Hong Kong - A China Airlines jetliner aborted its landing at Hong Kong International Airport because of wild weather and returned to Taiwan leaving about 300 passengers in a state of shock, a media report said Friday.

Flight CI 617 rose to 3,000 metres in a minute and turned back to Taipei at 12:47 am Thursday after it had descended to just 100 metres above sea level on its landing approach, the South China Morning Post said.

Passengers were not told by the pilot what had happened until 20 minutes after the landing had been aborted.

Singapore - Singapore and Malta have signed an Open Skies Agreement (OSA) allowing for full flexibility on air services operated by carriers of both countries, the civil aviation authority said on Friday.

The OSA becomes fully effective on December 1, 2010.

"The OSA will enable our carriers to capitalize on market opportunities that arise in (the) future," said the authority's chief executive officer Lim Kim Choon.

Chicago  - European Airbus is facing the loss of a 2.2- billion-dollar contract with United Airlines amidst plunging airline revenues, the airline said Thursday.

The airlines mother company, UAL, referred to the possibility in a filing with the US stock oversight agency, the Security Exchange commission.

UAL said it was highly possible it would not uphold its order for aircraft of type A319 and A320. United Airlines would lose the 91 million dollars downpayment if it cancels the contract.

New York/Seattle  - The US aircraft giant Boeing Thursday said it had received its first cancellation - from Azerbaijan Airlines - in the wake of delays in production for its long-awaited long-distance 787 Dreamliner.

The airlines cancelled one of the three Dreamliners it had on order and is substituting it with a Boeing 767, the company said from its Seattle base.

The other two Dreamliner orders from Azerbaijan airlines will remain on the books.

London  - Britain's competition watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), Thursday brought charges against four past and present British Airways (BA) executives over price-fixing on fuel surcharges.

The probe would be the first to threaten managers at a leading multinational company with jail, the Financial Times said Thursday. Conviction could lead to prison terms of up to five years.

The watchdog decided to charge the four men over a "conspiracy" between BA and rival Virgin Atlantic between 2004 and 2006 to fix the price of passenger fuel prices on transatlantic flights.

The case concerns Andrew Crawley, BA's current head of sales, and three previous top executives Martin George, Iain Burns and Alan Burnett.

Singapore  - Low-cost carrier Tiger Airways reported on Thursday an annual net profit of 37.8 million Singapore dollars (27 million US dollars) despite soaring fuel costs.