Airline Flight

Indonesia's Supreme Court convicted a former Garuda airlines pilot of the 2004 murder of human rights leader Munir Said Thalib on Friday, more than a year after acquitting the same defendant amid allegations of a coverup. The court sentenced Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who was an off-duty pilot aboard the state-run airline flight on which Munir was poisoned, to 20 years in prison.

Northwest Airlines Corp. agreed Thursday on $195 million in pay and benefit cuts with its flight attendants, averting a potential strike by the only major union that hasn't accepted the carrier's efforts to pare labor costs as it prepares to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Assn. of Flight Attendants-CWA leaders were deciding whether to send the pact to the 9,300 members for a vote, union spokeswoman Karen Schultz said. The accord was reached after a week of bargaining.

Fewer seats and a strong economy are expected to result in higher passenger loads on domestic flights this summer. "I definitely think capacity is going to be tight this summer. Demand is going to be strong," said Standard & Poor's equity analyst Jim Corridore. He said airline load factors in the U.S. probably would approach 90% in the summer months. The average load factor last summer was just above 80%, he said. Data from the Air Transport Assn.

The Alaska Airlines jet was parked at its gate when a baggage handler bumped his loading cart into the plane. Just a minor bump, he later told investigators; so minor, he said, he didn't even tell anyone about it at the time. And so the MD-80 twin-engine jet took off from Seattle Monday afternoon, bound for Burbank. Twenty minutes into the sky, however, with a loud popping sound, that minor bump abruptly sheared into a 12-inch gash in the fuselage.

Continental Airlines Inc. reached its goal of finding $500 million in annual savings by Monday with the announcement of tentative agreements for wage and benefit cuts with unions representing pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and dispatchers. The Houston-based carrier with 41,000 employees announced the tentative contract agreements Monday but revealed no details so that unions could spread the word directly to their members.

Families and friends of 88 people killed when an Alaska Airlines flight crashed into the ocean four years ago gathered on Port Hueneme's wind-swept beach Saturday afternoon to pray and reminisce about those lost. About 60 people gathered around a sundial-and-dolphin sculpture commemorating Flight 261. The names of the dead were read, and a bell tolled after each name while family members, many weeping, placed white roses on bronze plaques encircling the memorial.

British Airways flights from London to Washington and Air France flights from Paris to an unspecified U.S. city could be terrorist targets, U.S. officials said. Two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity emphasized that there was no specific intelligence about what might be planned, only that those flights were possible targets. There are no plans to raise the terror alert because of the threats, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines may have averted bankruptcy proceedings after new Chief Executive Gerard J. Arpey persuaded flight attendants Friday to accept cost cuts. AMR stock rose. Arpey secured the agreement on his first full day after taking over from ousted Chief Executive Donald J. Carty. American now has agreements with all three of its unions, a condition the company set for preventing a Chapter 11 filing.

Turmoil continued in the airline industry. Hawaiian, the nation's 12th-largest airline and the second-largest provider of passenger service between the West Coast and Hawaii, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It said it would continue flying during reorganization. Earlier, United and US Airways filed for Chapter 11. Citing lowered demand because of the war in Iraq, many U.S. and foreign airlines reduced schedules by up to 12%, especially on international routes.

A few Asian and South Pacific airlines are choosing to spread their wings in Los Angeles as they cautiously expand service in the face of the global travel slump. Air New Zealand and China Southern Airlines are among those that have added flights from Los Angeles International Airport in recent weeks. Singapore Airlines has announced plans to expand its Los Angeles-Singapore service next year with what it says will be the world's longest nonstop flight, 18 hours, between the two markets.