move a lot of planes, but adding new aircraft is just one of many major challenges Air India’s new owners face right now. Indian airlines are expected to take delivery of more than 100 commercial jets in the coming year, as continuing consolidation changes the airline market dynamics of what is soon to become the world’s most-populous country. IndiGo remains the market leader. Flying primarily a fleet of Airbus A320s and A321s, it holds more than half of the domestic market, with ambitions to expand across Asia. Story has more. <br/>