Finnair has appointed Turkka Kuusisto as its next CEO, the airline said on Thursday, after it announced the resignation of current CEO Topi Manner in August last year. Kuusisto, 44, comes from a position as CEO of Finnish mail and delivery company Posti Group Corporation and will start in his new role on July 11, Finnair said in a statement. "Turkka brings to Finnair his strong understanding of complex industries and his proven people leadership and strategy skills, which will benefit Finnair as Finnair now moves to the next phase in its strategy", board Chair Sanna Suvanto-Harsaae said. Outgoing Manner steps down on Jan. 15 and will be taking the helm at telecoms group Elisa. COO Jaakko Schildt will act as Finnair's interim CEO until Kuusisto takes over.<br/>
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Measures to prevent aircraft from making runway incursions may not have been suitably shared with the Japan Coast Guard, whose plane was involved in a deadly collision at Tokyo's Haneda airport, information revealed by the transport ministry suggested Thursday.<br/>In the Jan. 2 collision between the coast guard's aircraft and a Japan Airlines jetliner, experts have pointed out the possibility that the former mistakenly entered the runway. Five of six people aboard the coast guard plane died and its captain was severely injured, while all 379 passengers and crew on the commercial aircraft escaped. Following a series of unapproved entries by aircraft at Japanese airports, including Osaka, Kansai and Chubu airports between September and November of 2007, the ministry and relevant parties launched a team to prevent recurrences, but the coast guard was not part of it. An official at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said it is unclear why the coast guard was not on the team, but added, "The team's activities were obvious and clear for all pilots, and information must have been conveyed to the coast guard." A task force established by the ministry formulated preventive measures, including those to avert miscommunication between air traffic controllers and pilots, and the team followed up on how the measures were implemented. Launched in April 2008 and joined by major passenger transportation businesses, the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan and the Japan Aircraft Pilot Association, the team ended its service in March 2011, according to the ministry. In the recent collision, a tower traffic controller called the coast guard plane "No. 1," suggesting the aircraft, which was on a relief mission to quake-hit central Japan, was given the highest priority for takeoff, and instructed it to proceed to the stopping point before the runway.<br/>
In the wake of the collision between a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft on a Haneda Airport runway in Tokyo, JAL has begun considering preserving the remains of its aircraft involved in the accident. JAL is considering exhibiting the remains for its employees and the public to convey lessons learnt from the incident on Jan 2 to improve aviation safety. While the fuselage of the JAL aircraft that burned down in the accident was severely damaged, the wings and parts of the engines remained. After being removed from the scene on Jan 7, the remains have been stored at a JAL facility in Haneda in accordance with a maintenance order from the Japan Transport Safety Board. JAL considers the jet to be “a valuable object in conveying the lessons of air safety”, and will consult with the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, the engine manufacturer and other related parties regarding the preservation of the remains, while also monitoring the progress of the investigation into the accident. <br/>
A British Airways pilot was reportedly kidnapped and tortured by a gang of men for money while on a stopover for work in South Africa. The incident took place outside a supermarket in Johannesburg when a woman asked the pilot for help carrying bags to her car. But, according to reports, when he got to the vehicle, he was bundled inside by a group of men. He was driven to a remote area of the city where he was “badly roughed up”, reported The Sun newspaper, and he eventually handed over thousands of pounds. The first officer was deemed unfit to fly the plane back to London after the ordeal, and the airline reportedly had to find a replacement pilot. A source described the incident to the paper as "like something out of the movies," saying: “It only ended when he was left penniless. He is just happy to be alive. “The incident has shaken crew.” A BA spokesperson told media outlets: “A crew member was abducted outside Checkers Bluebird supermarket just north of the Melrose Arch complex.” The airline bans staff from certain areas of the city, but the crew hotel in the Melrose Arch area of the city is meant to be among its safest areas. The pilot is now off work.<br/>
Cathay Pacific has announced that passengers booked on its flights during the Chinese New Year travel period will be unaffected by its recent spate of flight cancellations, adding that all cancellations have already been made. The airline, which operates 102 flights weekly between Singapore and Hong Kong, said there will be no flight cancellations for the period between Feb 7 and 18. Cathay Pacific’s regional general manager of South-East Asia Dominic Perret said outside of this period, an average of four flights per week between the two destinations were cancelled in January and February. These are part of a wider series of 12 weekly cancellations announced across its flight operations for the first two months of the year. Chief Operations and Service Delivery Officer Alex McGowan said in a statement on Jan 10: “Over the Christmas and New Year period, we underestimated the number of reserve pilots we would need. Given our January pilot rosters were already set in mid-December, the lack of adequate reserve levels persisted into January. “In order to stabilise the current operation, we needed to cancel further flights across the first two weeks of January.”<br/>