A United Airlines jet was clipped by another jet while they were taxiing at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Wednesday. According to an emailed statement from an FAA spokesperson to The Hill, an American Airlines Boeing 737-800 jet “struck the tail of” a United Airlines 787 jet while taxiing on separate taxiways at Chicago O’Hare International Airport at about 10:00 a.m. CST. The American flight was headed to Los Angeles, and the United flight was off to Honolulu, the FAA stated, adding that it will investigate the incident. In its own statement emailed to The Hill, United said an aircraft from a different airline “made contact with the tail cone of a stationary United plane while on the taxiway awaiting departure.” United said there are no reports of injuries, and the airline will provide another aircraft for customers.<br/>
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Germany's Lufthansa is aiming to recruit around 10,000 people across the group in 2025, while measures to cut costs at its struggling core airline continue this year, the company said on Wednesday. The airline group is looking for more than 2,000 flight attendants, more than 1,400 ground staff, around 1,300 technical experts, 1,200 administrative staff and 800 pilots, according to a statement, which said more than half of all recruitment was to take place in Germany. For 2024, Lufthansa had set itself the higher target of 13,000 new recruits group-wide. "Lufthansa Airlines will continue to focus on the Turnaround efficiency program in 2025 and expects to hire fewer employees than in 2024," the statement added. Lufthansa Airlines, one of Europe's top carriers, is struggling with low yields, competition with international airlines and spiralling costs, prompting the programme to cut costs by 2026. The company said its maintenance business Lufthansa Technik would be a focus of 2025 recruitment.<br/>
Lufthansa is set to acquire a stake in Italian state-owned airline ITA on Jan. 13, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday, bringing to a close years of talks. DPA news agency first reported on the date, which Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr announced at an employee event, according to the report. A Lufthansa spokesperson declined to comment on the specific date and reiterated that the acquisition was expected to close in early 2025. Lufthansa is set to buy 41% of ITA, the successor airline to bankrupt Alitalia, for E325m. The European Commission approved in November a package of competition remedies securing more routes for the German flag carrier's peers, paving the way for the deal to go through.<br/>
China’s three biggest state-owned airlines are rapidly expanding routes and capacity to Europe as their ability to fly over Russian airspace gives them a cost advantage over regional rivals. Western carriers have slashed direct flights to China, with Scandinavian Airlines, Lufthansa, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic all suspending some routes to the mainland in 2024, citing cost pressures from avoiding Russia. Moscow banned most European airlines from Russian airspace in 2022 in response to western sanctions imposed in the wake of President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, adding hours to flights to Asian destinations, including China, and driving up fuel bills. Chinese airlines, which are unaffected by the Russian airspace ban, have rushed to fill the gap, increasing capacity and offering cheaper tickets despite persistently reporting losses. “European carriers are just not competitive,” said David Yu, an aviation industry expert at New York University Shanghai. Passenger seat capacity, measured in available seat kilometres, between China and western Europe by the three main Chinese intercontinental carriers — Air China, China Eastern and China Southern — were 18% higher in October than in the same month in 2019, according to DBS equity research analyst Jason Sum. The three airlines’ scheduled flights to the UK, Spain and Italy have risen sharply, according to aviation consultancy Ishka, up between 25% and 45% in the first nine months of 2024 compared with 2019. They are also able to offer more competitive prices given the cost advantage of flying over Russia. The big three airlines’ fares are roughly 5 to 35% cheaper than those of European airlines for direct round-trip flights between China and western Europe, according to UBS analyst Eric Lin. European airlines have complained that Chinese carriers have an unfair advantage and are establishing a stranglehold on routes between the two regions.<br/>
Checks by Singapore’s authorities in the wake of the deadly Jeju Air crash in December have found no anomalies or reliability issues on the fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft here, said Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat on Wednesday (Jan 8). This is the same aircraft model as the plane that smashed into a concrete structure housing navigational equipment at the end of the runway at Muan International Airport in South Korea on Dec 29, 2024, killing 179 people on board. Chee told Parliament that there are no such concrete structures near runways at Singapore’s airports. All air navigation equipment located near runways here are designed to break off in the event of a collision, he noted. The minister was responding to Ang Wei Neng (West Coast GRC), who had asked about the lessons that can be learnt from the crash of Jeju Air Flight 2216, and how Singapore is preparing itself to prevent a similar occurrence. CAAS’ latest records show that there were seven B737-800 aircraft registered in Singapore as at November 2024, all of them operated by national carrier Singapore Airlines (SIA) and inherited from its now-defunct subsidiary SilkAir. Two of these planes have since been retired, and five remain in service.<br/>
Air New Zealand and aviation finance firm Avolon have signed a letter of intent for the sale and lease back of an electric cargo aircraft from manufacturer Beta as part of a wider programme to explore the use of electric and hydrogen aircraft. The deal includes a memorandum of understanding to partner on research to support the commercialisation of electric aircraft, and other novel propulsion technologies including battery hybrid and hydrogen as well as the purchase of a Beta Alia CX300 electric cargo aircraft. The conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) Alia CX300 is designed by US-based BETA Technologies and will carry up to 0.56 tonnes of cargo per flight. The aircraft is due for delivery in 2026 and will be used by Air New Zealand to carry cargo between Wellington and Blenheim through its partnership with New Zealand Post.<br/>