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American Airlines said on Monday that it had placed an order for 260 new planes in roughly equal numbers from Airbus, Boeing and Embraer. It is the airline’s largest aircraft order since 2011 and reflects the strength of demand for air travel. The order consists of 85 Airbus A321neo planes, 85 Boeing 737 Max 10 jets and 90 smaller Embraer E175 aircraft. Boeing’s equal standing in the deal suggests that American remains confident in the manufacturer after a panel blew out from a Max 9 plane during a Alaska Airlines flight in January. That episode resulted in no major injuries but reignited concerns about the safety and quality of Boeing planes. The airline’s CFO, Devon May, told reporters in an interview on Monday that American had faith that Boeing would improve quality after a preliminary federal investigation suggested that the Alaska Airlines plane might have left Boeing’s factory without bolts critical to securing the panel. “We know what their goals are: They are going to improve quality,” May said. “They are going to continue to deliver a safe product. And that’s our expectation.” The Boeing deal includes an existing order for 30 smaller Max 8 jets, which were upgraded to the Max 10. That larger plane, which has not yet received regulatory approval, can seat about 200 passengers. American does not expect to receive its first Max 10 planes until 2028, May said. The airline expects Boeing will be able to deliver those jets, but if the manufacturer fails to, Mr. May said, American has made arrangements to replace those deliveries with other Max models or Airbus planes. The Embraer planes are a workhorse of American’s regional subsidiaries, which typically use the jets for shorter trips, often between smaller airports or from those locations to hub airports. The E175 typically seats about 76 passengers in economy and premium classes.<br/>

American Airlines said Monday that 80% of its revenue this year will come from loyalty program members and passengers who buy more expensive tickets, up from a 70% share in 2017. American and other carriers have poured billions of dollars into new cabins, lounges and onboard upgrades to cater to high-spending travelers. American’s rival, Delta, has repeatedly said that growth in premium revenue, which it considers tickets for extra legroom seats and higher-end cabins, has become a bigger share of its overall sales and is growing faster than ticket sales in the coach cabin. American earlier Monday said that it was ordering 260 new Boeing, Airbus and Embraer planes to revamp its fleet and that it would retrofit older Airbus planes to increase the size of their first-class cabins. American’s revenue forecast is part of its first investor day in more than six years. It considers “premium content” tickets that cost more than the cheapest offering. The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline said it expects to grow pretax margins in the coming years and chip away at its debt load. The carrier is in the process of renegotiating its credit card agreements with its partners, Citi and Barclays. Airlines make billions of dollars a year by selling frequent flyer miles to banks for their co-brand cards or other loyalty credit cards. American and other airlines have changed their loyalty programs to reward customers based on how much they spend instead of just how much, and how far, they fly. Over the years they have required higher spending to reach elite status. Vasu Raja, American’s CCO, said Monday that a renegotiation of the contracts would increase revenue for American. “If you if you were to ask any of our card partners, they have very few cards, if any, in their portfolio that are exhibiting the kind growth in spend per active account and total acquisition growth as well as what ours has done,” Raja said during the investor day presentation.<br/>

A commercial passenger flight bound for North Carolina was diverted to an island southeast of the Bahamas Wednesday after a woman on board suffered a medical emergency and died, police said. The Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force reported the commercial flight was heading to Charlotte when a 41-year-old woman fell ill. American Airlines flight 2790 departed from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic before it was diverted to Providenciales International Airport "for the medical needs of a passenger," a spokesperson for the airline said in a statement obtained by USA TODAY. Just before 6:15 p.m., police said, officers received a call from Air Traffic Control Tower requesting medical assistance for the woman who, at the time, was receiving CPR. A medical team, along with police units, were dispatched, and the woman was transported to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy was slated to be performed to determine the woman's cause of death, authorities said.<br/>

Three passengers are suing Boeing and Alaska Airlines for $1b in damages in the wake of a door panel blowing out mid-air on their flight. The suit, announced Feb. 23, accuses Boeing and Alaska Airlines of negligence for allegedly having ignored warning signs that could have prevented the January 5 incident, which forced the plane pilots to make an emergency landing. “This experience jeopardized the lives of the 174 passengers and six crew members that were on board,” a release announcing the suit states. “For those reasons, the lawsuit seeks substantial punitive damages ... for what was a preventable incident.” The suit is also seeking damages on behalf of other passengers who may have flown on Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft, which were subsequently grounded by the FAA following the incident. The suit is not related to another class-action lawsuit filed in January in the immediate wake of the incident. Boeing 737 Max 9 planes flown by Alaska and United Airlines have resumed regular service. However, both carriers have indicated they are reconsidering whether to place additional orders with Boeing for additional Max aircraft, including the successor line, the Max 10. The FAA and NTSB continue to investigate Boeing over the January blowout incident.<br/>

British Airways will spend GBP750m on information technology improvements including an overhaul of its website as part of a GBP7b push to transform the airline. The former flag carrier, now owned by IAG, will also release a new mobile app and modernize its digital systems to improve on-time performance as part of the plan, the company said Monday. The GBP750m will be spent over the next three years to improve resilience and business continuity. Repeated technology failures have led to cancelled flights while a sluggish online experience for customers and lackluster on-time performance at London’s busy Heathrow airport have trailed rivals. Parts of British Airways’ website are more than 20 years old, the company acknowledged at an event on Monday. Customers will begin to see improvements by the end of 2024, it said. “It’s the most significant transformation in our history,” said CEO Sean Doyle. “A lot of investment, a lot of improvement.” The spending is part of a broader effort to invest across the carrier’s operations to rebuild a reputation that’s been tarnished as it fought to compete with budget rivals such as EasyJet Plc. The carrier also plans to invest in its fleet with new seats for short-haul flights and upgrade its lounges following a record year of profits for parent company IAG. British Airways has been plagued by IT failures in recent years, with hundreds of flights cancelled from Heathrow last May as systems failed. A lengthy disruption in February 2022 saw flights disrupted for days while long-haul flights were hit by another failure in December.<br/>

Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are back on the British Airways map – but the link to the Thai capital is much diminished compared with the pre-Covid era. Starting with the winter 2024-25 schedules in late October, BA Boeing 777s will depart three times a week from London Gatwick to Bangkok. Previously the airline flew daily from Heathrow. First class has also been dropped, though it remains available on BA’s competitors from Heathrow to the Thai capital. Thai Airways operates twice daily from Heathrow to Bangkok, while Eva Air goes nonstop on the same route once a day. Daily BA flights to Kuala Lumpur will resume from London Heathrow, using a four-class Boeing 787. The airline says the move back to Southeast Asia demonstrates its “commitment to expanding its network to Asia post-pandemic”. The aviation schedule analyst, Sean Moulton, said the move “appears to be a change of strategy, moving away from the core BA market connecting Europe and India with the US and Canada”. He said: “Kuala Lumpur has very few direct links to Europe so BA will be able to tap into unserved connections. Bangkok shifting to Gatwick shows the lower yields but popularity of the route.” For decades Bangkok was a key destination for British Airways from London Heathrow. BA even launched a direct link from Manchester to the Thai capital, though it was soon dropped due to unprofitability.<br/>

The man who led Australia’s search for MH370 has urged the Australian government to support any new effort to find the plane, which disappeared 10 years ago on Friday. On Sunday the Malaysian government said it was in talks with the US marine robotics company Ocean Infinity to discuss a new search. The company says it is willing and able to return to the search and has submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government. The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 departed Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014, bound for Beijing with 12 crew and 227 passengers on board – including seven Australians. About 40 minutes later it disappeared from the radar and its fate remains unknown. The Malaysian government initially did a surface search in the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca. But electronic blips picked up by satellites indicated the plane had turned around, flown until it ran out of fuel, then plunged into the Indian Ocean between Western Australia and Antarctica. At that point Australia took over, with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) leading the Indian Ocean underwater search effort from May 2014 to early 2017. Peter Foley, the program director for the ATSB-led search, said the longer any search was delayed, the smaller the chance that flight data recorders would still be useful. He would like to see the Australian government support a new effort. “It’s been six years,” Foley said. “We know that it’s close to the seventh arc in the southern Indian Ocean,” he added, referring to a band of water where the plane made its final satellite “handshakes”. “We just need another search.”<br/>

A Texas-based company is claiming that they have scientific evidence of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370’s final resting place. Ocean Infinity has announced a proposal for a new search in the southern Indian Ocean where the plane is believed to have crashed a decade ago. It has already submitted the proposal to the Malaysian government. Ocean Infinity has proposed a “no-cure, no-fee” search – when the client is only required to pay for the services if the company secures a positive outcome. The company’s CEO Oliver Plunkett said: “We now feel in a position to be able to return to the search for MH370, and have submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government. Finding MH370 and bringing some resolution for all connected with the loss of the aircraft has been a constant in our minds since we left the southern Indian Ocean in 2018. Since then, we have focused on driving the transformation of operations at sea; innovating with technology and robotics to further advance our ocean search capabilities,” he said. Malaysia’s transport minister Anthony Loke told reporters that he has invited Ocean Infinity to discuss a “no cure, no fee” proposal to resume the search for MH370. “I am very, very confident that the government of Malaysia and cabinet will approve such a proposal,” he said. Plunkett said the company was analysing the data in the hopes of narrowing the search area. “This search is arguably the most challenging, and indeed the most pertinent one out there."<br/>