An emergency evacuation slide fell from an airliner Monday and landed in the backyard of a home near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, causing no injuries but damaging a roof, officials and witnesses said. The FAA said a United Airlines Boeing 767 had landed safely at O’Hare on Monday on arrival from Switzerland when maintenance workers realized an emergency slide was missing from the plane’s side. The aircraft was carrying 155 passengers and 10 crew. WLS-TV reported that Patrick Devitt was not home at the time but his son and father-in-law were present and heard a “boom” shortly after noon. Devitt dragged the slide from his backyard to the front. He said the slide hit part of the house, damaging the roof, downspout and a window screen. “When it’s all stretched out, like it’s a little jumbled up I’m sure in the picture from when we dragged it out, it’s larger than a small car. It’s a very, very big piece of equipment,” Devitt told WLS. United said it was seeking to find out exactly how the slide ended up in the neighborhood. “We immediately contacted the FAA and are working with our team to better understand the circumstances around this matter,” United said. The FAA said, without releasing more details, that it was continuing to investigate.<br/>
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India’s Vistara airline has begun making plans to merge its staff into Air India, as the country’s industrial Tata family combines the two carriers to rebuild its aviation empire and take on market leader IndiGo. “The process of integration of the staff has started,” Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan told reporters in Mumbai on Monday. He expects regulatory clearances to be completed by April 2024, confirming an earlier report that Indian regulators have raised antitrust concerns. Vistara, now co-owned by Tata Group and Singapore Airlines Ltd., will be folded into Air India under a deal announced in November, giving the Tatas more heft to go up against dominant budget carrier IndiGo. Singapore Air will receive a 25.1% stake in the combined entity in exchange for its interest in Vistara and a $250m investment. The Tatas founded Air India’s predecessor in the 1930s and took over the national flag-carrier again in 2022 after decades of decline. Since then, the country’s biggest industrial conglomerate has been rebuilding the company, making record plane orders alongside Indigo. Vistara has put together a team to discuss what should be the “end structure” of the integrated organization, Kannan said, declining to offer details due to restrictions in India’s competition law. The airline is talking to pilots and cabin crew about the process of the merger and applying to competition authorities in Singapore. India’s antitrust regulator has given out show-cause notices raising concerns about the merger, Kannan said. He contends that IndiGo’s control of 63% of the domestic market is a bigger issue than a potential duopoly emerging from the consolidation. Air India currently has 9.7% of the market and Vistara has 8%. <br/>
Flight cancellations and delays are on the rise on Asiana Airlines' domestic and international routes after its pilots began a work-to-rule protest last month for higher wages, the company said Monday. On June 7, the around 100 pilots at Asiana began the protest, in which they only do what is stipulated by company policies and rules. The work-to-rule campaign, which includes such tactics as the "overuse" of jet fuel and "excessive" maintenance work, disrupts flights, causing delays, the company said in a statement. From June 7 through July 16, Asiana had to cancel two international and 10 domestic flights, with 56 flights on international and domestic routes delayed due to the pilots' collective action, the statement said. "They are demanding a whopping 10% increase in basic pay for the 2019-2022 period as there was no wage increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is far higher than the company's proposed 2.5% rise for the four-year period," a company spokesman said over the phone. Other unionized workers, except for pilots, have already accepted the 2.5% wage increase for the pandemic-hit period, he said. The company is in talks with the union, but there seem to be differences between them over wages, the spokesman said, adding any industrial action could result in major damage to related parties.<br/>
Virgin Australia has deepened its partnership with Japan’s largest airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA). Under the expanded codeshare agreement, customers will be able to book ANA flights directly through Virgin Australia’s website, as well as earning Velocity frequent flyer points and status credits on ANA services. According to Velocity Frequent Flyer CEO Nick Rohrlach, this will benefit passengers connecting from Virgin and ANA’s Australian services to destinations such as Sapporo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Osaka-Itami, Kochi, Osaka-Kansai, Kumamoto, Nagoya, Nagasaki, Oita, Okinawa and Miyazaki. “From today, our 11.5m members can earn Points and Status Credits on flights to more than 130 additional destinations through ANA’s global network across Japan, Asia, North America and Europe,” he said. “Following the commencement of our inaugural Cairns to Tokyo (Haneda) service last month, it is fantastic to be opening up more opportunities for our guests and members when travelling to, and within, Japan, with the nation’s largest airline.” Virgin began services from Cairns to Haneda on 28 June. Originally intended to launch with the airline’s new 737 MAX aircraft, the first flights have been operated by 737-700s due to delays at Boeing. The airline will fly daily between Cairns and Tokyo year-round. The service was enabled through the Queensland government’s Attracting Aviation Investment Fund and will provide more than 2,000 seats per week between Cairns and Haneda with same-day connections to major Australian cities. For its part, ANA last month announced it would resume its Perth to Tokyo (Narita) route on 29 October, flying return services three times per week on Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners and adding almost 75,000 seats back into the market. The route was popular both inbound and outbound until it was suspended in March 2020, said Perth Airport acting CEO Kate Holsgrove.<br/>
The Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group saw passenger traffic grow by 34.8% y-o-y in June, outpacing the capacity expansion of 27.2% compared to a year ago. As a result, the group’s passenger load factor (PLF) increased by 5.1 percentage points y-o-y to reach 90.6%, a monthly record. The strong figures were attributable to the “robust demand” for air travel on the back of the mid-year school holidays and the beginning of the summer travel season. SIA and budget carrier Scoot reported monthly PLFs of 89.7% and 93.6% respectively. Both airlines carried a total of 2.9m passengers in June, which is up by 50.4% y-o-y. During the month, cargo operations fell by 13.0 percentage points y-o-y to a load factor of 51.6%. Cargo loads fell by 14.9% y-o-y due to weaker demand while capacity expanded by 6.6% as increased passenger services resulted in a higher bellyhold capacity. At the same time, Scoot resumed its services to the Chinese cities of Changsha and Wuhan.<br/>
Thailand's National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has cleared three former politicians of graft over the procurement of ten A340s for Thai Airways International during 2003-2004. Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, former deputy transport minister Pichet Sathitchawan, former chairman of the Thai Airways board Thanong Pittaya, and former Thai Airways president Kanok Apiradee all faced dereliction of duty charges relating to the aircraft's acquisition process, which was found to be corrupt and to have substantially contributed to the state-owned carrier's ongoing financial woes. Between 2002 and 2004, the then Thaksin-led Thai cabinet approved a plan by Thai Airways to buy four A340-500s and six A340-600 for THB53.5b baht (US$1.54b). The ten aircraft arrived between 2005 and 2008 and exited between 2012 and 2015. However, the quadjets accumulated losses of THB7b in the first three years of operations on just two routes. However, in a July 12 media interview, Pichet said the NACC had told him it would discontinue the charges against all four men. Notably, the NACC's decision comes ahead of Thaksin's planned return to Thailand later this month after several years in exile abroad.<br/>
Thai Airways continues to more forward with its restructuring and has taken over two more routes from Thai Smile. Thai Airways is now operating flights between Bangkok and Yangon, Myanmar using two-class Airbus A320 jets. Over the weekend, the national carrier launched flights between Bangkok and Dhaka, Bangladesh using a mixture of Airbus and Boeing aircraft. On the Bangkok – Yangon route, Thai Airways' Airbus A320 aircraft offers both Silk Class and Economy Class on 14 flights per week.<br/>