Brazil’s Congress will finalise as soon as February legislation opening the way for deregulation of flights to and from the US, Minister of Tourism Marx Beltrao said Wednesday. Beltrao said he also expects legislators to approve a plan to allow foreign carriers a bigger chunk of Brazilian airlines. Both measures are part of a government drive to push down fares and boost tourism. “It’s already on the agenda as an urgent matter to be voted,” Beltrao said, referring to the foreign ownership cap issue in particular. The minister said that the so-called Open Skies treaty with the US would also be taken up at the beginning of the Brazilian legislative year in February. Beltrao said he did not expect major opposition to the agreement. The deal would clear the way for a partnership between American Airlines Group and LATAM Airlines Group, allowing them to coordinate schedules and offer more connections. Flights between Brazil and the United States are expected to surge by 30 percent as a result of the treaty, said Vinicius Lummertz, president of Brazilian tourism board Embratur, citing American Airlines. Beltrao acknowledged that lifting Brazil’s 20% ceiling on foreign airline ownership is more controversial. Still, he said Azul SA, Brazil’s third-largest airline after Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA and LATAM’s local unit, is the only one opposed to the plan. He said that if ownership was opened 100%, “airlines from other countries will be able to enter the Brazilian market and fly domestically, so given that boosts competition for the existing players, that can hurt them financially,” he said. “But the others are against Azul’s position, they want to open the market.” Brazil’s government is open to lifting the ownership ceiling to somewhere between 50 and 100% initially, Beltrao said.<br/>
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American Airlines and Delta said Wednesday they entered into an agreement to accommodate stranded passengers during events such as winter storms and hurricanes, in a partial revival of an earlier interline deal between the two rivals. The agreement is meant to reduce the number of passengers stuck in airports because the original carrier was unable to rebook them on a flight of its own. "It's a tool that will give our employees more options to reacommodate customers whose Delta flights are canceled during weather and other uncommon scenarios," Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant said. American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller said the carrier was happy to put the deal in place after Delta reached out several months ago to discuss the return of such an agreement between the two parties. Neither Delta nor American detailed the financial specifics of the agreement. Prior to its dissolution in September 2015, the two largest US airlines by passenger traffic had a far more comprehensive interline agreement, which among other things allowed for booked travel to include segments operated individually by both Delta and American on the same ticket. <br/>
On a recent Thursday morning, no million-dollar racehorses or sleek show horses from Europe were standing in the 48 specially designed stalls for their mandatory three-day quarantine. No pigeons or finches bound for pet shops fluttered in the 5,000-square foot aviary. Paradise 4 Paws, a dog and cat resort with 150 suites inside Ark, has yet to open. The $65m animal transit facility opened a year ago to great fanfare, as what “the world’s only animal terminal and the first full-service quarantine facility” for the import and export of horses, pets, zoo animals and livestock. Built just yards from the runways, the idea was that animals could be deplaned and within minutes be enjoying the Ark’s climate-controlled environment and, if needed, the services of its veterinary clinic. Instead, just before the new year, John J. Cuticelli Jr., the Ark’s owner, filed a $426m lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Queens against his landlord, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that oversees the airport and solicited the animal handling center. Cuticelli says the Ark is incurring “massive operational losses” and is in imminent danger of shutting down.<br/>
Regional turboprop manufacturer ATR is hopeful that worsening relations between the US administration and Iran will not hinder its business relationship with Tehran. ATR delivered eight aircraft to Iran Air in 2017 and plans to deliver a further 12 by the end of this year, as part of Iran’s effort to replace its antiquated civil air fleet. ATR won its Iran Air order following the lifting of Western sanctions in return for Iran rolling back its nuclear program. The Trump administration’s unhappiness with that deal, which has seen Washington DC recently impose new sanctions on the Middle East nation, potentially puts the continued supply of Western aircraft to Iran at risk, but ATR CEO Christian Scherer hopes ATR will be allowed to continue to work with Tehran. Iran Air is using the new ATRs to revitalize domestic routes and bring people from remote parts of Iran to Tehran to expose them to the capital’s expanding economy. “This regional development is very powerful for them and it’s frankly very benign from a geopolitical and security aspect,” Scherer said. “So we are hopeful at ATR that our business opportunities with the Iranians will go unchallenged.”<br/>