AerCap Holdings said it closed a $100 million engine acquisition facility with a syndicate of US and German banks led by Citibank as global arranger. The facility, which has an availability period of 24 months expandable to an additional 36 months, provides AerCap with committed funding to acquire a broad range of spare engines.

Malaysia Airlines is prepared to "take the lead" in increasing fuel surcharges and perhaps raising fares by as much as 50% in order to negotiate a "frightening" economic environment, MD and CEO Idris Jala wrote in an open letter last week. "Change, and I mean drastic change, is absolutely vital for our survival. That, and a willingness to reinvent the way we operate, including through mergers and acquisitions," Jala said.

BAE Systems Regional Aircraft announced that the first "relaunched" BAe 146QT (Quiet Trader) freighter was completed at Aerostar's Bacau facility in Romania and the -200 variant made a successful first flight on June 25. BAE Systems gave the go-ahead to relaunch the freighter conversion program for the 10/12-tonne quadjet in January 2007 and announced the following April that it had chosen Aerostar as its conversion partner.

Middle East Airlines took delivery of its first A330-200 directly purchased from Airbus. The Trent 700-powered aircraft is part of an order for four placed in 2006 that will replace MEA's three leased A330s.

Grandstar Cargo International Airlines, the Korean Air/Sinotrans joint venture airfreight carrier based in Tianjin, operated its inaugural flight Friday to Frankfurt using a 747-400 freighter. KE and the Chinese logistics firm first announced plans for the airline in 2006 and gained CAAC approval in July 2007. It is 51% owned by Sinotrans Air Transportation Development Co., 25% by KE, 13% by Hana Capital Co. and 11% by Shinhan Capital Co.