Berjaya Air of Malaysia placed an order for four ATR 72-500s worth $74 million, ATR announced, firming an MOU signed at the Paris Air Show. The 72-seat aircraft will be delivered in 2009-10 and replace 48-seat Dash 7s.
Aircraft lessors were active yesterday as Babcock & Brown Aircraft Management placed an order with Boeing for 20 737-800s valued at $1.5 billion and CIT Aerospace signed contracts with Ryanair for the purchase of 15 737-800s.
NavAero said its tBagC22 received supplemental type certification as a Class 2 electronic flight bag on the A300-600 and A310-300. It is the seventh STC issued for the system. Initial deployments to operators are scheduled for early next quarter.
Aer Lingus yesterday launched operations at its new Belfast International base ( ATWOnline, Aug. 8) with three A320s and flights to Amsterdam and Barcelona. Service to Geneva is scheduled to begin today, to London Heathrow on Jan. 14 and to five more European destinations "before the spring," EI said.
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft signed an agreement with Malev Hungarian Airlines to build a Superjet 100 service and repair center in Hungary. No further details were provided. Last week, Malev indicated it would consider ordering up to 15 of the new Russian-built 95-seaters ( ATWOnline, Dec.10). Thus far, Sukhoi has 70 firm orders for the Superjet, with first delivery scheduled for early 2008.
Gol and Varig parent Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes yesterday reduced its full-year profit outlook once again while offering a preliminary indication of next year's performance.
Kingfisher Airlines, the Indian domestic carrier with plans to become an international player in the next few years (it has 20 A350 XWBs and five A380s on firm order), reported a loss of INR5.77 billion ($146.2 million) in the fiscal year ended March 31.
Cypress Airways' ground staff plans to strike Dec. 12 and Dec. 17-18 to protest the carrier's plan to outsource ground handling at Larnaca and Paphos to the Swissport & GAP Vassilopoulos joint venture. The strike potentially will affect 107 flights, the airline and two of its unions said Friday. "If need be, our aircraft will fly empty to specific destinations to ferry inbound passengers," CY said in a statement, insisting it will continue operating through the job action.
EasyJet announced six new routes: From Bristol to Biarritz (four-times-weekly from April 23), Olbia (thrice-weekly from April 26) and Split (twice-weekly from April 26); daily London Luton-Pisa from March 30; thrice-weekly Edinburgh-Nice from April 24, and thrice-weekly Glasgow International-Faro from April 22. The LCC transported 2.9 million passengers last month, up 13.2% from the year-ago month. Load factor rose 0.3 point to 80.8%.
Green Skies Inc., a consulting firm specializing in aviation-related environmental initiatives, was launched Friday in Washington. "North America is behind and the industry can seize the moment and take a unified approach, or wait for others to enact rules that penalize or enact new tax burdens on our business," CEO Michael Miller said.
Austrian Airlines Group will announce today that former Lufthansa Marketing Director Andreas Bierwirth will become CCO and AAG General Secretary Peter Malanik will be promoted to COO. Jeffrey Shane confirmed last week that he will resign as US Dept. of Transportation undersecretary for policy effective Jan. 31. He did not announce his future plans.
Cebu Air, which operates LCC Cebu Pacific, was approved to launch an IPO by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission, XFN reported. Cebu Air plans to sell as many as 72 million primary shares and 63.4 million secondary shares at a maximum price of PHP95 ($2.26) each, which it said could raise PHP12.5 billion.
Midwest Air Group said it has complied with requests for additional information from the US Dept. of Justice pertaining to its acquisition by TPG Capital and Northwest Airlines ( ATWOnline, Oct. 31). It added that the parties have agreed not to complete the sale before Jan. 31 without DOJ approval. It said closing will "occur as soon as practicable."
Ryanair called on the European Commission to block Air France KLM from buying Alitalia "until both airlines have paid back a combined €2.7 billion ($3.9 billion) in illegal state aid received from the French and Italian governments" ( ATWOnline, Dec. 7).
Bmi will launch a daily London Heathrow-Tel Aviv service on March 13 aboard a two-class A320. It will be bmi's 41st destination from LHR. bmibaby commenced four-times-weekly Birmingham-Madrid flights. Service becomes six-times-weekly next summer.
Passengers on JetBlue Airways Flight 641 from New York JFK to San Francisco Tuesday morning will be the first to have access to the carrier's new inflight Internet service, which will allow customers with Wi-Fi enabled laptops or one of two BlackBerry models to log on to Yahoo! Mail and Messenger or their personal e-mail accounts (via PDA).
The European Commission has contacted Hungarian authorities regarding the control and ownership of Malev Hungarian Airlines, the EC Directorate-General for Energy and Transport confirmed to ATWOnline.
American Eagle pilots said AMR Corp.'s decision to sell off the regional subsidiary ( ATWOnline, Nov. 29) would lower their wages and bring inexperienced pilots into their ranks. In a statement released last week, Eagle pilots represented by the Air Line Pilots Assn.
SAS Group airlines flew 3.16 billion RPKs in November, up 3.1% from the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 4.5% to 4.83 billion ASKs, dropping load factor 0.9 point to 65.4%. SAS Scandinavian Airlines flew 2.17 billion RPKs, up 0.4%, against a 2.8% increase in ASKs to 3.15 billion that lowered load factor 1.7 points to 68.8%. Aer Lingus flew 1.21 billion RPKs in November, up 17.4% over the year-ago month. Capacity rose 23.3% to 1.65 billion ASKs and load factor fell 3.7 points to 73.4%.
MAXjet Airways, the all-business-class transatlantic carrier, said Friday that it requested "with immediate effect" the suspension of trading of its stock, citing a need to gain "clarification of its financial position."
Nationwide Airlines, grounded by the South African Civil Aviation Authority ( ATWOnline, Dec. 4) at the end of November, resumed its Johannesburg-London Gatwick service Friday and planned to restart Johannesburg-Cape Town flights yesterday, both aboard its 767 aircraft that it said received "a clean bill of health" from CAA. Its 737-200s, 737-500s and 727s will be released into service "in accordance with SACAA approval" and flights "will gradually return to normal," Nationwide said on its website.
Lufthansa will end its cooperation with NetJets in February and purchase its own aircraft to expand its Lufthansa Private Jet service, which it said then will be better equipped to handle "strong" demand. "Based on the excellent market response, Lufthansa anticipates steady growth in this segment," it said. It did not say what type of aircraft it will buy or how many, but it expects the jets to start entering service next spring.
SunExpress, the JV between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, will add three 737-800s in March-May, bringing its fleet to 14 737-800s and three 757-200s, MD Paul Schwaiger said. The carrier expects to carry more than 3 million passengers in 2007 and realize revenue of €300 million ($438 million).
