Wideroe chief executive Stein Nilsen has resigned from his position. The carrier says Nilsen will continue in the role until a replacement is found by parent company Norwegian. Nilsen took over Wideroe in 2015, and the airline notes that employee numbers have since gone from 1,450 to 3,500. Prior to joining Wideroe, he was a consultant with Credo Partners, an investment company based in Oslo, and was head of ground services for SAS. Norwegian completed its takeover of Wideroe in January.

Bahrain-based Gulf Air has agreed a three-year deal with Swissport for ground-handling and cargo services at Geneva airport for its flights to and from Manama Bahrain, via Milan Malpensa. Swissport will support the airline's twice-weekly flights during the summer season, says the Swiss ground handling firm. Swissport Geneva has also renewed its ground handling contract with Saudia and EgyptAir for another three and two years, respectively, while Kuwait Airways has extended its ground handling and cargo handling contracts with Swissport for a further two years.

Airbus has launched with partners a project to demonstrate small-scale liquid hydrogen aircraft ground operations at three European airports. The objective of the effort named GOLIAT (short for ground operations of liquid hydrogen aircraft) is to explore how high-flow liquid hydrogen handling and refuelling technologies can be developed and safely and reliably used, the European airframer says. It adds that the team will also demonstrate scaled-up liquid-hydrogen refuelling technologies for future large commercial aircraft, develop a standardisation and certification framework, and assess economics of hydrogen value chains at airports. Demonstrations will be completed at Rotterdam the Hague airport in the Netherlands and at Lyon airport in France. Additional airport partners are the operators of Amsterdam Schiphol, Budapest and Stuttgart. Cryogenic equipment manufacturer Chart Industries, Stuttgart-based hydrogen propulsion developer H2FLY, Delft University of Technology and Leibniz University Hannover are participants in the effort too. Airbus notes the project will receive €10.8 million ($11.7 million) of funding from the EU's Horizon research programme over four years.