United Airlines has indicated that it will seek some form of compensation from Boeing for the impact of the 737 Max grounding, says their chief executive Oscar Munoz. "There will be recompense of some sort over time," he says at New York's LaGuardia airport today. "The discussion of that is a bit early. Let's get that aircraft back to flight safely." The carrier has not disclosed the financial impact of the grounding, which took effect in March and affected United's 14 in-service 737 Max 9s. The grounding forced the airline to cancel flights starting in April, and the company recently extended Max-related cancellations until 3 August. It has reduced capacity growth by a percentage point, to up 4-5%, in 2019. Boeing has completed testing a software update to the 737 Max's manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), which investigators have implicated as a factor in both the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air 737 Max crashes. Global regulators will begin evaluating the update shortly but none have said when they expect to allow 737 Max back in the sky.
"It's important to recognise that the flying public is going to have a perception," he says today. "Whatever it takes for us to get the public to see it as safe is going to be important." said Munoz.

Cathay Pacific are awaiting acquisition of Hong Kong Express is just one element of its preparation to take advantage of growth opportunities afforded by the coming opening of a third runway at its Hong Kong base. HK Express will give the Oneworld Alliance member a "running start" to rapidly expand in the low-cost segment once the new runway opens in 2024, says the the carrier's chairman John Slosar at the Wings Club in New York on 30 May. "We'll already have 30 airplanes in the air [and] the next 20 to 30 will be easier on that basis," he says of HK Express. "It would be a lot harder if we started from zero." Hong Kong airport's new runway will be ready just in time to capture much of this growth. The "three runway system" will boost the airport's annual capacity by roughly 30 million passengers to around 100 million by 2030. Cathay announced plans to acquire HK Express from HNA Group for HK$4.93 billion ($628 million) in March. The deal is expected to close by year-end pending regulatory approval, with Slosar saying today the companies are on-track to meet that timeline.

Aeroflot has sharply criticised comments from the regional governor of Khabarovsk after suggesting the fatal accident involving a Sukhoi Superjet 100 was entirely the result of human factors. Governor Sergei Furgal, said in an interview with regional television channel Gubernia, that the Superjet production would not be halted as a result of the the accident on the 5th of May 2019. But he claimed that official conclusions stated that the aircraft was in “perfect” technical condition and “fully functional”, and that the pilots made “a number of errors”, due to inexperience or agitation, on returning to land at Moscow Sheremetyevo. “This is 100% human factor,” Furgal stated. Aeroflot has condemned Furgal’s comments, describing them as a “blatant attempt” to put pressure on the Interstate Aviation Committee – which is heading the inquiry – and to influence public opinion. “[Aeroflot] requests that [the governor] provides documents confirming the published information about the final results of the investigation,” the carrier says. “In the absence of such, Aeroflot demands an immediate and official denial.”