Virgin Australia has acquired an analytics company to strengthen its frequent flyer unit, the latest step by the three major Australasian airlines to ramp up this crucial sector of their businesses.
Ryanair is allowing Greek customers to buy tickets for its flights with cash, as capital controls imposed by the Greek government are causing credit and debit card transactions on the carrier’s website to be declined. “Ryanair has now provided the option for Greeks looking to travel to buy their plane tickets in cash at the Ryanair ticket desk at its airports,” the LCC said. The airline flies to and from 11 airports in Greece and operates a base at Athens International Airports as well as two smaller bases in Thessaloniki and Crete.
In its final report published on July 1, the Airports Commission, led by Sir Howard Davies, said that of three options short-listed by the commission, the northwest runway option for Heathrow proposed by the airport’s owner was unanimously selected because it provided more economic and strategic benefits than the other two options, striking what the commission called “fair balance between national and local priorities.”
Beijing may have to force reluctant carriers to accept allocations from the order, announced June 30, though Hainan Airlines and its affiliates will have stronger reasons than others for taking deliveries of what the Chinese industry generally sees as an outdated type.
InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., the LCC’s owner, has filed a draft prospectus with capital-markets regulator Securities Exchange Board of India for its proposed IPO, to raise around 12.72 billion rupees ($200 million) via sale of new shares, while certain shareholders will also offer for sale more than 30 million shares.
The airline stated in the draft prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO) that “although the term sheet has expired we remain in active discussions concerning the potential acquisition of a significant number of aircraft from the A320neo family.
“Similar to the implementation of the company’s ‘Even More’ product, fare options was rolled out in a simplified fashion, with static pricing that will likely increase over time as fees become optimized via technology that varies price by time of day/flight,” Julie Yates, an analyst at Credit Suisse, wrote in a report.
The bank is an important priority for the White House, which says Ex-Im has supported $235 billion in exports over the last six years, through direct loans, loan guarantees, working-capital guarantees and export credit insurance.
All Nippon Airways (ANA) is set to introduce a self-service bag-drop system at Haneda Airport that it says will be the world’s largest when fully installed. The carrier will start the service at its domestic terminal on July 1 with five self-service machines. By year-end it will have a total of 39 machines. This will also be the first self-service baggage system in Japan. The cost of the system is not being revealed. ANA says it will decrease the number of staff-served baggage counters, but some will be retained.
Lufthansa agreed to offer an early-retirement plan to newly hired flight attendants that allows them to stop flying at age 55. The proposal will require personal financial contributions by the employees only if a pre-defined level of return—based on interest rates—is not reached. The plan will be reviewed after 10 years.
Ryanair’s request to Airport Coordination Netherlands for slots at Amsterdam Airport was granted, giving the Irish LCC slots for up to nine daily flights at the airport this winter. Ryanair already operates from three regional Dutch airports—Eindhoven, Maastricht and Groningen—but the airline is adding more primary airports to its network as part of its “Always Getting Better” strategy to attract more business passengers and improve the overall customer experience.
But first the sides must solve a slew of challenges. They include reaching an agreement that combines two different approaches on work-rules and benefits, one from United and the other from Continental Airlines, and ensuring that flight attendants receive competitive pay.
Boingo now provides Internet connectivity at 30 of the top 49 airports in the U.S., according to a report provided to the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners, which runs Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Airports like LAX—which just renewed with Boingo for seven years—like the service because it does not require them to run their own networks and it provides some revenue.
The equity stake in Fulcrum is the largest single investment by a U.S. airline in alternative fuels, says Brett Hart, United executive vice president and general counsel. Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways made an undisclosed equity investment in Fulcrum in August 2014.
Boeing is to collaborate with Embraer to fly a testbed for environmental technologies in Brazil in 2016, as a follow-on to the U.S. manufacturer’s series of ecoDemonstrators.
Emirates has rejected the U.S. legacy carriers' claims as “nothing more than a mess of legal distortions and factual errors” and accused them of seeking “protection from competition.”
Airbus is preparing its E-Fan electric aircraft demonstrator for a groundbreaking flight across the English Channel in the next few months. The E-Fan demonstrator is proving technologies that Airbus hopes will help in the development of a family of electrically-powered light aircraft for training and private use and in the future potentially lead to an electric-powered airliner carrying 80-90 passengers in the 2030-40 time frame.
Lufthansa is considering integrating more airlines under the Eurowings brand and may further reduce its legacy operation’s fleet if sufficient cost-cutting agreements with unions can’t be reached.
The Dutch government does not need to take a shareholding in Air France-KLM to secure the interests of KLM and Amsterdan Airport Schiphol, according Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
Delta Air Lines will expand transcontinental capacity on flights from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO).
Consolidation of the Chinese central government’s freight airlines, foreshadowed by authorities this month, reflects the administration’s wider push to reform state enterprises, partly by merging some of them.
