Page 50 - World Airnews Magazine February 2020 Edition

NEWS FEATURE

EU RESUMES WORK

ON BOEING-EMBRAER

MERGER PROBE

In an emailed statement, Boeing and had expected to close the transaction

Embraer said they “have been engaged by the end of 2019 but revised the time
he European Commission has with the European Commission and line in October after the EU informed the

Tresumed its review of Boeing’s other global regulatory authorities since airframers it would conduct an in-depth

proposed acquisition of 80 percent of late 2018,” adding they have received investigation into the deal.
Embraer’s commercial aircraft division, two unconditional clearance to close the Brussels launched the Phase II probe

months after halting work on the in-depth transaction from “almost all jurisdictions,” because its initial investigation raised

probe. including the US, China and Japan. concern that the tie-up might remove

“The clock has been restarted on the “We continue to co-operate with the Embraer as “a small but important

commission investigation into the joint European Commission as it assesses our competitive force in the concentrated

ventures proposed by Boeing and Embraer transaction and look forward to a positive overall single-aisle market.”

on January 6, 2020,” a commission resolution,” they said. To eliminate its concerns, the

spokesperson said. The deal needs approval by competition commission’s competition division has

“The new decision deadline is April 30, 2020.” authorities in nine countries. Seven requested more than 1.5 million pages of

In November last year the European jurisdictions - the US, China, Japan, South documentation and data on some 1,200
Union antitrust regulator ‘stopped the Africa, Kenya, Colombia, and Montenegro sales campaigns over the past 20 years,

clock’ on the probe after one of the parties - have approved the tie-up, without sources familiar with the case told AIN,

failed to provide, in a timely fashion, an demanding changes to the deal. Only the EU describing the information request as

important piece of information that the and Brazil have not yet cleared the proposed “very voluminous” and representing a

commission has requested from them. transaction. multitude of the documentation requested
and analyzed by the other regulators that

Once the parties supply the missing Boeing and Embraer pre-notified the EU Temporary bases deep in the interior with

information, the clock restarts and the deadline of their plan to combine their commercial scrutinised the proposed transaction. Q fuel supplies are essential in this war

for the commission’s decision gets adjusted aviation activities in April 2018 and formally

accordingly. notified it in August 2019. The sides initially Article courtesy: https://www.ainonline.
DEMAND FOR FULL INVESTIGATION THE ONGOING WAR IN THE
INTO IRAN 737 SHOOTDOWN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
An exclusive report from World Airnews correspondent
Guard’s Aerospace Force, indicated that the shoot-down happened and demanded

before the shoot-down his personnel had full co-operation with Ukrainian and other Al Venter, reporting from Bangui

kraine International Airlines asked for commercial flights in Iran to international aviation experts now in Iran

U(UIA) has demanded that the be suspended and that this had been re- to complete a full and transparent inquiry. ed hi-tech weapons against a bunch of bush rebels, it would unques-

Iranian government fully explain how its fused by both Iran’s military leaders and “I am with [Ukrainian] President Volo- tionably reflect badly on Paris as a former colonial power in Africa.

Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force the country’s civil aviation authorities. dymyr Zelenskiy when I demand to know ar tends to create its own priorities, especially in French armed forces spokesperson Colonel Patrik Steiger stated

shot down its Boeing 737-800 aircraft on UIA president Yevhenii Dykhne and flight what happened in this incident and a full WAfrica where needs are many and resources few. that the “support was requested by UN Command in the CAR to

January 8, killing all 176 passengers and operations vice president Igor Sosnovsky, accounting that the entire responsibility The trouble is, measures adopted are often neither practical nor reinforce the deterrent effect of its plan,” Ouest France reported.

crew on board. showed reporters flight tracking data to for this incident is Iran’s,” said Dykhne. logical; case in point is the French air force involvement in the For its part, the UN mission in Bangui said the show of force was
support their insistence that their aircraft

At a press conference in Kyiv, held a had not deviated from its assigned flight Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Central African Republic (CAR) in recent times. an important message, reaffirming that “France supports the legit-

few hours after Iran admitted respon- path and that the same course had been Tehran “deeply regrets this disastrous mis- During the past 18 months the French Air Force sent Mirage imate Central African authorities, that France is working in support

take” and, in another reversal of its initial

sibility for the attack, the airline stated flown by other aircraft departing Tehran’s 2000D multi-role jet fighters to conduct close air support (CAS) of MINUSCA and that any threat from ‘Armed Groups’ (as they are

that flight PS752 had not deviated from Imam Khomeini Airport. Some reports out position, invited the US, Ukraine, Canada, missions over Central African Republic towns several times. This colloquially termed) would be countered.”

and others to join the crash investigation.

its assigned flight path and that its pilots of Iran have suggested that PS752’s pilots was in support of MINUSCA, the United Nations multi dimensional In reality, the war in central Africa is not as low-key as some

had been in contact with air traffic con- flew off track towards a Revolutionary The Boeing airliner, which had been integrated stabilisation Mission. would make it.

trollers until just before the aircraft was Guard missile base. delivered new to the Ukrainian carrier One such flight took place over Bambari in the south and another While this correspondent for World Airnews was with a Portu-

destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Dykhne said before Iran's confession, in 2016, was brought down by a Rus- over Kaga Bandoro in the north-east of the country, close to guese Army Paraquedista (Paratroop) Rapid Reaction Force in the

Iran’s admission of responsibility came the airline had conducted an exhaustive sian-made Tor (SA-15) air defence battery. the Sudanese frontier. Both were intended to intimidate armed CAR capital city last September, a major nine-day operation was

just a day after officials had insisted it set of computer modeling exercises and However, the surface-to-air missile unit militants on the ground and on the face of it, there were probably launched against an insurgent force that had entered the country

belonged not to the regular Iranian
was “scientifically impossible” for the concluded that the cause of the crash more such sorties out of Chad - never made public. from the Cameroon Republic.

aircraft to have been shot down and that could not be explained by any failure in military’s air defence command but to the The missions were complex since the fighters were stationed at Effectively, that means that the CAR is now being infiltrated by Ji-

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The

technical failures on the 737 were to the aircraft or error by its crew. unit in question had been on high alert N’Djamena, the Chad capital, and the four-hour missions required hadi militants from three different directions, the Sudan, southern

blame for the accident. The UIA executives said that Iran’s following earlier ballistic missile attacks by multiple in-flight refuelling operations from French C-135 tankers. Chad as well as the Cameroons.

However Brigadier-General Amir-Ali government must now fully explain how Iran on US military bases in Iraq. Q In the aftermath, nobody is certain what was achieved since Paris More important, the insurgents are not always the

Hajizadehh, head of the Revolutionary is customarily secretive about its African operations. bunch of “barefoot rebels” as some critics of the war

Certainly, if substantial firepower was used, especially sophisticat- like to maintain. To page 50

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