Virgin Atlantic is seeking to lease two sets of Heathrow slots freed up by the demise of its U.K. short-haul arm, Little Red, until it has the aircraft it needs to operate them itself.
Panama City-registered Avianca Holdings reported third-quarter net profits of $33.2 million, down 7.6% from $35.9 million posted in the year-ago period.
ZHUHAI, China—Air traffic in China will grow by an average of 7.6% annually until 2033, Avic says. The figure calculated for the next 20 years is somewhat less than the annual average rate of 13.2% in the preceding 20 years, says the state manufacturer, which builds parts for Airbus, Boeing and Comac and makes its own regional turboprop aircraft. Avic is notably more bullish on Chinese commercial aviation than is Boeing, which forecasts 6.9% annual average growth for the 20 years to 2033.
NASSAU, Bahamas —Copa Airlines CEO Pedro Heilbron said Venezuela appears to be slowly moving toward repatriating money owed to airlines. The situation is “not getting worse,” Heilbron said at the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) Airline Leaders Forum here. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated in July that $4.1 billion was owed to airlines operating to/from Venezuela (Aviation DAILY, July 29).
SEATTLE—Australian carrier Qantas says it is seeing better-than-expected initial results from its recently invoked, company-wide cost-savings plan to stem losses and return the airline to profitability.
he European Commission (EC) has cleared Etihad Airways’ partial takeover of Alitalia after the airlines agreed to surrender slots on the Rome Fiumicino-Belgrade, Serbia route.
Emirates is still waiting to hear back from Airbus to resume talks about a possible new order for the A350, airline CEO Tim Clark said. “I have expressed a wish talk about the A350 again, but there has not been a great take-up yet,” Clark said during a recent visit to Berlin. But Clark added he hopes, “that we will talk with them in the next few months.”
KLM has received the first fully-renovated Boeing 777-200ER it will use to meet Air France-KLM Group’s new long-haul strategy designed to compete with long-haul products offered by other airlines, especially rival Gulf carriers. The aircraft was re-integrated into KLM’s fleet 10 days earlier than planned, due to quicker-than-anticipated certification of the overhaul. The refurbished aircraft (registered as PH-BQB) was put in operation on its service from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to Fukuoka, Japan on Friday, Nov. 14.
Virgin Atlantic may be forced to give up nine of the 12 London Heathrow slots it is using for its U.K. short-haul arm, Little Red, when the operation closes next year. Little Red launched services in March 2014, using remedy slots from British Airways’ (BA) acquisition of bmi, an airline Virgin itself had been courting for years for its short-haul feed potential. Little Red’s flights are operated by Irish carrier Aer Lingus, on behalf of Virgin Atlantic, which does not have its own short-haul fleet.
Dutch air accident investigators started moving the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 to the Netherlands, where a section of the Boeing 777-200ER will be reconstructed. The Dutch Safety Board began recovery of the mangled aircraft on Sunday. The process is subject to “safety conditions and other factors,” but could finish in about five days. According to the latest update, the recovery is going according to plan and will resume on Tuesday.
JetBlue Airways plans to continue expanding into the Caribbean and Latin America even as competitive pressures push fares in the markets downward, an executive said in an interview. “We are looking as deep as the fleet will take us,” JetBlue Vice President-Network Planning Dave Clark said. ”I am pretty confident JetBlue will add new routes in 2015.”
For a complete list of Aviation Week’s upcoming events, and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events Nov. 19-20—A&D Programs, Wigwam Resort, Liltchfield Park, Ariz. Jan 13-14, 2015—MRO Latin America, Buenos Aires, Argentina Feb. 2-3, 2015—MRO Middle East, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai, UAE Mar. 5, 2015—Laureate Awards, Washington, D.C.
SINGAPORE — Leasing companies often get full blame for prohibiting the use of non-OEM parts or repairs, but regulators and airlines can also be part of the equation.
SINGAPORE—Despite solid sales projections by airframers, difficult national geographies and the fragmented nature of the Asian maintenance, repair, and overhaul industry point to mixed prospects for its future. The Asia-Pacific region generates a healthy 27% of the $60 billion yearly global airline MRO spend. With an estimated global growth rate of 5.4% going forward, the region seems well-positioned for a boom, said ICF International VP David Stewart. But there are challenges.
The parent of Canadian regional airline Jazz, Chorus Aviation, reported third-quarter adjusted net income of C$29 million ($26 million), up 4.7% year-over-year, or C$0.24 per basic share, from C$27.7 million in 3Q 2013. The adjusted figures eschew foreign-exchange fluctuations and discount Chorus Aviation’s C$3.3 million in voluntary employee-severance program outlays dispensed by the company during the third quarter.
SINGAPORE—Using paper-based documentation for aircraft lease transactions adds several hundred thousand dollars to each deal, but paper won’t be replaced by digital until either airlines and civil aviation authorities step in and agree on a path forward. Speaking at MRO Asia, AerCap SVP Jock Seals said his company spent an average of about $350,000 per deal using paper in the last year.
Global air freight volumes were up 6.2% year-over-year in September, cementing a year-long trend of monthly year-over-year volume growth that gained additional steam this past summer, Airports Council International (ACI) figures show. Since October 2013, global air-freight volumes have increased on a year-over-year basis every month. From October through June 2014, the volume growth rate averaged 3.5% per month. In July, air freight’s monthly volume growth surged 6.7%, followed by 5.8% in August.
olitical disruption in Thailand is still hurting the operational performance of Thai Airways, although a foreign-exchange windfall offset plummeting revenue and enabled the carrier to return to a third-quarter net profit.
