Vueling Airlines will become a subsidiary of International Airlines Group (IAG) after the majority of the Barcelona-based low-cost carrier’s shareholders accepted a revised takeover bid. The Vueling board of directors on April 9 approved IAG’s buy-out offer of €9.25 ($12) a share, which it said was a “fair” price. The low-cost’s board also said that Vueling’s full integration into IAG offers significant strategic opportunities for future growth and development.
The FAA’s decision to begin air traffic controller furloughs nationwide on April 21 is raising bipartisan ire in Congress, with calls for the agency to provide more information on budget-cutting alternatives or to at least suspend the furloughs for a month.
State-owned military aircraft manufacturer Indonesian Aerospace (IAe) is using its supplier contacts to develop its commercial maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) business. Andi Alisjahban, IAe’s director of technology and engineering, speaking to Aviation Week at the Airlines and Airports Conference and Exhibition in Jakarta, says the company plans to perform engine maintenance and overhauls on CFM International CFM56 and Pratt & Whitney PW100 engines.
Indonesian airport operator Angkasa Pura II is just months from opening Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusuma Airport to scheduled jet operations in an effort to relieve congestion at the city’s main gateway Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Angkasa Pura II’s President Director, Tri Sunoko, says the operator is working to accommodate schedule jet operations at Halim, and that “hopefully it will happen in one or two months.” Angkasa Pura II plans to refurbish the passenger terminal, he adds.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers: Bogota - Medellin, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Bogota - Medellin, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Daily Each Way Departures Share ASKs (000) Share Seats/Dept.
Australia’s competition watchdog has given the green light to Virgin Australia’s purchase of a majority stake in Tiger Airways Australia, with the financial plight of the Tiger operation emerging as the deciding factor. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says it will not oppose Virgin Australia’s proposed purchase of a 60% share in Tiger Australia. Under the terms of deal announced in October, Virgin initially will pay A$32.5 million ($33.3 million) to Singapore-based Tiger Airways Holdings for the stake.
Delta Air Lines says it has reached agreements to receive enough Bakken crude oil in the second half of the year to supply 10% of its refinery’s supply, providing a boost to an ancillary operation that is striving for its first profitable quarter. Eventually, Delta expects to increase the Bakken contribution to 75,000-100,000 barrels per day, which would be about 40-55% of the refinery’s capacity.
Finnair has sold its 4.7% stake in low-fare carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle for €54 million ($70.4 million), producing a €34 million capital gain for the Finnish operator. The stake was of no strategic value to Finnair; the airline acquired the holding in 2007 when it sold its Swedish affiliate FlyNordic to Norwegian.
CFM International has started final assembly of the first Leap-1A for the Airbus A320NEO, a key phase of its engine program, and is expected to freeze the configuration of the Leap-1B for the Boeing 737 MAX at the end of this month. The General Electric and Snecma joint venture is developing three versions of the Leap engine. In conjunction with the new Airbus engine, CFM is developing an almost identical -1C variant for the Comac C919, which is due to enter service in 2016.
A higher-than-expected level of leisure traffic contributed to weakened first quarter yields at Air Canada, which expects to post a C$260 million ($253.3 million) net loss for the first three months of the year. The carrier notes that the March quarter’s results also are depressed by a C$10 million charge related to weather and a C$24 million impairment for its Airbus A340-300 fleet, which is not in operation.
International Airlines Group (IAG) has proceeded with another part of its fleet renewal strategy by signing a memorandum of understanding with Airbus for 18 A350-1000s and 18 options. All of the aircraft included in this deal are destined for IAG’s British Airways (BA) operation, but the operator also negotiated commercial terms and production slots for an additional batch of aircraft that would be allocated to its Iberia division.
The president and CEO of JetBlue Airways is “disappointed” with the carrier’s fleet of Embraer 190s and says the airline continues to struggle with maintenance costs on the 100-seat E-Jets. “We should never have been the worldwide launch customer of a new airplane,” David Barger said in an April 21 address to the Harvard Business School’s Aerospace & Aviation Club in Boston. “We weren’t big enough.”
Lufthansa’s flight operations yesterday were essentially grounded as a result of a one-day strike called by trade union Verdi. The airline operated about 30 of its 1,800 scheduled daily services after ground staff walked off the job early in the morning. All Lufthansa stations were affected, and unlike in previous strikes the airline could operate most of its long-haul services.
Major U.S. airlines say they expect to lose tens of millions of dollars in revenue each month because of flight delays and cancellations caused by the FAA’s furlough of air traffic controllers, which began April 21. Many carriers also say they are cancelling hundreds of flights to try to mitigate delays. Delta Air Lines, for example, says the additional cancellations will range from about 150 on a good weather day to nearly 400 on a bad one.
General Electric says its $4.3 billion purchase of Avio will have no impact on the Italian supplier’s contracts with Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce. The Avio acquisition currently is being scrutinized by U.S. and European antitrust investigations, but GE Aviation President and CEO David Joyce reassures his rivals that any contract work with Avio will be fully honored—including the manufacture of the gearbox for Pratt & Whitney’s PW1500G for Bombardier’s CSeries.
As Japanese airlines begin installing the battery fix developed by Boeing for its grounded 787s, the carriers are turning their attention to flight tests and the eventual resumption of scheduled service with the aircraft. Both All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines confirm that the battery modifications on their 787s started April 22. The two rivals account for the majority of the 787s delivered so far, and they have been hardest hit by the aircraft’s grounding due to problems with its lithium-ion batteries.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers: Rio De Janeiro Dumont - Sao Paulo, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Rio De Janeiro Dumont - Sao Paulo, April 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Seats
Honeywell is in talks with Indonesian MRO providers, including GMF AeroAsia, to perform more maintenance on its OEM systems. “We already work with GMF on auxiliary power units, but have had some discussions about expanding our relationship both on the mechanical and the avionics side,” says Brian Davis, Honeywell Aerospace VP airlines Asia Pacific.
Click here to view the pdf Arab Air Carrier Organization Monthly Traffic: February 2013 Arab Air Carrier Organization Monthly Traffic: February 2013 RPK % Chg. ASK % Chg.
Alitalia has named Gabriele Del Torchio its new CEO in an effort to return the company to profitability and regain market share from low-cost carriers, which operate almost half of the domestic seat capacity in Italy. Del Torchio was CEO of Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati Motor Holding, which was purchased by Audi’s Automobili Lamborghini subsidiary in 2012. His predecessor at Alitalia, Andrea Ragnetti, unexpectedly resigned in February after just one year in the role.
A major fleet turnover in the next decade combined with even more efficient engines coming to market on the newest aircraft will combine to keep the North American engine MRO market stagnant for the next decade, TeamSAI reports. North American engine MRO will generate about $7.0 billion in work in 2013, Team SAI Senior Vice President & Principal Tom Cooper said during Aviation Week’s MRO Americas conference in Atlanta. That number will rise to $7.2 billion in 2018, and slide back to $6.9 billion in 2023. The driver?
