Paris  - A four-day strike called by unions representing pilots for French carrier Air France was severely disrupting domestic and international flights on Friday.

Air France said at least 40 per cent of scheduled long-haul flights and half of its short- and medium-distance flights would be cancelled. The company warned that last-minute flight cancellations were also possible.

The job action was called to protest the increase of the retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65, and is to last until midnight on Monday.

On Thursday, in an open letter to the pilots, company head Jean-Cyril Spinetta said the job action would cost the company up to 100 million euros (125 million dollars).

Baghdad - A civilian cargo plane carrying six crew members and one passenger crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, a US military spokesman said.

According to the CNN website, either a mechanical failure or a pilot error appeared to have caused the accident.

Despite affirming that there was no high-profile coalition personnel on board, the spokesman said the status of the crew members was not yet known.

It was reported earlier on Thursday that an airplane made an emergency landing in Anbar province, south of the city of Fallujah, a bastion of Iraqi militants.

Vienna - The takeover of Austrian Airlines AG by Deutsche Lufthansa AG is expected to be concluded by the end of the year, the Austrian state holding OeIAG announced Thursday.

Since Air France-KLM and Russian carrier S7 did not submits offers conforming to the specifications of the bidding process, OeIAG said, it would now enter into exclusive "closing talks" with Lufthansa about selling its 42.75-per-cent stake.

There is no dearth of air travelers despite slowdown in aviation sector of the country. Air travel registered positive growth of about 17 per cent in October. It’s surprising, while domestic aviation industry is facing tough situation following global slowdown, high input costs and liquidity crunch. Some airlines have also started retrenchment drive in a line to cut additional cost besides adopting other cost cutting measures.

Singapore - Singapore's Changi Airport has recorded a 3.5 per cent increase in scheduled weekly flights since the beginning of this month, despite softening of travel demand due to the global economic crisis, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said Thursday.

Weekly scheduled flights were expected to increase further in December, when a liberalization agreement, allowing low-cost airlines to operate between Singapore and Malaysia, comes into force, the CAAS said.

India’s largest private carr