Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador inaugurated the state-run airline Mexicana de Aviacion on Tuesday as part of the country’s push to put domestic tourist projects in the hands of a military-led company. The carrier’s first flight headed to Tulum, a popular beach destination in the country’s southeast, from the airport built earlier in his administration to serve the sprawling Mexico City population. Named after a defunct state airline, Mexicana will initially serve 14 destinations and gradually add domestic routes. “This airline will be managed by the Olmeca-Maya-Mexica company that will administer airports, trains, especially the Maya Train, and Mexicana de Aviacion, in addition to other complementary companies with hotels and ecological parks,” AMLO, as the president is known, said at a press briefing, referring to some of the major infrastructure projects of his government. The air carrier kicked off operations with five planes, and it’s in talks with Boeing Co. over the possibility of buying additional ones in 2024, according to Defense Secretary Luis Sandoval. The government has touted the company as a budget option for travelers. Mexicana de Aviacion stopped flights in 2010, and the government bought rights to the name amid bankruptcy proceedings. Initial destinations will include the states of Baja California, Nuevo Leon and Yucatan.<br/>
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A plane that had been grounded in France for days over concerns its roughly 300 mostly Indian passengers were part of a human trafficking scheme landed in Mumbai early Tuesday. The Airbus A340 initially had been bound for Nicaragua when it was detained last Thursday at Vatry airport, east of Paris, where it had stopped for refuelling. It had arrived from Dubai and there was an anonymous tip-off that it was carrying potential victims of human trafficking. Of the original 303 people on the passenger list, 276 were on the plane that took off Monday afternoon, arriving in Mumbai after a nearly nine-hour flight. A senior airport official, who was not authorised to speak to journalists, confirmed the flight had landed at 4:00 am time Tuesday (2230 GMT Monday). The arrival of the plane was also shown on aviation tracking website Flightradar24. There was no official Indian statement on the arrival or details of when the passengers would be allowed to leave the airport. Among those staying behind were two people questioned by French police over suspected people trafficking, but a judicial source said they were released after it was established the passengers had boarded the plane of their own free will. The French authorities are continuing to investigate the case for a potential violation of immigration laws, but no longer for people trafficking, judicial sources said. The suspects' release came because "the investigating judge was able to resist media pressure in this case", said their lawyer, Salome Cohen. The pair have received an expulsion order from France, their lawyers said.<br/>
Authorities in Finland will exercise special caution if an aircraft of Southwind Airlines requests permission to enter Finland, Jarkko Saarimäki, the director general of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), stated to YLE on Sunday. Questions about the backgrounds of the purportedly Turkish charter airline were raised recently in an investigative report by Bild, one of the leading tabloid newspapers in Germany. Bild on Friday reported that the airline was established by Russian nationals and has leased most of its staff and fleet from Nordwind Airlines, a Russian airline that is prohibited from entering the airspace of the EU. The newspaper also wrote that the airline was set up to carry migrants to the external borders of the 27-country bloc via Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Safa Oruç, the director of aviation safety at Southwind Airlines, on Monday stated to YLE in an e-mail that the airline is not involved in any criminal activity, that the airline and its aircraft are registered in Turkey and that the airline is owned by a Turkish national. “Not a single member of Southwind’s management is Russian,” added Oruç. Oruç told YLE that Southwind Airlines has leased its aircraft from Japan, Turkey and the US. Three of its 12 aircraft have previously operated in Russia. Saarimäki from Traficom stated to the public broadcasting company a day earlier that the airline has enquired about the possibility to use Helsinki Airport as a diversion airport for flights to St. Petersburg.<br/>
Turkey has decided to extend the ban on flights through Turkish airspace to and from Sulaimaniyah International Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan for an additional six months, the director of the airport told The New Arab. Turkey's foreign ministry had announced in April that it was suspending access to its airspace for flights to and from the airport until 3 January 2024, citing security concerns over the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group. "Since Saturday, Turkey has extended the suspension for another six months, effective until 22 June 2024," Handren Mufti, the director of Sulaimani International Airport told The New Arab in a phone call. "The reason is that Turkey refuses to open flights to and from the airport, and Ankara also disagrees with opening its airspace to all flights from the airport.” Mufti declined to directly talk about the issue of the PKK, but he said that the airport is "very safe for flights" and that "no security breaches had happened in the airport". He said major airlines had been continuing to operate flights to and from the airport. "If the airport had any terrorist activities, then those airlines should have had similar reactions," Mufti said.<br/>
Even in an age of astronomical executive pay, few bosses would be indifferent to the idea of gaining another E100m. And even fewer billionaires might regularly be seen lugging their own cardboard props into the cramped lift of a London hotel before a press conference. But Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, who is in line for a payout that could dwarf anything yet seen in aviation, has long given the strong impression of not being bothered about the megabonus soon heading his way. The airline’s chief executive will receive the payout, agreed in 2019, if the company hits long-term profit targets that are looking increasingly achievable. This stems partly, of course, from O’Leary being a significant investor in the airline. Given his 3.9% shareholding, the potential E98m bonus becomes just a fraction of his spiralling on-paper wealth: a 50% rise in the shares since November already makes his stake in Ryanair several hundred million euros fatter. It is possibly still not enough for O’Leary. He will concede only that aviation has made him “reasonably wealthy”. A billionaire, no? “Probably,” he says. “The Ryanair share price goes up and down.” But he also appears determined to keep himself and his family grounded. At least one holiday a year is dedicated to an “educational tour”, and on this year’s agenda was a visit to concentration camps. “Children of people who are reasonably wealthy and have a very entitled view of the world that comes from social media – they should go and see Auschwitz and realise that bad things happen, he says. “Everyone should be aware and never forget the atrocities. No matter how hard you think your life is – go and see what happened to the Jews in the second world war.”<br/>
A baby from the London area tested positive for measles after arriving Dec. 22 in Toronto on a flight from Pakistan, prompting the Middlesex-London Health Unit to issue a warning Monday to people on the same flight. The seven-month-old was diagnosed with the highly contagious disease after taking Pakistan International Airlines Flight 781 from Islamabad, Pakistan, that landed at Pearson International Airport at 7 p.m. on Dec. 22, Alex Summers, medical officer of health for Middlesex-London, said Monday. The family drove from the airport to London in a private vehicle, and the child was taken to hospital for medical care shortly after showing symptoms, he said. “They (family) came in touch with some other folks in those health care settings (through the process of getting medical care.) So we have been working directly with those people that might have been exposed to make sure they are aware and protected,” Summers said. The child is stable but should stay in the hospital for an undetermined amount of time for monitoring, he said. “We’re fortunate that in Middlesex-London, measles vaccination rates are very high, so the risk of community transmission is very low, but because it’s so infectious, we need to respond quickly,” Summers said. <br/>