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.
Emirates President Tim Clark, said “there is a lot we can learn” from Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary after meeting the Irish carrier’s CEO for the first time recently at a meeting in Berlin. ”I am more aligned in my thinking with how budget carriers do their thing than with European legacy airlines,” Clark said. Clark added that “he and I think identically” about the industry and the two—who have helped their airlines transform different segments of the airline industry—plan to continue their dialogue.
Allegiant Air is finding fewer used Airbus A320-family aircraft available at reasonable prices than it expected, but predicts more will hit the market in 2016 and 2017, an executive told Wall Street analysts. “A lot of the carriers who have these used Airbuses, they are hanging on to them two or three years or longer,” Allegiant Vice President-Fleet and Corporate Finance Tom Doxey said. “Or if they are leased, they are doing some short-term extensions,” Doxey added.
Asiana Airlines has been ordered by Korean authorities to suspend its flights to San Francisco for a 45-day period as a penalty for the July 6, 2013 crash of a Boeing 777-200ER at that airport. A review panel from South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) says the carrier must complete the suspension period within six months. Asiana has 15 days to decide if it will appeal the ruling—a step the airline has indicated it plans to take.
“Risk adversity has crept into airline boards” since the early 2000s, says Emirates Airline President Tim Clark. And that has led many airlines to worry about their ability to fill A380 seats, causing them to shy away from the superjumbo.
