The Australian Federal Court has ordered Air New Zealand to pay $A15m in penalties for its involvement in a freight price-fixing cartel.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took legal action against the Kiwi carrier as part of wider action involving 15 international airlines that has seen penalties totaling $A113.5 million imposed against 14 of them.

Other competition regulators have also been taking action with fines against various airlines in Europe, the United States, Korea, New Zealand, Canada, and India.

The biggest penalty in Australia  —$A20 million — was against home carrier Qantas. Air New Zealand now slots into second place ahead of Singapore Airlines ($A11.75m) and Cathay Pacific ($A11.25m).

The Court found Air NZ was involved in agreements to fix the price of fuel and insurance surcharges on air freight services from Hong Kong, and insurance and security charges from Singapore. This involved freight sent to various locations, including Australian airports, between 2002 and 2007.

It ordered the airline to pay a pecuniary penalty of $A11.5 million for the Hong Kong for price fixing in relation to the Hong fuel surcharges and an additional $A3.5 million for the Singapore insurance and security surcharge issue.

Air New Zealand also agreed to pay $A2 million towards the ACCC’s legal costs.

“These illegal price-fixing agreements unfairly reduced competition for the transport cost for goods flown into Australia,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said.

“This decision sends a strong warning to overseas and domestic operators that the ACCC can and will continue to defend competition and the rights of Australian customers and businesses by taking action against anti-competitive conduct.”

Judgment on the last airline caught up in the ACCC’s crackdown, Garuda Indonesia, has been reserved.

Garuda and Air New Zealand both rejected the price-fixing allegations and took their cases as far as the Australian High Court but it last year unanimously dismissed their appeals.

Separately, Air New Zealand has also reached a settlement with US class action lawyers alleging collusion between 13 airlines on fares and fuel surcharges for flights from the US to Asia and Oceania from January, 2000.

AirNZ confirmed it reached a settlement of $US400,000 plus a  $US250,000 contribution to class notice costs to avoid the substantial ongoing cost of litigation.

“Air New Zealand has consistently denied the allegations in the case,’’ it said. The claim, filed in 2007, has been strongly defended by Air New Zealand and the settlement is without any admission of liability.’’

The Kiwi carrier was one of four airlines to settle along with China Airlines, EVA Airways and Philippine Airlines. It joins eight others who have previously struck a deal.

All of the settling airlines deny the allegations, or that they have any liability, but have collectively agreed to pay $US49.9 million plus an additional $US750,000 to help pay some of the cost of notice and administration of the settlements.

Participants in the class action are expected to receive about $US8.50 per eligible ticket.

The long-running saga of US travel bans is back in headlines after a 5-4 Supreme Court decision Tuesday upholding the Trump Administration’s right to restrict access from five Middle Eastern nations.

The current version of the ban affects travelers from five mostly Muslim nations —  Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — as well as Venezuela and North Korea.  It had included Chad but that nation was removed from the list after the US said it improved its information sharing.

The court case, Trump versus Hawaii et al,  had centered on the mostly Muslim nations and critics had argued it amounted to a “Muslim ban” that contravened US immigration laws and the nation’s constitution.

A District Court had granted a nationwide preliminary injunction against the policy after a challenge by the State of Hawaii, three individuals and the Muslim Association of Hawaii.

The Supreme Court decision broke down along partisan lines between Republican-nominated and dissenting Democrat-appointed judges.

However, the court majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts,  rejected the religious claims and said the ban fell within the president’s authority.

It found the President had lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him under the Immigration and Nationality Act provision §1182(f) to “suspend the entry of aliens into the United States”.

The opinion also rejected the religious animus argument.

“It is expressly premised on legitimate purposes and says nothing about religion,’’ it said. “The entry restrictions on Muslim-majority nations are limited to countries that were previously designated by Congress or prior administrations as posing national security risks.

“Moreover, the Proclamation reflects the results of a worldwide review process undertaken by multiple Cabinet officials and their agencies.”

READ US airlines draw DHS fire on opposition to Trump children policy.

Trump immediately seized on the decision to declare it a “tremendous victory”.

“The Supreme Court has upheld the clear authority of the President to defend the national security of the United States,’’ he said in a White House statement. “In this era of worldwide terrorism and extremist movements bent on harming innocent civilians, we must properly vet those coming into our country.”

Civil liberties groups attacked the Supreme Court and vowed to continue to their fight as protestors gathered in Washington, DC.

“The fight against the ban will continue, but the court’s decision is devastating,’’ American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Cody Wofsy said on the ACLU website. “History will not be kind to the court’s approval of an unfounded and blatantly anti-Muslim order.”

The director of the ACLU’s Immigrants Rights project, Omar Jadwat,  said the ruling repeated the mistake of the World War II Korematsu decision upholding Japanese-American imprisonment.

He said it “swallows wholesale government lawyers’ flimsy national security excuse for the ban instead of taking seriously the president’s own explanation for his action”.

A proposal to build a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport has passed a crucial milestone after British MPs voted overwhelmingly in favor of the project Monday.

The £14 billion ($US18 billion)  project was approved by 415 votes to 119, paving the way for the new runway to open by 2026.

UK Foreign Secretary and expansion critic Boris Johnson headed to Afghanistan rather than vote on it and the Labour Party, which also opposed the project, gave its members a free vote.

“Parliament has ended 50 years of debate by deciding that Heathrow expansion will go ahead,’’ Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said.

“This vote will see us deliver more jobs, create a lasting legacy of skills for future generations and guarantee expansion is delivered responsibly.

“We are grateful that MPs have made the right choice for Britain and today we start work to create the best-connected hub airport in the world.”

Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airport but is running close to capacity and in 2017 handled more than 78 million passengers on more than 474,000 flights.

READ Third Heathrow runway an economic bonanza.

The extra runway, to be parallel to the existing runways and to the north-west, is also needed to allow Heathrow to keep up with European rivals such as Amsterdam’s Schiphol, which has six runways.

However, its flight paths cross many residential districts and the project threatens to destroy historic villages dating back to medieval times.

Opponents worried about air and noise pollution include environmental groups and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. They have threatened a legal challenge to the decision.

“MPs who backed this climate-wrecking new runway will be harshly judged by history,’’ Friends of the Earth said in a statement.

“The evidence on the accelerating climate crisis, which is already hitting the world’s most vulnerable people, is overwhelming – and expanding Heathrow will only intensify the misery.”

The new Heathrow runway will be the first new full-length runway to be built in the south-east of England since World War II and will allow the airport to boost its capacity to 130 million passengers and 740,000 flight movements per year.

More than 50 options were considered during a 2.5-year, £20m, Airports Commission process before it recommended a new Heathrow north-west runway

Holland-Kaye said the UK’s Airports National Policy Statement ratified by Parliament would set the policy framework for a consent application for the new runway.

 “Heathrow is currently preparing to hold a second public consultation on its plans before submitting a development consent order application to the Planning Inspectorate, kick-starting an approval process expected to take 18 months,” he said.

“In addition to Heathrow’s consultation, the development consent process will provide further opportunities for residents and stakeholders to influence Heathrow’s proposal.

“If Heathrow is granted development consent, construction would begin in 2021 ahead of the new runway opening in 2026.”

A project that allows Air New Zealand to re-use untouched snacks and beverages from international flights has prevented more than 132 tonnes of “waste” being sent to landfill in the first nine months.

Air New Zealand received permission form New Zealand authorities in August, 2017, to distribute 40 inflight products from international aircraft landing in Auckland to future flights.

The unused products were previously sent to landfill because of New Zealand’s tough biosecurity controls and were burnt or buried.

The airline said the figure so far, equivalent to the weight of three of its Airbus A320 aircraft, meant it was confident the program would meet its planned target of saving about 150 tonnes from landfill annually.

It said tracking to date showed more than nine million individual items had been recovered for reuse or recycling rather than going to landfill.

Read The closely-guarded secrets of Air New Zealand’s ‘Hangar 22’.

Items that had each seen more than one million recovered included plastic cups, sugar sticks, one paper cups and paper cup lids.

“We are tracking our progress every month and are confident of hitting our 150-tonne goal in the first 12 months of this project. Air New Zealand head of sustainability Lisa Daniell said.

“As an airline, we are extremely committed to sustainability, which is an important issue for our customers and our employees. “

Air New Zealand has a number of initiatives to reduce waste, with a program in place to tackle organic waste from office spaces, repurpose office materials and lounge furniture, and blankets.

It also last year began plugging in its jets to gates to provide them with power rather than use on-board auxiliary power units, small jet engines in the tail of the aircraft.

It estimates that using electricity from the gate will save about 4500 tonnes annually in carbon emissions.

Aircraft are plugged directly into electrical power at gates at both Auckland and Christchurch international airports.