Japan Airlines will phase out its last 747 Classics in its coming financial year as it pushes ahead with its strategy of reducing the average size of its aircraft in preparation for greater capacity at Tokyo Haneda and Narita airports. Ten classic 747s will be withdrawn in the year from April 1, along with two 767-300s and six MD-81s. New widebodies will not fully replace the 747s either in number or seat count. The airline will introduce only eight widebodies: three 777-300ERs and five 767-300ERs.

China’s efforts to put the brakes on aviation growth appears to be having the desired ffect, with the latest figures showing extremely rapid but moderating growth rates. The country’s airlines carried 185.19 million passengers in 2007, 16% more than a year earlier, says the civil aviation administration.

A Boeing 737 of Indonesia’s Merpati Airlines carrying 141 passengers has hit a cow on landing at an incompletely fenced airport. No one was hurt — except the cow, which died when it was struck by the aircraft’s left engine. The engine was damaged in the Monday incident at Mopah airport in Papua, the Indonesian province on New Guinea. Only 1,500 meters of the airport’s 7,000-meter perimeter is fenced, says the manager of the facility.