American Airlines Group and United said Tuesday they halted non-stop flights to Shanghai from the United States and included Seoul on the route. "We started operating passenger service from DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth) to PVG (Shanghai Pudong) on Nov 11 through Seoul (ICN) due to testing requirements for crews," American Airlines said, adding that its cargo flights are also continuing to operate through Seoul for the same reason. "We adjusted service between San Francisco and Shanghai to now include a stop in Seoul, South Korea for a crew change as we did earlier this year," United spokesman Jonathan Guerin said. The plan to pause operations comes following reports of lengthy waits facing airline crew members upon arrival, limited local accommodations and restrictions on their movement in China.<br/>
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South Korea’s bid to restructure its airline industry was given the green light after a court cleared a crucial step in Korean Air Lines’s plan to buy smaller rival Asiana. The Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday rejected a request to halt a sale of new shares by Korean Air’s parent to state-run Korea Development Bank, a stock issue designed to enable the takeover. The ruling clears the path for the biggest reorganization in South Korea’s airline industry. Airlines have been making record losses this year as travel was all but wiped out after governments closed borders to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Carriers are cutting jobs, selling non-core assets and reducing their networks, with the IATA predicting that travel won’t recover to pre-Covid levels until 2024. Korea Development Bank, the main creditor of struggling airline Asiana, said last month that the planned combination of Korean Air and Asiana could collapse if the court rules against the share sale. An unfavorable ruling would have meant that creditors would have to take over Asiana and inject more capital to prevent it from a collapse. The case against the share sale was filed by an alliance of three big holders of Korean Air parent Hanjin Kal Corp., who argued that the stock placement would dilute their stakes and boost Chairman Walter Cho’s sway over the holding company. The alliance, which includes Cho’s sister, is at odds with the chairman and failed with an attempt to oust him this year. “The decision for the new share sale was made on the purpose of acquiring and merging Asiana,” the court said in its ruling. “The court also doesn’t believe Korea Development Bank buying shares in Hanjin Kal will change the shareholding structure as the alliance suggests.”<br/>
All Nippon Airways is one of six Japanese companies to reach an agreement about studying carbon recycling business models, and the partners aim to streamline sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) supply chains. “These reviews will identify challenges and future business models leveraging each company’s expertise, technologies, and plant facilities for supply chains that will deliver SAF,” ANA said Wednesday. Besides ANA, the partnering entities are Toshiba Energy Systems and Solutions, Toshiba Corporation, Toyo Engineering, energy company Idemitsu Kosan, and Japan CCS Company. Japan CCS is a government-supported private-sector entity that advances CO2 capture and storage (CCS) projects. Under the agreement, the partners will review business models for producing SAF from CO2 that has been separated and captured from sources such as the exhaust gases of industrial emitters. This will involve the use of the power-to-chemicals processes, powered by renewable energy sources, including hydrogen, and described by ANA as a carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) and carbon recycling technology. The airline states: “With its high CO2 emissions reduction capability, the P2C process offers great potential as a next-generation technology for producing SAF out of CO2.” The partners are looking to supply the SAF produced to the aviation industry.<br/>
South African carrier Airlink has failed to convince the country’s Supreme Court of Appeal that it is owed R510m ($33m) in ticket funds held by South African Airways. The court has upheld a Gauteng high court decision rejecting Airlink’s claim to the ticket revenues collected by SAA on its behalf, following SAA’s entering business rescue in late 2019. “While Airlink fully respects [the court order] dismissing the case, it is nonetheless disappointing and demonstrates that the law is not always just,” says Airlink, following the 30 November judgement. Airlink had a long-standing alliance with SAA including a commercial agreement under which passengers could book Airlink flights through SAA’s reservations systems and Airlink flights carried the SAA designator code ‘SA’. Airlink was granted this access for a basic fee plus a royalty of 1% flown revenues. SAA would then periodically remit to Airlink the revenues received for the Airlink ticket sales, less commissions, fees and taxes. The dispute centred on revenues collected from November 2019 up to the point when SAA entered business rescue on 5 December 2019. At the time business rescue commenced, SAA’s rescue practitioner had argued that the revenues amounted to a pre-commencement debt to Airlink and therefore could not be paid.<br/>