A federal judge who ordered American Airlines and JetBlue Airways to end their Northeast partnership is giving the airlines more time to unwind the deal. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston said in an order Monday that the injunction he ordered last month will take effect 21 days after he issues a final judgment imposing terms on the airlines. It’s not clear when that will be. The airlines had faced a deadline next weekend, just 30 days after the judge’s May 19 decision in favor of the U.S. Justice Department, which sued to break up the deal. In a post-decision filing Friday, American and JetBlue asked the judge to let them keep some parts of their Northeast Alliance, which covers flights in New York and Boston. They want to continue selling tickets on each other’s flights, called code-sharing, and offering reciprocal frequent-flyer benefits. The Justice Department opposed the airlines’ request, although it said the airlines should be allowed to honor tickets that they have already sold on each other’s flights to avoid hurting travelers. American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said last month that his Texas-based airline will appeal the May ruling. New York-based JetBlue has not indicated whether it will appeal.<br/>
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Lawyers for Ukraine at the top UN court on Monday rejected Russia's account of the downing of a Malaysian airliner as a "rambling conspiracy theory", in a case alleging Moscow backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv says that Moscow violated a UN anti-terrorism treaty by equipping and funding pro-Russian forces, including militias who shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, killing all 298 passengers and crew in July 2014. Last November, a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist in absentia for their role in the downing of the airliner and sentenced them to life in prison. It found that Russia had "overall control" over the separatist forces. Russia at the time rejected the decision by the Dutch court. Last week, in hearings before the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, Russia said Ukraine's MH17 case was based on "nonsense" and offered a host of alternative explanations for what happened. On Monday, Ukraine's lawyers hit back. One of them, Marney Cheek, told the court it had been "subjected to a rambling conspiracy theory" about the shooting down of MH17 which would be "better relegated to the darkest corners of the internet". Kyiv has accused Russia of being a terrorist state and said it had also tried to erase the culture of ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv has asked the court to find Moscow guilty of breaching its treaty obligations and order it to pay reparations.<br/>
For the second time this year, a British Airways flight has been delayed after a crew member accidentally set off the emergency slide. The latest incident occurred on Sunday as the A350 was getting ready for departure from London Heathrow to Austin, US. It led to a full-scale emergency response at the UK airport. The Sun claims the error was caused by a flight attendant on their first day which has similarities to the earlier incident in January when another crew member on their debut accidentally opened the slide on a Boeing 777 flight from Heathrow to Lagos, Nigeria. The slide is an expensive piece of kit to be replaced, costing the airline BP50,000. The passengers on the flight to Texas were deplaned and eventually were on their way after a delay of six hours. A British Airways spokesperson told The Sun: "The aircraft returned to stand and customers disembarked normally. We arranged a replacement aircraft for them to continue their journey the same day and have apologised for the inconvenience caused."<br/>