The latest route news from Inside Traveller is available here. Below are some additional items that missed the editorial deadline:

• Aegean Airlines has cancelled plans to operate a Larnaca–Gatwick service this summer. A daily service had been promised.

• British Airways is launching a weekly Heathrow–Las Palmas service this winter.

• Bulgaria Air is launching a four-times weekly Sofia–Budapest service on 24th June.

• Cubana is resuming its service to Brazil in mid July, with a weekly Havana–Sao Paulo service using Ilyushin Il96 aircraft. The airline last served the route in 2004.

• Germania is launching a twice weekly Gatwick–Pristina service on 6th July.

• Jet2.com will launch services from Glasgow, Leeds/Bradford and Manchester to Fuerteventura next April.

• Palestinian Airlines has resumed operations, with a twice-weekly Al-Arish–Jeddah service.

• TAP Portugal is launching two services at the end of October, from Lisbon to Tangier (five times weekly), and Boa Vista (twice weekly).

• Thomson Airways plans to operate weekly services from Gatwick to Mauritius and Puerto Vallarta from May 2014. Both services will be operated by Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

• United is launching a weekly Newark–St Lucia service on 13th July.

An Air India Airbus A320 was flying from Bangkok to New Delhi. After take-off, the First Officer, Ravindra Nath, excused himself from the flight deck and went to sleep in the Business Class cabin. A few minutes later, the Captain, B.K. Soni, called a couple of cabin staff and instructed them on how to keep watch on the controls. He then left them in charge and went to join his colleague to sleep in Business Class. Unfortunately, someone accidentally touched the controls and the auto-pilot was switched off so the pilots had to be called back to take over. It is said that the two pilots were out of the flight deck for between 20 and 40 minutes, though Air India insist that “at no time was the cockpit left unattended by the flight crew” which does not appear to tally with the cabin crew’s version of events.

The story only came out because one of the cabin crew was concerned and complained to the Indian safety authorities.

Every airline has a few bad apples and rules will be broken on occasions. What is remarkable about this case is that two pilots should think that it was even remotely acceptable for them to behave in this way. One can only assume that this was not the first time the individuals had left the cockpit in the control of cabin staff and that other pilots in the airline do something similar.

The Indian Civil Aviation Safety Council is blaming the government’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation for its “lackadaisical” supervision of airlines which has led to an increase in accidents and safety violations. 

Something looks to be very seriously wrong with Air India and the safety supervision of the Indian government.

India’s laws regarding foreign ownership of companies are hugely complicated. As part of the deal, and a way of ensuring their sway over Jet amounts to rather more than the stated 24%, Etihad have also purchased Jet’s Heathrow slots and leased them back to the airline. They have also taken a majority stake in the airline’s frequent flyer programme.

They did something rather similar with Air Berlin last year. When the German airline was running out of cash again, they generously bought a majority stake in their frequent flyer programme. Many people thought this was just a way of circumventing EU rules on overseas ownership and ignored Etihad’s comments that they were serious about building a worldwide loyalty programme based around their airline and its partners.

The Gulf airlines like to talk about the profit they make – or are close to making – but making a longterm profit in the airline industry is incredibly hard. On the other hand, the loyalty card business is booming and hugely profitable. Qantas was memorably described as a profitable loyalty scheme with an unprofitable airline attached and there are many other airlines where the same applies.

India is surely ripe for a massive growth in the general consumer loyalty business. AirBerlin’s loyalty scheme is already fairly strong and capable of much more. Add in a few more countries and some investment (a pittance compared with the cost of running an airline) and you could suddenly have a very powerful worldwide loyalty scheme.

Etihad have surely accepted that they will never beat their neighbours, Emirates, in the airline business but they might have the last laugh. Owning the world’s largest consumer loyalty programme is a much more attractive proposition than owning the world’s largest international airline.

They have just sold a historic holding they had of 4.7% in the budget airline, Norwegian for a total of €53million. This will allow them to book a profit of about €34million.

A cynic might say they would have been better off closing down their own operation and just buying shares in Norwegian.

It is true enough that the traditional airlines from medium to small countries such as Finnair, LOT, Malev, Austrian and SAS have all struggled terribly whilst a handful of budget airlines, notably Ryanair, easyJet and Norwegian, seem to have swept the market (and profits) away with them.

But it is easy to be wise after the event and make generalisations.

Finnair could just as easily have invested in Air Berlin or flybe (shares floated at 295p and  now worth 44p). And don’t even ask Singapore Airlines about what they think about their purchase of 48% of Virgin Atlantic.

Finnair might not be able to match the recent high-speed growth of Norwegian but they should survive – and they will be better working on their own business rather than relying on other companies to produce profit for them.

The Boeing 787 has had a very turbulent history. Deliveries were badly delayed as the complicated world-wide supply chain set up by Boeing failed to deliver all the parts on schedule. Ironically, the world-wide supply chain is one of the reasons the aircraft has achieved such high sales. By giving manufacturers around the world contracts to build valuable parts, Boeing’s salesmen were able to push the aircraft to airlines in those countries as being “locally-made”. The batteries that caused the problem were made in Japan – it is not a coincidence that the biggest operators of 787s at the moment are two Japanese airlines, JAL and ANA.

Actually, even without this “local” advantage, the 787 was always likely to be a success. It fills a unique and very valuable area in an airline’s fleet and allows them to operate long routes, with limited passenger demand, very economically.

The various troubles have cost Boeing hundreds of millions but there is little doubt that in a few years time, they will be counting the profits and the 787 will be seen as one of their most successful products.

There is just one lingering doubt. After intensive work over the last few weeks, engineers and safety regulators have come up with a plan to ensure that any future over-heating will not be an issue. However, the actual cause of the original over-heating in the batteries has not been found. That should not be an issue because, if the same thing happens again, the batteries will not react in the same way so all will be will.

I am no engineer so cannot possibly comment but, whilst robust sticking-tape is good, surely it would still be nice to know the root-cause.

In Britain, we accept that we are rather good at organising things like royal weddings and funerals for the famous but, we seem to accept as a given that we have labour problems and we are not very good at engineering and big projects.

On Monday, a large number of Lufthansa staff will again be going on strike for several hours. The airline is trying to get an injunction to have the strike stopped but, if it goes ahead, it is likely to ground much of the airline’s operations for most of the day. This follows a strike in March and a number of others by the airline’s staff over the last couple of years. Various strikes by security staff also brought a number of major German airports to a halt on several occasions earlier this year and Frankfurt was hit by a long period of strikes last year.

According to my rough calculation, German aviation has suffered much more from strikes in the last two years than Italy and, maybe, even Greece. Only Spain appears to have a worse record and that is down entirely to Iberia. The only wide-scale disruption in Britain has been occasional problems with UK Border staff and that has had a fairly minimal impact.

As for engineering excellence, you only have to look at the disaster of Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport to see the other side of the coin. 

Unfortunately, Germany’s very real problems are barely covered in the UK press. We prefer to live  with the comfortable myth of our own inferiority.

Germany has some quite serious economic and structural problems of its own and needs to modernise rather quickly. The Lufthansa strikes are largely due to the fact that management is trying to bring staff conditions to 21st century levels. It is far from being the only prestigious German company that needs serious changes if it is to continue.

Meanwhile, anyone requiring a safe and hassle-free connection in Europe might be better off using Rome or Athens rather than Frankfurt.

When a celebrity is involved, the whole issue can become a nightmare. The press might lay siege to the hotel making normal life for other guests all but impossible.

Then there is the tricky question of what to do with the room where the guest died. Do you just give it a normal clean and get on with business as usual?

The Ritz in London have handled the death of Baroness Thatcher with admirable discretion. Since the event was hardly unexpected, the hotel has been spared the barrage of unwelcome publicity that often accompanies such events. But they will still have to decide what to do with the room.

No doubt the staff are under strict instructions not to discuss any details but the room number will become known. Will people want to stay in that room or will they avoid it at all costs?

Other hotels have had more than their share of celebrity deaths. The Amsterdam Hilton is famous not just for John and Yoko’s love-in but also a number of deaths including the rather spectacular suicide of a rock star who jumped off the roof. Thousands of onlookers lined the streets when his body was taken away.

The Ritz-Carlton in Sydney will be remembered by many for the death of Paula Yates’ partner, Michael Hutchence while the Chateau Mormont in Los Angeles might enjoy its reputation for celebrity excess but is no doubt less happy when its guests over-indulge and die on the premises as happened to John Belushi.

The hotel with the worst recent record for celebrity deaths is probably the Beverly Hills Hilton. Room 435 will long be remembered as the room where Whitney Houston died. They must have guests who want to stay on the same floor or visit the scene.

And it is not just deaths that cause hoteliers to lose sleep. The Sofitel in New York could not have been best pleased about the publicity involved when Dominique Strauss-Kahn had his alleged fling with a maid. Nor can they have been too happy when police published forensic results which showed that carpets in the room had the traces of semen from five different men – there was no suggestion that anyone other than Mr Strauss-Kahn was involved in the actual incident.

Hotels love publicity but there are times when they really would prefer to avoid it.

Executives at Heathrow Airport have grown used to Mr Al Baker’s outbursts but must have become a little nervous when he was suddenly made a director of the airport, following a purchase of 20% of the company by Qatar’s sovereign investment fund. Mr Al Baker already has experience in managing airports since he is in charge of the new Doha International Airport which is about to open.

The new Doha airport is actually much-delayed already. There have been some serious construction issues and – predictably – Mr Al Baker has been at pains to blame lazy and incompetent foreign contractors. Some of the delays appear to have been down to constantly changing demands for the design which are rumoured to have come from the Emir himself which might explain Mr Al Baker’s relatively sanguine acceptance of the years of delay.

At the start of this year, everything seemed to be back on track. The plan was for the airport to open now with some smaller airlines being moved immediately and the major airlines moved later in the year when all the premium Lounges and other facilities have been completed. Unfortunately, the “soft opening” has been cancelled at short notice and the airport is now delayed “indefinitely”.

It seems the Qatar safety authorities are not prepared to accept the building for public use. They strengthened the requirements for public buildings following a fire in a mall last year which killed nineteen people. Unfortunately, those in charge of the new airport must have been unaware that the rules would apply to them. There is no mention of how much work will be needed to bring the airport up to a proper specification but the fact that no time-frame is being given suggests the alterations will be serious.

The Qataris are in danger of making those in charge of the new Brandenburg Airport in Berlin look almost competent.

Meanwhile, the other directors and executives at Heathrow, with its redeveloped Terminal Two on-time and on-budget, might want to offer their newest director some advice on how to run an airport.

• CityJet has cancelled its London City–Eindhoven service, operated as a twice-weekday service until the end of March.

• EasyJet is launching a daily Gatwick–Bergen service on 20th May.

• FlyBe is introducing two new seasonal ski services in December 2013, from Inverness to Geneva and from Southampton to Grenoble. Both will be operated weekly.

• Jet2.com is introducing two new twice-weekly services from East Midlands in early November – to Prague and Budapest.

• Kenya Airways is launching a thrice weekly service between Nairobi and Abu Dhabi on 1st July.