Etihad Airways CEO James Hogan said the carrier is targeting a 24% year-over-year increase in 2009 revenue to $3.1 billion as it takes delivery of 11 new aircraft, bringing its fleet to 53.
UK government appointed the Environment Agency to "police" the pending aviation emissions trading scheme in England and Wales, Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband announced yesterday. Each EU nation must appoint a body or institution to supervise the new scheme to cap aviation emissions that will come into force for flights arriving and departing EU airports on Jan. 1, 2012 ( ATWOnline, Oct. 27, 2008).
American Airlines flew 8.63 billion system RPMs in February, down 13.5% from the year-ago month. Capacity dropped 10.1% to 11.67 billion ASMs and load factor slipped 2.9 points to 73.9%. American Eagle flew 522 million RPMs, down 14.1%, against a 9.1% decline in capacity to 800.5 million ASMs. Load factor fell 3.8 points to 65.2%. United Airlines' February traffic plunged 15.2% year-over-year to 7.66 billion consolidated RPMs. Capacity was down 14% to 10.46 billion ASMs, lowering load factor 1 point to 73.2%.
Assn. of European Airlines asked the EU to ease or temporarily suspend the regulation requiring airlines to use their airport slots 80% of the time so they might suspend services during the global economic slowdown without losing them, Reuters reported. "One measure we would like them to look at is freezing the '80-20' rule," an AEA spokesperson said. "Airlines could then be encouraged to withdraw capacity without running the risk of losing specific slots." The slot rule suspension was part of a series of proposals contained in an AEA blueprint for navigating the current downturn.
Aeroflot will take delivery of its first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in December, 13 months behind the original schedule and one month later than the most recently promised date, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft's Viktor Subbotin told RIA Novosti ( ATWOnline, Nov. 26, 2008). SU reportedly said it will fill the gap with short-term leases on alternative aircraft.
Delta Air Lines indicated it is having second thoughts about committing fully to Northwest Airlines' 2005 order for 18 787-8s, eliminating the aircraft from its list of firm orders in the annual report released this week. "The Boeing Co. has informed us that Boeing will be unable to meet the contractual delivery schedule for these aircraft. We are in discussions with Boeing regarding this situation," DL said in the report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It has not canceled the order.
GE Aviation opened its new systems manufacturing facility in Suzhou about 50 mi. west of Shanghai. The 18,000-sq.-m. facility will produce autoclaved composite parts, mechanical fabrications, structure assembly and civil aircraft actuation systems and will employ 200 by year end.
US Bankruptcy Court judge invalidated the transfer of the Aloha Airlines brand to Mesa Air Group for use on its go! subsidiary because the sale by Aloha shareholder Yucaipa Co. was not public ( ATWOnline, Dec. 8, 2008). A second auction will be held.
Lufthansa Italia will launch service from Milan Malpensa to Rome Fiumicino (four-times-daily), Naples (twice-daily) and Bari (daily) on April 1. It began serving Brussels, Budapest, Bucharest and Madrid this week and will add London Heathrow and Lisbon flights at the end of the month ( ATWOnline, Jan. 29). "Advance bookings for the coming months have developed so favorably that we are already in a position to expand our services," Lufthansa Passenger Airlines Executive VP Karl Ulrich Garnadt said.
Afriqiyah Airways will launch long-haul operations from Tripoli with a twice-weekly service to Johannesburg beginning July 15. Twice-weekly flights to Manila via Dubai begin July 17 and thrice-weekly service to both Brazzaville and Kinshasa starts Sept. 7. Thrice-weekly flights to both Beijing and Guangzhou begin Oct. 3.
Gulf Air took delivery of the first of four 777-300ERs Tuesday. The second and third will arrive this month and the fourth in May. Aircraft are on lease from Jet Airways, seat 312 across three classes and will replace GF's A340-300s.
Iberia Group reorganized and renamed its handling unit as Iberia Airport Services, which it believes "better reflects the unit's activities" and will be "accompanied by a more extensive supply of airport services." IAS is active at 41 Spanish airports and handled nearly 80 million passengers and more than 418,000 aircraft operations for IB and 220 other carriers in 2008.
Aegean Airlines joined the bidding for Olympic Airlines, offering a combined €170 million ($214.2 million) for OA's flight operations, MRO division and its successor company Pantheon. "The objective of Aegean and its shareholders is the creation of a more powerful Greek air company" that can compete with larger European airlines, the carrier said. It added that it would be able to take over OA within 60 days of signing a deal and that it was willing to cede some domestic routes in order to facilitate competition.
Delta Air Lines, which in January predicted a "solidly profitable" 2009 ( ATWOnline, Jan. 28), now expects a rough start to the year and a "significant loss" in the current quarter, "primarily due to fuel hedge losses coupled with the impact of the global recession," it said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It expects the "majority" of the losses relating to its 2008 fuel hedge contracts to be recognized in the first half of 2009.
Alaska Air Group board yesterday announced plans to give stockholders a nonbinding vote on compensation for the company's five highest-paid executives. It said the vote "will inform the board's future decisions on executive compensation." Stockholders proposed the measure last year.
ACE Aviation Holdings, which was created in 2004 as part of Air Canada's restructuring and still holds a 75% stake in AC, indefinitely postponed an April 7 shareholders meeting at which it was slated to hold a vote on the company's dissolution ( ATWOnline, Dec. 12, 2008). The ACE windup would make AC an independent company, but "current market conditions" made the postponement "appropriate," ACE said.
ArkeFly took delivery of a second new 737-800 fitted with 180 seats across two classes. The Dutch TUI Travel airline will deploy the aircraft on its Mediterranean network. A third -800 will join the fleet in May.
Germanwings will launch thrice-weekly Cologne-Kiev Boryspil flights on May 16 AeroMexico launched daily Mexico City-Toronto service aboard a 737-700 Monday. Flights to Montreal are scheduled to begin April 2.
Air China is pessimistic about its financial prospects and now is not expecting a turnaround this year. It already has said it expects to report a heavy loss for 2008 ( ATWOnline, Jan. 21), and this week Chairman Kong Dong said, "We don't have confidence that the carrier will earn a profit this year," Reuters reported. Kong revealed that CA's cargo volume has hit a new low, dropping 30%-40%.
Qantas was forced to withdraw its three A380s from service Monday because of unrelated fuel system problems that came after what had been described as the best entry into service of any aircraft with Australia's national airline. One A380, QF's first, had technical troubles in Sydney Saturday and was delayed 19 hr. before taking off for London Heathrow. On the return trip, the aircraft suffered a fuel leak and passengers were transferred 12 hr. later to a 747-400. Engineers in London fixed the leak and the A380 was back in service yesterday.
Air France will defer delivery of its sixth and seventh A380s in order to "create some savings on the down payment this year and the year after," Air France KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said Monday at the Reuters Travel and Leisure summit in New York. Last month the group announced it would cut capital expenditure by €1.2 billion ($1.51 billion) to address the economic downturn and would defer delivery of half-a-dozen planes including "777-300ERs, 777Fs and some Airbus aircraft."
TNT reported a €556 million ($700 million) profit in 2008, down 43.6% from the €986 million earned in 2007 as the air cargo market continued to deteriorate and the company took a €70 million one-time charge related to job and fleet cuts in its Express division. It said those reductions will result in €51 million in savings this year, part of a €400 million cost-cutting effort. Group revenue rose 1.2% year-over-year to €11.15 billion and operating income fell 17.6% to €982 million.
