Finnair reported a third-quarter net profit of €10.3 million ($13.1 million), narrowed 61% from net income of €26.4 million in the year-ago quarter, and said it will cut jobs and outsource "some operations" in an effort to lower operating expenses.
Continental Airlines estimated a 4.5%-5.5% year-over-year rise in October consolidated RASM and a 5%-6% increase in mainline RASM and said September consolidated and mainline RASM each gained 4.8% over the year-ago month. CO flew 7.26 billion consolidated RPMs in October, up 9.5% over October 2005, against a 6.8% rise in ASMs to 9.16 billion. Load factor rose 2 points to 79.3%. Domestic traffic climbed 8% to 3.58 billion RPMs, capacity increased 4.4% to 4.32 billion ASMs and load factor was up 2.9 points to 83.1%.
MAIR Holdings, parent company of Mesaba Airlines and Big Sky Airlines, narrowed its second fiscal quarter net loss to $2.5 million from the $25.5 million deficit posted in the three months ended Sept. 30, 2005, which was attributable in large part to the bankruptcy filing of Northwest Airlines. MAIR officials attributed the loss primarily to expenses related to Mesaba's Chapter 11 reorganization. The Northwest Airlink carrier, which currently operates 49 Saabs, had its fleet reduced over the past year by 40 aircraft by NWA.
Lufthansa Technik signed a six-year deal with Air Europa covering MRO on landing gear for at least 28 737NGs. Work will be performed in Hamburg while spare shipsets provided by LHT will be installed by the carrier and its Globalia Mantenimiento Aeronautico subsidiary in Palma de Mallorca.
Jet Airways announced that it received permission to operate flights to Thailand. It will launch 737-800 services to Bangkok from both Kolkata and Delhi in January. It also said it will launch a daily Kolkata-Port Blair service from Nov. 11 aboard a 737-700 and a fourth daily CCU-Delhi flight beginning Dec. 1. WestJet will operate weekly seasonal Halifax-Tampa service March 13-May 1.
Ryanair outperformed market expectations as it reported a 23.7% increase in second fiscal quarter net profit to €213.4 million ($271.3 million) from €172.5 million in the year-ago period and raised its profit guidance for the year to next March 31 by 16% to €350 million, up around 11% from its previous guidance of €335 million.
Aeroflot's board said last week that production of the Sukhoi Superjet 100, for which the Russian flag carrier became the launch customer with an order for 30 ( ATWOnline, June 1), "is being realized in conformity with the schedule and working plan." The RRJ is scheduled to be certified and delivered in 2008.
Lufthansa will wait until after Airbus firmly commits to the A350 XWB before making a decision on buying a 250-seat long-haul aircraft, VP-Americas Jens Bischof told reporters in Washington last week. The carrier will compare the revamped A350 with the 787. "We'll see who has the better product once the A350 redesign is done," he said.
Emirates reported a $323 million net profit for the first half of its fiscal year, widened from $251 million in the year-ago period, on a 30% jump in revenues to $3.67 billion, marking the highest first-half profit in its history. "The results reflect a strong revenue performance driven by robust passenger and cargo demand, and better yields, which softened the impact of high fuel prices on operating costs," the airline said in a statement.
TNT yesterday officially completed the sale of its logistics unit to Apollo Management for $1.9 billion ( ATWOnline, May 5). The Dutch express delivery company last week also signaled its intention to sell off its Freight Management freight forwarding business. Both sales are part of its effort to divest itself of high-revenue, low-margin units and concentrate on growing its "core" mail and express delivery business, CEO Peter Bakker said.
Ryanair flew 3.7 million passengers in October, a 23.4% rise over the year-ago month. Load factor fell 2 points to 83%. JetBlue Airways flew 1,86 billion RPMs in October, a 16.3% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 15.7% to 2.36 billion ASMs and load factor rose 0.4 point to 78.8%. Royal Jordanian transported 145,000 passengers in October, a 19% increase over the year-ago month. It operated 2,077 flights during the month compared to 1,570 in October 2005.
Copa Holdings, parent of Copa Airlines and AeroRepublica, announced last week that it secured a $240 million loan from DVB Bank, Natexis Transport Finance and NORD/LB to finance the acquisition of 10 Embraer 190s due for delivery through next year.
Third annual FAA International Aviation Safety Forum took place last week in Washington and some 500 aviation professionals from 50 countries shared their concerns about the challenges in maintaining safety standards in increasingly crowded skies. "Right now, the commercial fatal accident rate in the US is about two fatal accidents for every 10 million takeoffs," FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said.
The 787 is approximately 5,000 lb. overweight, 787 VP and GM Mike Bair said during a conference call with reporters yesterday, but the company has a plan to take the weight off through "further part optimization and material substitution." Bair described the weight issue and the development schedule as the biggest challenges facing the program, adding that these are "not dissimilar to past aircraft programs."
Federation of Indian Airlines is the name of the new industry body created by scheduled passenger carriers in India, according to press reports. Initial members are Air Deccan, Air India, Air Sahara, GoAir, Indian Airlines, IndiGo, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Paramount Airways and SpiceJet. The group will cooperate in areas such as human resources, maintenance and ground handling, as well as lobbying issues.
Intersky, an Austrian LCC, will add a fourth Dash 8 Q300 by next year. "Regarding our future fleet expansion program, from aircraft No. 5 up to No. 10 we plan to add Dash 8 Q400s," President Renate Moser told ATWOnline. Intersky is considering the ATR 72 and Embraer 175 as a future replacement for the Q300 and expects to add those aircraft by 2009. The carrier recently opened a four-times-weekly Graz-Berlin Templehof service and plans to start Friedrichshafen-Paris services next. It did not specify a Paris airport.
Air France Industries and KLM Engineering & Maintenance are looking into uniting under one brand, KLM E&M VP-Marketing, Sales & Customer Services Rob Pruim told ATWOnline at MRO Europe in Amsterdam. "We haven't taken any decision," he stressed, "but we have appointed consultants to see what the possibilities are.
ATR is opening a new office in Sydney to serve customers in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific islands. Since January 2005 it has booked orders for 86 turboprops from Asia/Pacific carriers.
Singapore Airlines selected the Trent 700 to power the fleet of 19 leased A330-300s it will operate from early 2009 while waiting for delivery of its A380s and A350s ( ATWOnline, July 24). The deal includes a TotalCare services agreement.
Turkish Technic, a wholly owned subsidiary of Turkish Airlines founded last May as a profit center, is moving ahead with a new heavy maintenance facility, dubbed HABOM, at Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul.
Lufthansa generates half of its transatlantic sales from US-based customers, new VP-Americas Jens Bischof told reporters in Washington Friday, a fact that makes the airline particularly supportive of an EU-US open skies treaty. The negotiations are "a very long and tough process," he said. "But it has to happen--better sooner than later. The strong airlines will benefit and the weaker will struggle. The weakest will not survive, which is needed to get rid of excess capacity.
LAN Argentina and LAN Ecuador will join oneworld, the alliance announced last week. LAN Airlines of Chile became a full member in June 2000 along with LAN Express and LAN Peru. LAN Argentina and LAN Ecuador will become affiliate members "as soon as the necessary joining technicalities can be completed," which the alliance said would be "as early as possible" next year. Japan Airlines, Malev Hungarian Airlines and Royal Jordanian also will join in 2007.
Hit hard by the August terrorist scare and subsequent security measures, British Airways took a slight step backward after three consecutive quarters of rising profits, posting net earnings of £168 million ($320.5 million) in the fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30, down 1.8% from a £171 million profit in the year-ago quarter.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last week issued a draft decision denying authorization of the Tasman Networks Agreement reached seven months ago by Qantas and Air New Zealand ( ATWOnline, April 13).
