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.
Air France KLM flew 16.09 billion RPKs in November, up 3.5% on the year-ago month, against a 3.7% climb in capacity to 20.53 billion ASKs. Load factor fell 0.1 point to 78.4%. TAM flew 1.9 billion domestic RPKs in November, up 15.5% on the year-ago month, against a 9% rise in capacity to 2.63 billion ASKs that lifted load factor 4.1 points to 72.1%. International RPKs climbed 58.4% to 960 million while capacity grew 65% to 1.41 billion ASKs. Load factor fell 2.9 points to 68%.
United Airlines parent UAL Corp. approved a special distribution of $2.15 per share to holders of its common stock, or approximately $250 million, scheduled for Jan. 23. It also said it has paid down $500 million of the term loan under its existing credit agreement ( ATWOnline, Nov. 28).
Sinotrans Air Transportation Development Co. and Korean Air will expand on their cargo agreement with construction of a new freight station in Tianjin. The joint venture will launch with $14.9 million in capital, of which Sinotrans Air contributed $3 million for a 20% stake while Korean invested $7 million for a controlling 47% stake. Other investors are Air Korea, Hanjin Group and Dongliqu Economic Investment Co. The station will be developed in two phases.
Air France KLM's plan to concentrate Alitalia's operations at Rome Fiumicino appear to have won the backing of AZ Chairman Maurizio Prato, who told Corriere della Sera over the weekend that the Franco-Dutch bid "is based on Alitalia's own plan with integrations and changes" while rival Air One presented a bid containing "some generic statements" and AZ "still need[s] to understand how the [Air One] plan will actually work."
Airbus parent EADS CEO Louis Gallois indicated that the aircraft manufacturer's sale of six plants could be pushed back into next year, signaling a delay in implementation of a key component of its Power8 restructuring program.
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%.
