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Business

Airbus and Qatar Airways settle bitter A350 jet row

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PARIS, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Airbus (AIR.PA) and Qatar Airways have settled a dispute over grounded A350 jets, the companies said on Wednesday, averting a potentially damaging UK court trial after a blistering 18-month feud that tore the lid off the global jet market.

The “amicable and mutually agreeable settlement” ends a $2 billion row over surface damage on the long-haul jets. The spat led to the withdrawal of billions of dollars’ worth of jet deals by Airbus and prompted Qatar to increase purchases from Boeing.

The cancelled orders for 23 undelivered A350s and 50 smaller A321neos have been restored under the new deal, which is also expected to see Airbus pay several hundred million dollars to the Gulf carrier, while winning a reprieve from other claims.

Financial details were not publicly disclosed.

The companies said neither admitted liability. Both pledged to drop claims and “move forward and work together as partners”.

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The deal heads off what amounted to an unprecedented public divorce trial between heavyweights in the normally tight-knit and secretive $150 billion jet industry.

The two sides had piled up combined claims and counter-claims worth about $2 billion ahead of the June trial.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire welcomed the deal, which came in the wake of increasing political involvement amid close ties between France, where Airbus is based, and Qatar.

“It is the culmination of significant joint efforts. It is excellent news for the French aerospace industry,” he said.

Airbus shares closed up 1% before the announcement.

Qatar Airways had taken the unusual step of publicly challenging the world’s largest planemaker over safety after paint cracks exposed gaps in a sub-layer of lightning protection on its new-generation A350 carbon-composite jets.

Airbus had acknowledged quality flaws but, backed by European regulators, had insisted that the jets were safe and accused the airline of exaggerating flaws to win compensation.

DAMAGES

Supported by a growing army of lawyers, both sides repeatedly bickered in preliminary hearings over access to documents, to the growing frustration of a judge forced to order co-operation.

Analysts said the deal would allow both sides to feel vindicated, with Qatar Airways winning damages and recognition that the problem lay outside the manual and therefore required a new repair, and Airbus standing its ground on safety and spared the difficult task of finding a home for cancelled A350s.

Qatar will get the in-demand A321neos needed to plan its growth, albeit three years later than expected, in 2026. Airbus’ decision to revoke that order, separate from the disputed A350 contract, had been criticised by global airlines group IATA.

Airbus said it had done its best to avoid pushing Qatar too far back in the queue, though some experts question whether it could have met the earlier schedule because of supply problems.

The settlement is also expected to stop the clock ticking on a claim for grounding compensation that had been growing by $6 million a day, triggered by a clause agreed upon after the repainting of a jet for the World Cup revealed significant surface damage.

Originally valued at $200,000 per day per plane, Airbus’ theoretical liability was ratcheting upwards by a total of $250,000 an hour for 30 jets – or $2 billion a year – by the time the deal was struck, based on court filings. Neither side commented on settlement details.

Airbus said it would now work with the airline and regulators to provide the necessary “repair solution” and return Qatar’s 30 grounded planes to the air.

Confirmation of a settlement came after Reuters reported a deal could arrive as early as Wednesday. In 2021, a Reuters investigation revealed other airlines had been affected by A350 skin degradation, all of whom said it was “cosmetic”.

The dispute has focused attention on the design of modern carbon-fibre jets, which do not interact as smoothly with paint as traditional metal ones, and shed light on industrial methods.

Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas, Michel Rose
Editing by David Goodman, Diane Craft and Gerry Doyle

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France hit by new wave of strikes against Macron’s pension reform

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  • Reform would raise retirement age to 64
  • Schools, transport networks, refinery deliveries hit
  • Macron: Reform vital to ensure viability of pension system

SAINT-NAZAIRE, France, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Striking workers disrupted French refinery deliveries, public transport and schools on Tuesday in a second day of nationwide protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make people work longer before retirement.

Crowds marched through cities across France to denounce a reform that raises the retirement age by two years to 64 and which is a test of Macron’s ability to push through change now that he has lost his working majority in parliament.

On the rail networks, only one in every three high-speed TGV trains were operating and even fewer local and regional trains. Services on the Paris metro were thrown into disarray.

Buoyed by their success earlier in the month when more than a million people took to the streets, trade unions which have been battling to maintain their power and influence urged the public to turnout en masse.

“We won’t drive until we’re 64!” bus driver Isabelle Texier said at a protest in Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast, adding that many careers involved tough working conditions.

Others felt resigned ahead of likely bargaining between Macron’s ruling alliance and conservative opponents who are more open to pension reform than the left.

“There’s no point in going on strike. This bill will be adopted in any case,” said 34-year-old Matthieu Jacquot, who works in the luxury sector.

Unions said half of primary school teachers had walked off the job. TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) said 55% of its workers on morning shifts at its refineries had downed tools, a lower number than on Jan. 19. The hard-left CGT union said the figure was inaccurate.

For unions, the challenge will be maintaining a strike movement at a time when high inflation is eroding salaries.

At a local level, some announced “Robin Hood” operations unauthorised by the government. In the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne area, the local CGT trade union branch cut power to several speed cameras and disabled smart power meters.

“When there is such a massive opposition, it would be dangerous for the government not to listen,” said Mylene Jacquot, secretary general of the CFDT union’s civil servants branch.

[1/16] Protesters attend a demonstration against French government’s pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of national strike and protests in France, January 31, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Opinion polls show a substantial majority of the French oppose the reform, but Macron intends to stand his ground. The reform was “vital” to ensure the viability of the pension system, he said on Monday.

A street march in Paris takes place later in the day.

‘BRUTAL’

The pension system reform would yield an additional 17.7 billion euros ($19.18 billion) in annual pension contributions, according to Labour Ministry estimates.

Unions say there are other ways to raise revenue, such as taxing the super rich or asking employers or well-off pensioners to contribute more.

“This reform is unfair and brutal,” said Luc Farre, the secretary general of the civil servants’ UNSA union. “Moving (the pension age) to 64 is going backwards, socially.”

French power supply was down by 4.5% or 3 gigawatts (GW), as workers at nuclear reactors and thermal plants joined the strike, data from utility group EDF (EDF.PA) showed.

TotalEnergies said deliveries of petroleum products from its French sites had been halted because of the strike, but that customers’ needs were met.

The government made some concessions while drafting the legislation. Macron had originally wanted the retirement age to be set at 65, while the government is also promising a minimum pension of 1,200 euros a month.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has said the 64 threshold is “non-negotiable”, but the government is exploring ways to offset some of the impact, particularly on women.

Hard-left opposition figure Jean-Luc Melenchon, a vocal critic of the reform, said parliament would on Monday debate a motion calling for a referendum on the matter.

“The French are not stupid,” he said at a march in Marseille. “If this reform is vital, it should be possible to convince the people.”

Reporting by Forrest Crellin, Benjamin Mallet, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Leigh Thomas, Blandine Henault, Michel Rose, Dominique Vidalon, Benoit Van Overstraeten; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Richard Lough; Editing by Janet Lawrence

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At least 64 killed in Nepal’s worst air crash in 30 years

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KATHMANDU, Jan 15 (Reuters) – At least 64 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, the small Himalayan country’s worst air crash in three decades.

Hundreds of rescue workers were scouring the hillside where the Yeti Airlines flight, carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu, went down.

Local TV showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.

“We have sent 31 bodies to the hospital and are still taking out 33 bodies from the gorge,” said police official Ajay K.C., adding that rescue workers were having difficulty reaching the site in a gorge between two hills near the tourist town’s airport.

Reuters Graphics

The crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, the Aviation Safety Network database showed, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed into a hillside upon approach to Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board.

The plane made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (0505 GMT), the aviation authority said in a statement. “Then it crashed.”

“Half of the plane is on the hillside,” said Arun Tamu, a local resident, who told Reuters he reached the site minutes after the plane went down. “The other half has fallen into the gorge of the Seti river.”

Khum Bahadur Chhetri said he watched from the roof of his house as the flight approached.

“I saw the plane trembling, moving left and right, and then suddenly its nose dived and it went into the gorge,” Chhetri told Reuters, adding that local residents took two passengers to a hospital.

The government has set up a panel to investigate the cause of the crash and it is expected to report within 45 days, the finance minister, Bishnu Paudel, told reporters.

SERIES OF CRASHES

At least 309 people have died since 2000 in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal – home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest – where sudden weather changes can make for hazardous conditions.

The European Union has banned Nepali airlines from its airspace since 2013, citing safety concerns.

Those on the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft included two infants and four crew members, said airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula.

The journey to Pokhara, Nepal’s second largest city tucked under the picturesque Annapurna mountain range, from the capital Kathmandu is one of the Himalayan country’s most popular tourist routes, with many preferring a short flight instead of a six-hour-long drive through hilly roads.

The weather on Sunday was clear, said Jagannath Niroula, spokesman for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Passengers included five Indians, four Russians and one Irish, two South Korean, one Australian, one French and one Argentine national.

The ATR72 of European planemaker ATR is a widely used twin engine turboprop plane manufactured by a joint venture of Airbus (AIR.PA) and Italy’s Leonardo (LDOF.MI). Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 planes, according to its website.

“ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer,” the company said on Twitter, adding that its first thoughts were for those affected, after having been informed of the accident.

Airbus and Leonardo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said on Twitter the Yeti Airlines aircraft was 15 years old and equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.

“We are downloading high-resolution data and verifying the data quality,” it said.

On its website, Yeti describes itself as a leading domestic carrier. Its fleet consists of six ATR 72-500s, including the one that crashed. It also owns Tara Air, and the two together offer the “widest network” in Nepal, the company says.

Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Additional reporting by Jamie Freed; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal and Aditya Kalra; Editing by William Mallard and Susan Fenton

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Business

S&P 500 ends at highest in month, indexes gain for week as earnings kick off

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  • JPMorgan, Wells Fargo shares jump
  • U.S. consumers’ inflation expectations ease – survey
  • Tesla falls after price cuts on electric vehicles
  • Indexes: Dow up 0.3%, S&P 500 up 0.4%, Nasdaq up 0.7%

NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters) – The S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished at their highest levels in a month on Friday, with shares of JPMorgan Chase and other banks rising following their quarterly results, which kicked off the earnings season.

All three major indexes also registered strong gains for the week, leaving the S&P 500 up 4.2% so far in 2023, and the Cboe Volatility index (.VIX) – Wall Street’s fear gauge – closed at a one-year low.

On Friday, financials (.SPSY) were among sectors that gave the S&P 500 the most support.

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) beat quarterly earnings estimates, while Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N) fell short of quarterly profit estimates.

But shares of all four firms rose, along with the S&P 500 banks index (.SPXBK), which ended up 1.6%. JPMorgan shares climbed 2.5%.

Still, Wall Street’s biggest banks stockpiled more rainy-day funds to prepare for a possible recession and reported weak investment banking results while showing caution about forecasting income growth. They said higher rates helped to boost profits.

Strategists said investors will be watching for further guidance from company executives in the coming weeks.

“This has shifted the focus back to earnings,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“Even though the earnings were basically OK, people are just kind of stepping back, and you’re going to see a wait-and-see attitude with stocks” as investors hear more from company executives.

Year-over-year earnings from S&P 500 companies are expected to have declined 2.2% for the quarter, according to Refinitiv data.

Also giving some support to the market Friday, the University of Michigan’s survey showed an improvement in U.S. consumer sentiment, with the one-year inflation outlook falling in January to the lowest level since the spring of 2021.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 112.64 points, or 0.33%, to 34,302.61, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 15.92 points, or 0.40%, to 3,999.09 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 78.05 points, or 0.71%, to 11,079.16.

The S&P 500 closed at its highest level since Dec. 13, while the Nasdaq closed at its highest level since Dec. 14.

For the week, the S&P 500 gained 2.7% and the Dow rose 2%. The Nasdaq increased 4.8% in its biggest weekly percentage gain since Nov. 11.

The U.S. stock market will be closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.

Thursday’s Consumer Price Index and other recent data have bolstered hopes that a sustained downward trend in inflation could give the Federal Reserve room to dial back on its interest rate hikes.

Money market participants now see a 91.6% chance the Fed will hike the benchmark rate by 25 basis points in February.

Among the day’s decliners, Tesla (TSLA.O) shares fell 0.9% after it slashed prices on its electric vehicles in the United States and Europe by as much as 20% after missing 2022 deliveries estimates.

In other earnings news, UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N) shares rose after it beat Wall Street expectations for fourth-quarter profit but the stock ended down on the day.

Shares of Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) dropped 3.5% as the company forecast first-quarter profit below expectations.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 10.77 billion shares, compared with the 10.81 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.79-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.78-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 12 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 105 new highs and 8 new lows.

Additional reporting by Shubham Batra, Ankika Biswas and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu, Shounak Dasgupta and Grant McCool

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U.S. airports rumble back to life after FAA computer outage

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WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) – U.S. flights were slowly beginning to resume departures and a ground stop was lifted after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scrambled to fix a system outage overnight that had forced a halt to all U.S. departing flights.

The cause of the problem, which delayed thousands of flights in the United States, was unclear, but U.S. officials said they had so far found no evidence of a cyberattack.

“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem” the FAA said in a Tweet.

More than 4,300 flights had been delayed and 700 canceled as officials said it will take hours to recover from the halt to flights.

The FAA had earlier ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures after its pilot alerting system crashed and the agency had to perform a hard reset around 2 a.m., officials said.

The FAA said shortly before 8:30 a.m. departures were resuming at Newark and Atlanta airports.

The FAA is expected to implement a ground delay program in order to address the backlog of flights halted for hours. Flights already in the air had been allowed to continue to their destinations during the ground stop.

U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the Transportation Department to investigate the outage and said the cause of the failure was unknown at this time. Asked if a cyber attack was behind the outage, Biden told reporters at the White House, “We don’t know.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pledged “an after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps.”

The FAA said it was working to restore the Notice to Air Missions system that alerts pilots to hazards and changes to airport facilities and procedures that had stopped processing updated information.

A total of 4,314 U.S. flights were delayed as of 9:04 a.m. ET, flight tracking website FlightAware showed. Another 737 were canceled.

MODERNIZATION NEEDED

United said it has resumed operations. The Chicago-based carrier, however, warned that customers might continue to see some delays and cancellations.

Shares of U.S. carriers fell in Wednesday’s premarket trading. Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) was down 2.4%, while Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N), United Airlines (UAL.O) and American Airlines (AAL.O) were down about 1%.

“America’s transportation network desperately needs significant upgrades … We call on federal policymakers to modernize our vital air travel infrastructure.” said Geoff Freeman, President and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, a group representing U.S. airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and theme parks.

FAA’s system outage comes weeks after an operational meltdown at Southwest at the end of last year left thousands of passengers stranded.

A severe winter storm right before Christmas coupled with the Texas-based carrier’s dated technology led to over 16,000 flight cancellations last month.

The DOT, FAA’s parent agency, heavily criticized Southwest’s failures and pressured the airline to compensate passengers for missed flights and other related costs. There is no legal requirement that the FAA must compensate passengers for flight delays caused by agency computer issues.

ESSENTIAL INFORMATION

A NOTAM is a notice containing information essential to personnel concerned with flight operations, but not known far enough in advance to be publicized by other means.

Information can go up to 200 pages for long-haul international flights and may include items such as runway closures, bird hazard warnings and construction obstacles.

United Airlines (UAL.O) said it had temporarily delayed all domestic flights and would issue an update when it learned more from the FAA.

Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France both said they were continuing to operate flights to and from the United States, while the French airline said it was monitoring the situation.

The operator of Paris international airports – Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and Orly airport – said it expects delays to flights.

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said on Twitter that ground stops across the country were causing delays. A ground stop is an air traffic control measure that slows or halts aircraft at a given airport.

In an earlier advisory on its website, the FAA said its NOTAM system had “failed”, although NOTAMs issued before the outage were still viewable. Earlier this month, a problem with a different airline computer control system delayed dozens of flights in Florida.

A total of 21,464 flights are scheduled to depart airports in the United States on Wednesday with a carrying capacity of nearly 2.9 million passengers, data from Cirium shows.

American Airlines has the most departures from U.S. airports with 4,819 flights scheduled, followed by Delta and Southwest, Cirium data showed.

Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Shepardson in Washington, Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru, Jamie Freed in Sydney and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Additional reporting by Nathan Gomes and Steve Holland in Washington
Writing by Shailesh Kuber and Alexander Smith Editing by Edmund Blair and Nick Zieminski

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World

Chinese rush to renew passports as COVID border curbs lifted

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  • China dropped quarantine for visitors on Sunday
  • Latest move in easing that has let virus run free
  • Several nations demand COVID tests from China travellers
  • Chinese stocks, yuan rally on growth hopes

BEIJING, Jan 9 (Reuters) – People joined long queues outside immigration offices in Beijing on Monday, eager to renew their passports after China dropped COVID border controls that had largely prevented its 1.4 billion residents from travelling for three years.

Sunday’s reopening is one of the last steps in China’s dismantling of its “zero-COVID” regime, which began last month after historic protests against curbs that kept the virus at bay but caused widespread frustration among its people.

Waiting to renew his passport in a line of more than 100 people in China’s capital, 67-year-old retiree Yang Jianguo told Reuters he was planning to travel to the United States to see his daughter for the first time in three years.

“She got married last year but had to postpone the wedding ceremony because we couldn’t go over to attend it. We’re very glad we can now go,” Yang said, standing alongside his wife.

China’s currency and stock markets strengthened on Monday, as investors bet the reopening could help reinvigorate a $17 trillion economy suffering its lowest growth in nearly half a century.

Beijing’s move to drop quarantine requirements for visitors is expected to boost outbound travel, as residents will not face those restrictions when they return.

But flights are scarce and several nations are demanding negative tests from visitors from China, seeking to contain an outbreak that is overwhelming many of China’s hospitals and crematoriums. China, too, requires pre-departure negative COVID tests from travellers.

China’s top health officials and state media have repeatedly said COVID infections are peaking across the country and they are playing down the threat now posed by the disease.

“Life is moving forward again!,” the official newspaper of the Communist Party, the People’s Daily, wrote in an editorial praising the government’s virus policies late on Sunday which it said had moved from “preventing infection” to “preventing severe disease”.

“Today, the virus is weak, we are stronger.”

Officially, China has reported just 5,272 COVID-related deaths as of Jan. 8, one of the lowest rates of death from the infection in the world.

But the World Health Organization has said China is under-reporting the scale of the outbreak and international virus experts estimate more than one million people in the country could die from the disease this year.

Shrugging off those gloomy forecasts, Asian shares climbed to a five-month high on Monday while China’s yuan firmed to its strongest level against the dollar since mid-August.

China’s blue-chip index (.CSI300) gained 0.7%, while the Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) rose 0.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (.HSI) climbed 1.6%.

“The ending of the zero-COVID policy is … going to have a major positive impact on domestic spending,” Ralph Hamers, group chief executive officer at UBS, told the Swiss bank’s annual Greater China conference on Monday.

“We believe there is a lot of opportunity for those committed to investing in China.”

‘HUGE RELIEF’

“It’s a huge relief just to be able to go back to normal … just come back to China, get off the plane, get myself a taxi and just go home,” Michael Harrold, 61, a copy editor in Beijing told Reuters at Beijing Capital International Airport on Sunday after he arrived on a flight from Warsaw.

Harrold said he had been anticipating having to quarantine and do several rounds of testing on his return when he left for Europe for a Christmas break in early December.

State broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that direct flights from South Korea to China were close to sold out. The report quickly shot to the most-read item on Chinese social media site Weibo.

In the near term, a spike in demand from travellers will be hampered by the limited number of flights to and from China, which are currently at a small fraction of pre-COVID levels.

Flight Master data showed that on Sunday, China had a total of 245 international inbound and outbound flights, compared with 2,546 flights on the same day in 2019 – a fall of 91%.

Korean Air said earlier this month that it was halting a plan to increase flights to China due to Seoul’s cautious stance towards Chinese travellers. South Korea like many other countries now requires travellers from China, Macau and Hong Kong to provide negative COVID test results before departure.

Taiwan, which started testing arrivals from China on Jan. 1, said on Monday that nearly 20% of those tested so far were positive for COVID.

China’s domestic tourism revenue in 2023 is expected to recover to 70-75% of pre-COVID levels, but the number of inbound and outbound trips is forecast to recover to only 30-40% of pre-COVID levels this year, China News reported on Sunday.

Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Liz Lee, Josh Arslan, Eduardo Baptista and Sophie Yu in Beijing; Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

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At least 29 killed in Mexico capture of Chapo’s son

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MEXICO CITY, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Nineteen suspected gang members and 10 military personnel were killed in a wave of violence surrounding the arrest of Mexican drug cartel boss Ovidio Guzman in the northern state of Sinaloa, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said on Friday.

Mexican security forces captured Guzman, the 32-year-old son of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in the early hours of Thursday morning, prompting hours of unrest and shootouts with gang members, the minister said.

Guzman was extracted by helicopter from the house where he was caught and flown to Mexico City, before being taken to a maximum security federal prison, Sandoval added.

The arrest spurred the powerful Sinaloa Cartel – once headed by El Chapo himself – to go on a rampage, setting vehicles on fire, blocking roads, and fighting security forces in and around Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa.

Twenty-one other people were arrested during Thursday’s operations, Sandoval told a news conference, adding there were no reports of any civilian deaths.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said there were no immediate plans to extradite Ovidio to the United States, where his father is in a maximum security prison after being extradited in 2017 and found guilty in a New York court.

“The elements (of the case) have to be presented and the judges in Mexico decide,” the president said. “It is a process…It is not just the request.” No U.S forces had assisted in Ovidio’s capture, Lopez Obrador said.

An enhanced security presence will now remain in place in Sinaloa, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, to protect the public, with an additional 1,000 military personnel traveling to the region today, Sandoval said.

Passengers on an Aeromexico passenger flight at Culiacan airport crouched low below their seats as shots rung out around the runway on Thursday.

“As we were accelerating for take-off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane, and that’s when we all threw ourselves to the floor,” passenger David Tellez said. Aeromexico said one of its plane was hit by gunfire at Culiacan but that no-one was hurt.

The airport was due to reopen later on Friday after being closed due to the violence.

In 2019, a failed operation to arrest Ovidio ended in humiliation for Lopez Obrador’s government. At the time, security forces briefly detained Ovidio, triggering a violent backlash from cartel loyalists and leading authorities to quickly release him to stave off the threat of further retribution from his henchmen.

His latest capture comes before a North American leaders’ summit in Mexico City next week, which U.S. President Joe Biden will attend. Cooperation over security is due to be on the agenda.

THE EXTRADITION QUESTION

The United States has sought Guzman’s extradition for years.

In 2021, the State Department announced a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Guzman, known by the nickname “The Mouse,” has been charged in the United States with conspiracy to traffic cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. The State Department said he oversaw methamphetamine labs in Sinaloa responsible for producing “3,000 to 5,000 pounds” of the drug per month.

The State Department also said information indicated he had ordered multiple murders, including that of a popular Mexican singer who had refused to perform at his wedding.

Surging flows of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States, where it has fueled record overdose deaths, have heightened pressure to capture Guzman.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers the Sinaloa Cartel, along with one other gang, to be responsible for most of the fentanyl inside the United Sates.

Additional reporting by Dave Graham
Editing by Alistair Bell

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World

Air India grounds crew over handling of unruly passenger on flight

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NEW DELHI, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Air India has issued show cause notice and de-rostered one pilot and four cabin crew as it investigates the handling of an unruly passenger on a flight from New York to Delhi in November, the airline’s chief executive office said on Saturday.

The Tata group-owned airline has faced criticism from India’s aviation regulator following an incident on a Nov. 26 flight in which a male passenger, while apparently inebriated, urinated on a female co-passenger.

A second similar incident occurred last month on a flight from Paris to Delhi.

“Air India acknowledges that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground and is committed to taking action,” the airline’s CEO and managing director Campbell Wilson said in a statement on Saturday.

Wilson said Air India has initiated multiple measures to improve its response to such incidents, including a review of airline policies and reporting processes.

A male passenger accused of misbehaviour on the New York to Delhi flight has been terminated by his employer Wells Fargo (WFC.N), the bank said on Friday, adding that it was cooperating with local law enforcement.

Local media said on Saturday that the passenger had been arrested by Indian police.

Air India will provide full cooperation to the affected passenger, regulators and law enforcement authorities, Wilson said.

“We are committed to providing a safe environment for customers and crew, as well as operating in full compliance with all laws and regulations,” he said.

Reporting by Aditi Shah, Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Jacqueline Wong

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World

‘We threw ourselves to the floor’: Mexican passenger plane caught in cartel crossfire

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MEXICO CITY, Jan 5 (Reuters) – “That’s an attack plane, Dad,” said one of David Tellez’s young children as they spotted Mexican military aircraft touching down alongside their Aeromexico passenger plane early on Thursday.

Then the gunfire began.

“As we were accelerating for take-off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane, and that’s when we all threw ourselves to the floor,” Tellez said after the incident in the northern city of Culiacan.

Violence broke out on Thursday throughout Culiacan after the arrest of Ovidio Guzman, the son of the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, and a senior member of the Sinaloa cartel.

Aeromexico said nobody on Tellez’s flight had been hurt. The Culiacan airport closed shortly after, as security forces patrolled the city, which was strewn with burned vehicles, attempting to contain the violent backlash.

Tellez, 42, was traveling with his wife and children, aged 7, 4 and 1, after spending Christmas with family.

He told Reuters he had reached the airport for his 8:24 a.m. flight without incident, despite encountering road blockades set up after overnight shootouts. Although Guzman’s arrest had not yet been confirmed, nervous security guards urged travelers to enter quickly.

“Authorities were not saying anything,” he said by phone.

Tellez hid in an airport bathroom with his family after hearing that gang members were in the airport. The rumor turned out to be false, and the Aeromexico travelers boarded quickly.

Yet, just as flight AM165 to Mexico City was about to take off, a succession of military planes landed on the airstrip.

Tellez took out his cellphone, recording several videos that show two large air force transport aircraft, smaller, fighter-like attack aircraft and military trucks on the tarmac. Then gunshots began to echo in the distance.

A video circulating on social media, appearing to capture the same incident, showed passengers crouching low below their seats as a child cried.

A flight attendant said the engine had been hit, triggering a leak. The crew directed passengers to disembark, moving them to a windowless waiting room in the airport.

It is not clear who was shooting at whom.

Tellez’s family plans to board another flight on Friday, but until then, is staying put.

“We prefer to stay at the airport until it’s safe to leave,” he said. “The city is worse. There is a lot of shooting and confusion.”

Reporting by Sarah Morland and Carolina Ruiz in Mexico City; Editing by Bradley Perrett

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Power outage forces Philippines to suspend flights, shut airspace

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  • More than 280 flights delayed, diverted on New Year’s Day
  • Transportation chief blames power outage for failure
  • System partially restored, airlines offer free rebooking

MANILA, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Philippine authorities halted flights in and out of Manila on New Year’s Day due to a malfunction of air traffic control, which also prevented airlines bound to other destinations from using the country’s airspace.

A total of 282 flights were either delayed, cancelled or diverted to other regional airports, affecting around 56,000 passengers at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the airport operator said on Sunday.

It was unclear how many overflights were affected.

Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista apologized for the inconvenience to passengers as he blamed a power outage for the breakdown of the central air traffic control system that also affected operations at other airports in the country.

He said the outdated existing facility should be upgraded immediately and that a back-up system was also needed.

“This is air traffic management system issue,” he said in a media briefing. “If you will compare us with Singapore, for one, there is a big difference, they are at least 10 years ahead of us.”

As of 0800 GMT, “the system has been partially restored thereby allowing limited flight operations”, the Manila International Airport Authority said in a statement. By late evening, eight flight arrivals and eight departures had been allowed, according to the airport operator.

Video clips and photos posted on social media showed long queues at the airport and airline personnel distributing food packs and drinks to stranded passengers.

“We’re told radar and navigation facilities at NAIA down. I was on my way home fm Tokyo – 3 hours into the flight, but had to return to Haneda,” tweeted one passenger – Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of Philippine telecommunications conglomerate PLDT Inc.

“6 hours of useless flying but inconvenience to travellers and losses to tourism and business are horrendous. Only in the PH. Sigh.”

Budget carrier Cebu Pacific (CEB.PS) and Philippine Airlines (PAL.PS) said they were offering passengers due to fly on Sunday free rebooking or the option to convert tickets to vouchers.

Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Neil Fullick, Peter Graff and Alison Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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