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The NTSB said on Tuesday it would investigate a Dec. 18 incident in which United Airlines Flight 777, a Boeing 777 jet, lost altitude before recovering shortly after departing Kahului, Hawaii. The Air Current, an aviation news website, first reported the incident on Sunday involving the San Francisco-bound United plane, saying it dropped sharply to within around 800 feet of the Pacific Ocean before recovering and landing safely. The incident is among a number of potentially dangerous events reported among US passenger airlines in recent months, including two near misses last month at New York’s JFK and Austin-Bergstrom airport in Texas that the NTSB is also probing. Flightradar24, an aviation website, said the Dec. 18 United flight departed normally until “71 seconds after take off when the aircraft entered a steep dive. The aircraft descended from 2,200 feet to just 775 feet before recovering.” The FAA said the United Airlines flight crew reported the incident to the agency “as part of a voluntary safety reporting program. The agency reviewed the incident and took appropriate action.” It did not elaborate. United said the pilots filed the appropriate safety report after landing and the carrier closely coordinated with the FAA and a pilots union “on an investigation that ultimately resulted in the pilots receiving additional training.” United said the pilots fully cooperated with the investigation and their training program is ongoing. The two pilots involved have approximately 25,000 hours of flying experience between them.<br/>

Scandinavian airline SAS said it was hit by a cyber attack Tuesday evening and urged customers to refrain from using its app but later said it had fixed the problem. News reports said the hack paralysed the carrier's website and leaked customer information from its app. Karin Nyman, head of press at SAS, told Reuters at 2035 GMT that the company was working to remedy the attack on its app and website. "We aren't able to say a lot more right now as we are right in the attack right now," she said, adding that the app was at that point working fine. Earlier, she told the national news agency TT that there was a risk of getting incorrect information by logging onto the app and urged customers to refrain from using it. The entire website was down for a while on Tuesday. According to TT, customers who tried to log into the SAS app were logged onto the wrong accounts and had access to personal details of other people. Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang reported that this happened to Norwegian customers as well.<br/>

Air India will buy 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing in one of the biggest aviation orders globally, as the country’s air passenger market rebounds from the depths of the coronavirus pandemic. The carrier plans to buy 40 long-distance wide-body A350 jets, as well as 140 A320neo and 70 A321neo single-aisle aircraft from Airbus. From rival Boeing it said it would buy 190 of the narrow-body 737 Max jets, 20 twin-aisle 787s and 10 777Xs, with the option to purchase another 70 jets. The deal is part of an overhaul by owner Tata Sons of the recently privatised carrier and eclipses previous records for a single airline. Airbus did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. The list price for the planes from Boeing totals $34b, although airlines typically receive discounts as high as 50%. Still, the price tag makes it the third largest sale in the US company’s history. Tata Sons chair Natarajan Chandrasekaran announced the Airbus purchase on Tuesday at a virtual event attended by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, French President Emmanuel Macron and Tata patriarch Ratan Tata. The family conglomerate bought Air India from the government last year, returning the airline to its original owners. The airline had been nationalised in 1953. Tata has promised to modernise the once glamorous carrier, whose reputation frayed as its finances deteriorated. “Air India is not yet another project,” said Chandrasekaran, adding that it was akin to a “national” project. “A lot of emotions are involved in this project, there are huge expectations.” He said Air India had options to “increase the fleet size” as the carrier grew, and the company is expected to announce it is buying more planes from Boeing. Airbus CE Guillaume Faury hailed the deal as “historic”, and said the A350 and A320neo planes had been chosen “to script Air India’s revival”. “The time is right for India to turn into an international hub,” he added.<br/>

One of India's biggest and oldest conglomerates is returning to its roots with a multi-billion-dollar bet on the country's growing middle class and its demand for air travel. Air India was for many years under state ownership, a byword for underinvestment, crippling losses, and inefficiency. Now back in the hands of its original private owners, it announced combined purchases of 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing on Tuesday, which together form one of the largest orders in aviation history. The announcement comes a year after tea-to-software conglomerate Tata Group re-acquired the loss-making airline, founded by globetrotting Franco-Indian industrialist JRD Tata, who piloted its maiden flight in 1932. Reports say he described its post-Independence nationalisation as the saddest day of his life, frequently lamenting the loss. And it has haemorrhaged money in recent years, with successive Indian governments spending nearly $15b to prop it up from 2009 until Tata bought it back in a $2.4b deal a year ago. "Welcome back, Air India," Tata's patriarch chairman emeritus Ratan Tata celebrated after completing the purchase. It last bought new aircraft in 2006, but now its new old owners are looking to restore its image as the "Maharaja of the Skies", while at the same time taking on the emergent carriers of recent decades -- Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines, whose hub and spoke models have given them an outsize share of intercontinental travel. Tuesday's announcements amounted to "not just the largest order ever made by an Indian airline, it is one of the largest single aircraft orders by any airline, anywhere, ever", CEO Campbell Wilson said in a message to staff, calling it a "major milestone... in the journey of restoring this airline to greatness". Shakti Lumba, former head of operations at IndiGo, which long ago replaced Air India as the country's largest domestic airline, told AFP that the Tata group "can build a world-class global brand".<br/>

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday held a telephone call with US President Joe Biden, with both leaders welcoming the deal between Air India and Boeing Co, Modi’s office said in a statement. Air India on Tuesday unveiled deals for a record 470 jets from Airbus and Boeing, as Europe and the United States hailed deepening economic and political ties with New Delhi. Modi’s office said that the prime minister invited Boeing and other U.S. companies to utilise the expanding civil aviation sector in India, while the two leaders discussed strengthening bilateral cooperation in space, semiconductors, defense and other sectors. Modi and Biden agreed to remain in contact during India’s ongoing G20 presidency.<br/>

Air India's record aircraft deal has put the Tata Group-owned airline in the league of aspiring global carriers. On Tuesday, it provisionally agreed to acquire almost 500 jets from Airbus and Boeing to take on domestic and international rivals. Striking the largest ever deal by one airline took months of secret talks carried out a stone's throw from Britain's Buckingham palace and culminating in a celebration over coastal Indian curries, according to people involved in the talks. Confidentiality was lifted on Tuesday as leaders hailed the accord in a diplomatic embrace between leading G20 nations. Tata Group, which regained control of Air India last year after decades of public ownership, put out just six paragraphs. Its low-key announcement illustrates a rising breed of private airline owners transforming a financially-risky Indian airline sector, alongside the publicity-shy founders of IndiGo. Confidentiality was lifted on Tuesday as leaders hailed the accord in a diplomatic embrace between leading G20 nations. Tata Group, which regained control of Air India last year after decades of public ownership, put out just six paragraphs. Its low-key announcement illustrates a rising breed of private airline owners transforming a financially-risky Indian airline sector, alongside the publicity-shy founders of IndiGo.<br/>

Air New Zealand resumed services to all airports on Wednesday, including those in the heavily impacted regions of New Plymouth, Napier, and Gisborne, after Cyclone Gabrielle led to 821 flight cancellations and affected 49,000 customers. The airline experienced minor disruptions in the morning during the resumption of services as it worked through operationalising the routes, it said. The nation's biggest carrier on Tuesday was forced to halt domestic and international operations from Auckland due to increased gusty winds in the afternoon, which also led to a further 300 cancelled services. "With aircraft and crew displaced around the network, our morning operations were a little bumpy. But we are largely back in the swing of things today," the airline's Chief Customer and Sales Officer Leanne Geraghty said. The cyclone moved away from New Zealand on Wednesday, with authorities beginning to assess the impact of floods, landslides, and high winds that left three people dead and displaced thousands from their homes. <br/>

Air New Zealand has made changes to its lounge at Queenstown Airport, enabling domestic passengers to go straight from the lounge to their flight. Previously, passengers using the lounge had to leave and proceed through aviation security before making their way to the gate. But the airline has now made it so passengers can go through domestic security before entering the lounge. When it’s time to board their flight, they can head straight to their gate via stairs and a direct path that connect the lounge airside. However, the change did not apply to international travellers, who would still need to allow enough time to exit the lounge and proceed through international security screening. These customers would now also have to go through domestic security to be able to access the lounge. The change also meant customers on regional flights out of Queenstown – for example, those flying to Christchurch – would have to go through security. Regional passengers usually aren’t required to go through security.<br/>