London - The

Berlin  - Frankfurt's Hahn airport has cancelled plans to introduce a three-euro departure tax, the finance minister of the German state of Rhineland Palatinate, Hendrik Hering, announced Monday.

As a result, Irish budget airline Ryanair, which had threatened to withdraw from Frankfurt Hahn if the proposal went ahead, has confirmed that its 11 aircraft will remain stationed at the airport.

Ryanair lists 50 destinations departing from Frankfurt on its website, including flights to Italy, Morocco and Slovakia.

Vijay Mallya controlled Kingfisher Airlines has announced that it intends to expand its routes in South Asia. According to sources, company's first flight in South Asia will start from January 19, which will connect Chennai and Bangalore with Colombo.

The private air-carrier (Kingfisher) has also intends to roll out a Bangalore-Dubai flight on February 8, while Mumbai-Bangkok and Bangalore-Bangkok flights are expected to launch on the February 12 and Kolkata-Dhaka flight on February 16.

Washington  - Boeing Co, the world's second-largest maker of commercial aircraft, said Friday it will cut 4,500 jobs in its commercial unit in 2009 following a drop in demand for new planes amid the widening recession.

Most of the job losses will be in Boeing's manufacturing hub in the US state of Washington, beginning February, bringing to 63,500 the number of staff in the commercial unit, the company said in a statement.

Barcelona/Madrid  - Outgoing flights were resumed at Madrid's Barajas airport Friday afternoon after more than five hours of suspending operations owing to snowfall, the airport operator AENA said.

The airport was also about to resume landings after more than 50 flights were diverted to other airports.

Only 268 of the 1,205 scheduled flights had taken place before operations were suspended.

Long queues of passengers formed at the airport, which has also been affected by an alleged unofficial work to rule stoppage by pilots of the Spanish airline Iberia.

Vilnius  - The owners Lithuania's national flag-carrier, FlyLAL-Lithuanian Airlines, have agreed to sell the struggling company to industrial holding company SCH Swiss Capital Holdings in a deal that should be completed within the next two weeks, according to a company statement released Friday.

"Negotiations with the Swiss investment fund SCH Swiss Capital Holdings have agreed on the sale of FlyLAL-Lithuanian Airlines' shares. Today an agreement was signed under which SCH Swiss Capital Holdings will purchase 100 per cent of company shares," the statement said.