Japan's ANA delays retiring planes amid 787 woes:

Japan's All Nippon Airways will delay retiring four aircraft to help maintain services already hit by the grounding of its entire fleet of troubled 787 Dreamliners, Kyodo News reported on Saturday. International regulators grounded all Boeing Dreamliner jets in January after a battery on a Japan Airlines 787 caught fire and forced an ANA flight to make an emergency landing. ANA had initially planned to retire a Boeing 747 jumbo jet in April and three other smaller aircraft -- including the Airbus A320 -- between March and May, but their retirements will be postponed to June or later, Kyodo said. The aircraft are currently being used for domestic flights amid the cancellation of domestic and international services while the Dreamliners remain grounded, it said. The firm is also seeking to introduce three Boeing 777 jets earlier than planned to minimise the impact of the no-fly order, it added. Immediate confirmation of the report from ANA was not available. The carrier said late in February that it was cancelling 1,714 flights in April and May, a period that includes Japan's busy Golden Week holidays, taking the total affected to more than 3,600 since January. Boeing said last week that the 50 planes grounded around the world since two lithium-ion battery malfunctions sparked a global no-fly order in mid-January would undergo fixes to their systems and be operational again soon.