Qantas flight turns back to LA after leak 'floods aisles'

A Qantas A380 superjumbo flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne turned back an hour after take-off when a water leak flooded the plane's aisles, the airline and passengers said Thursday.

Flight QF94 returned to Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday with a passenger describing a "raging torrent of water" running down the two-deck aircraft's stairs.

Qantas said while there were no safety concerns following the leak, the captain decided to turn back "in the interests of passenger comfort".

"Crew on board did everything they could to help customers, including moving them to unaffected areas and providing spare blankets so they could stay dry," Qantas said in a statement.

"We are liaising with Airbus to understand what caused this fault."

A Qantas spokeswoman added that passengers were put up in hotels for the night and engineers were working to fix the problem.

An Australian on the flight, Ken Price, told Fairfax Media "all the passengers in the middle rows, all the middle rows towards the back, started jumping up" an hour into the journey.

"We just saw all this water just flowing down from the overhead compartments. We were right at the back of the plane and the stairs to go up were just a raging torrent of water."

Hollywood actress Nicole Yvette Brown, who was also on the flight, told broadcaster CNN it was the "scariest thing I've ever seen" as the initial trickle of water turned into a gushing stream.

"All of a sudden it looked like a trickle at first and I thought someone had spilled like a soda or a pop or something," the star of cult comedy TV show Community said.

"And then it just got bigger and bigger and filled up both aisles and it literally was like a river running down the aisles of the plane."

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Malaysia Airlines "could go private"

Khazanah Nasional, the biggest shareholder of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), has suggested privatization as an option ahead of a proposed restructuring of the loss-making carrier, reports quoted people with knowledge of the process as saying on Wednesday.

Khazanah Nasional owns 69.4% of Malaysian Airline System Bhd, the company that owns the MAS brand.

At its annual general meeting recently, MAS CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the flag carrier needed a radical overhaul to survive as it has been in the red for the past three years.

In 2013, MAS' losses rose to RM1.17 billion, nearly three times larger than its RM433 million loss recorded in 2012.

Mr Ahmad Jauhari said that the airline plans to announce a big package of changes without giving details.

"We know that there are many options to consider. But we also know that we simply cannot go on with incremental improvements.... Our only option at this point of our business evolution is sweeping change," he said in prepared remarks after the company's annual meeting on June 25.

The management of MAS will meet Malaysia's Transport Ministry to discuss the national carrier's radical recovery plan.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said MAS needed to undertake a lot of changes in order to make its business viable.

"MAS needs to transform. They are undergoing some difficult times, and they will brief me very soon," he told reporters in Sepang after the launch of AirAsia X Bhd's inaugural flight to Xian, China on Wednesday.

Mr Liow said more details would be disclosed after the meeting.

Privatization is only one of the options on the table, reports quoted people with knowledge of the process as saying.

"It's not a done deal," one of them said.

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China Eastern Airlines to launch budget carrier

China Eastern Airlines said Wednesday it would transform one of its units into a budget airline, the first Chinese state carrier to do so.

China's second biggest airline by passenger volume said its Beijing-based domestic carrier China United Airlines would become a low-cost flyer as the country liberalises its commercial aviation market.

"We believe the low-cost carrier market has enormous growth potential in China given its low penetration rate," the airline's company secretary James Wang said.

Ticket prices may be reduced by up to 40 per cent, the company said according to the official Xinhua news agency, as it seeks to compete with several private budget carriers already operating there, including Spring Airlines and Juneyao Airlines.

Last year, the government lifted a six-year ban on establishing new airlines as it deals with growing air-traffic demand.

China United Airlines, which operates 26 Boeing 737 aircraft flying to around 70 locations in China, plans to triple the size of its fleet to 80 aircraft by 2019.

China's airlines carried 350 million passengers last year, up nearly 11 per cent from 2012, according to official figures.

The country's civil aviation authorities said it will have more than 230 airports by 2015, up from 193 last year.

China's huge and growing high-speed rail network, however, has resulted in some shorter flight routes being terminated.

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Taiwan's airline to boost flights to China

Taiwan's largest carrier China Airlines said Wednesday it would increase the number of flights to China by around 18 per cent before mid-July to meet rising demand.

The company said in a statement it would fly to four new destinations on the mainland -- making a total of 32 -- and add flights to three cities to increase its weekly flights to China to 152 from 129.

The airline said it hopes the additional flights would enable tourists from both sides to arrange their trips more conveniently and boost the tourism market.

China has replaced Japan as the biggest source of visitors to Taiwan after relations improved markedly between the former bitter rivals in recent years.

Last year a record 2.85 million Chinese nationals visited Taiwan, up ten per cent from 2012.

The number of tourists visiting Taiwan from the mainland has shot up ever since Taipei lifted a ban on Chinese group tourists in 2008 and allowed solo tourists in mid-2011.

However, Beijing still considers Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, even though the two sides have been governed separately since the end of a civil war in 1949.

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Changi Airport gives sneak peek into Terminal 4

As part of a series of “#breaking” tweets in commemoration of its 33rd anniversary, Changi Airport (@FansofChangi) posted a video giving a sneak peek of parts of Terminal 4 (T4), which is set to be completed in 2017.

Dubbing it “a terminal for the passengers for tomorrow”, the video, posted on its FansOfChangi YouTube channel, depicted the departure and arrival halls, the transit lounge and duty free shopping area, a 300-metre-long “Central Galleria” separating the public and restricted zones, shopfronts done up with a Peranakan façade, and an open-air car park with 1,500 parking spaces.

The groundbreaking ceremony for Terminal 4 was held last November. Built on the site of the former Budget Terminal, T4 will span an area of 195,000 square metres, and be equipped to handle 16 million passengers a year.

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SIA Cargo to stop carrying shark’s fins from August

Singapore Airlines (SIA) Cargo will stop carrying shark’s fins from August, following similar moves by other airlines in the past two years.

“SIA Cargo carried out a thorough review which took into account increasing concerns around the world related to shark-finning. Following this review, SIA Cargo will no longer accept the carriage of shark’s fins, with effect from Aug 1,” said a SIA spokesperson on Monday (June 30).

SIA Cargo is a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines.

Wildlife protection groups lauded the move, while noting the Republic’s position as a trade hub for shark’s fin products.

A 2013 report by wildlife trade monitoring network, Traffic, showed that Singapore was one of the world’s top four exporters and the third-largest importer of shark’s fins between 2000 to 2009. Hong Kong was the world’s largest importer, responsible for more than half of the imported shark’s fins in the same period, the report said.

Cathay Pacific, a Hong-Kong based airline, was the first airline to stop carrying shark’s fins in late 2012, in response to pressure from various environmental groups in Asia to ban such shipments.

Several other airlines, such as Korean, Asiana, Qantas and Air New Zealand, later followed suit in enforcing restrictions or bans.

An online petition calling for SIA to end its involvement in transporting shark’s fins was launched last year and has attracted more than 45,000 signatures so far.

A Facebook page was also set up this year, calling on pro-shark activists to meet at SIA’s check-in counters in Manila, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles and Hong Kong on Aug 10, to protest against its shark’s fins cargo policy.

Following SIA Cargo’s policy change, Mr Alex Hofford, director of WildLifeRisk, which is leading the Facebook campaign to get airlines to stop carrying shark’s fins, told TODAY that the SIA event had been cancelled.

Mr Hofford, whose conservation group is based in Hong Kong, told TODAY that they are delighted to see SIA takes its corporate social responsibility seriously.

He said: “This decision is a major milestone in our global campaign to encourage airlines everywhere to go shark-free. The new shark’s fins cargo policy of Singapore Airlines will go a long way in helping the shark populations in South-east Asia recover from the relentless onslaught that they have been suffering at the hands of the shark-fin trade for decades.”

The activists have now set up a Facebook page asking shark advocates to converge at Thai Airways check in-desks at airports on five continents on Aug 10 to protest the airline’s shark’s fin cargo policy.

Ms Elaine Tan, CEO of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Singapore, added: “This is a responsible move that encourages all other airlines flying into Singapore to follow suit. When airlines stop shipping shark’s fins, it directly impacts overall availability and, in turn, lowers consumption, which is a good thing.

“The WWF will keep working hard with industry to remove shark’s fin altogether,” she added.

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SIA Cargo to stop carrying shark’s fins from August

Singapore Airlines (SIA) Cargo will stop carrying shark’s fins from August, following similar moves by other airlines in the past two years.

“SIA Cargo carried out a thorough review which took into account increasing concerns around the world related to shark-finning. Following this review, SIA Cargo will no longer accept the carriage of shark’s fins, with effect from Aug 1,” said a SIA spokesperson on Monday (June 30).

SIA Cargo is a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines.

Wildlife protection groups lauded the move, while noting the Republic’s position as a trade hub for shark’s fin products.

A 2013 report by wildlife trade monitoring network, Traffic, showed that Singapore was one of the world’s top four exporters and the third-largest importer of shark’s fins between 2000 to 2009. Hong Kong was the world’s largest importer, responsible for more than half of the imported shark’s fins in the same period, the report said.

Cathay Pacific, a Hong-Kong based airline, was the first airline to stop carrying shark’s fins in late 2012, in response to pressure from various environmental groups in Asia to ban such shipments.

Several other airlines, such as Korean, Asiana, Qantas and Air New Zealand, later followed suit in enforcing restrictions or bans.

An online petition calling for SIA to end its involvement in transporting shark’s fins was launched last year and has attracted more than 45,000 signatures so far.

A Facebook page was also set up this year, calling on pro-shark activists to meet at SIA’s check-in counters in Manila, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles and Hong Kong on Aug 10, to protest against its shark’s fins cargo policy.

Following SIA Cargo’s policy change, Mr Alex Hofford, director of WildLifeRisk, which is leading the Facebook campaign to get airlines to stop carrying shark’s fins, told TODAY that the SIA event had been cancelled.

Mr Hofford, whose conservation group is based in Hong Kong, told TODAY that they are delighted to see SIA takes its corporate social responsibility seriously.

He said: “This decision is a major milestone in our global campaign to encourage airlines everywhere to go shark-free. The new shark’s fins cargo policy of Singapore Airlines will go a long way in helping the shark populations in South-east Asia recover from the relentless onslaught that they have been suffering at the hands of the shark-fin trade for decades.”

The activists have now set up a Facebook page asking shark advocates to converge at Thai Airways check in-desks at airports on five continents on Aug 10 to protest the airline’s shark’s fin cargo policy.

Ms Elaine Tan, CEO of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Singapore, added: “This is a responsible move that encourages all other airlines flying into Singapore to follow suit. When airlines stop shipping shark’s fins, it directly impacts overall availability and, in turn, lowers consumption, which is a good thing.

“The WWF will keep working hard with industry to remove shark’s fin altogether,” she added.

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