HONG KONG-Air New Zealand has committed to increasing the number of single-use plastic items that it will remove from its operation this year by more than double, from 24 million to nearly 55 million items. This month the airline removed individual plastic water bottles from its Business Premier and Premium Economy cabins, as well as from its Works Deluxe offering on Tasman and Pacific Island services under five hours in duration. This is expected to divert more than 460,000 bottles from landfill annually and reduce carbon emissions by more than 300,000 kilograms per year by reducing weight on the aircraft. Individual plastic sauce packets are being removed from Business Premier cabins on mainland North America and Hong Kong services, and these will be eliminated entirely from the global network by the end of October. Customers will instead be served sauce in reusable dishes which is expected to prevent around 200,000 plastic packets going to landfill each year. The airline is also set to roll out coffee cups made from plants rather than plastic across its domestic and international networks from October, while plastic water cups will be transitioned to recyclable alternatives from September. The previous commitment targeted coffee and water cups on Air New Zealand's domestic network where the majority of cups are used, however, the scope has now expanded to introduce the lower impact cups across the international network, lifting the total number of cups being replaced this year from 14.7 million to 44.5 million.

Source: World Airline News

Investigators are probing an overrun by a Belavia Boeing 737-300 at Kiev's downtown Zhulhany airport late on 12 July.
The aircraft (EW-336PA) had been operating the carrier's B2847 service from Minsk and had touched down on runway 26 in darkness at about 23:40. Meteorological data from Zhulhany at the time indicates variable winds, the presence of cumulonimbus cloud and subsequent light rain showers. The aircraft continued past the threshold of the opposite-direction runway 08 by around 300m, coming to rest of soft ground having passed over approach lighting, according to video images purportedly taken at the scene and distributed on social media. None of the 139 passengers and five crew members were injured, the airport's operator states. The airport has only a single runway, which restricted operations until around 14:00 the following day.

Source: FlighGlobal

Pakistan reopened its airspace on 15 July to all civil traffic, ending around six months of restrictions that impacted aircraft flying over the country. The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority issued a NOTAM reopening the airspace shortly after 19:00 GMT allowing civil traffic to use all published air traffic routes. The country closed its airspace on 26 February after a flare-up in tensions with India over airstrikes in the disputed Kashmir region. While it has reopened some sections of its airspace, the area along Pakistan's eastern border with India had been closed indefinitely. That has resulted in airlines operating flights between Asia and Europe having to operate longer routes to avoid the area. Indian carriers have also been affected, with most northbound services usually transiting through the affected airspace.