Hawker Beechcraft Corp. (HBC) and Superior Air Beijing of China continue to negotiate the sale of the U.S. manufacturer’s commercial operation even as a 45-day exclusivity period expires. The exclusivity period started July 17 after HBC received a $1.79 billion proposal from Superior. HBC at the time called the offer “the greatest value for the company.” That window of exclusivity has now passed.
AirAsia plans to place an order soon for 100 narrowbody aircraft to support its international expansion. The airline is almost ready to sign a deal, AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes told reporters in Jakarta. “We’re getting closer to an order for 100 aircraft. It’s not there yet,” he said. “We certainly feel that we need the aircraft.”
Inmarsat expects that costs for satellite-based flight deck safety services, which airlines typically use for ACARS (aircraft communications addressing and reporting system) messaging in oceanic regions, will be 30% lower than its traditional services when the SwiftBroadband Safety Services option is approved for use in 2014.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers: Montreal (Dorval) - Toronto Pearson, September 15-21, 2012, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Top Carriers: Montreal (Dorval) - Toronto Pearson, September 15-21, 2012, Ranked By Scheduled Seats Daily Each Way Depts. Share ASKs (000) Share
Lufthansa’s board of directors has approved the establishment of a low-cost subsidiary to provide services across Europe. The unit will be based at Cologne/Bonn Airport and will start operations Jan. 1.
SkyWest Inc. remains committed to the 50-seat regional jet, even as the mainline carriers forecast that 70- to 100-passenger jets will fill that niche. “There’s no doubt the fleet is changing and shifting away from the 50-seat jet,” Brad Rawson, SkyWest Airlines’ manager of network planning, told Aviation Week at the Boyd Group International Aviation Forecast Summit in Dallas. “But the reality is there are markets where a 70-seater won’t work.”
The union representing Boeing engineers has lodged a preemptive strike in its negotiations over a four-year contract, recommending that its 23,000 members reject the company’s contract offer before it is formally presented.
American Airlines’ recovery plans center on the high-value premium customer, a passenger segment the carrier wants to attract with network and fleet changes, an AMR Corp. executive tells Aviation Week.
Two U.S. senators have introduced legislation which mirrors a bill passed last week by the House of Representatives that would eliminate rescreening of inbound checked baggage. Titled The No-Hassle Flying Act of 2012 like its House counterpart, the Senate bill (S.3542) would enable the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to waive a second screening before bags continue on another segment if the item was checked in a country with aviation security measures comparable to those in the U.S.
The U.S. government program that subsidizes air services to rural airports is facing up to $16 million in cuts come Jan. 2 if Congress does not act to prevent sequestration. The budget penalty to the Essential Air Service (EAS) program would impact the program’s two fiscal 2013 funding sources, cutting $12 million from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and another $4 million from foreign carrier overflight fees, according to an analysis of sequestration released by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Air Arabia is shifting capacity growth away from its bases in Morocco and Egypt as it waits for the market to return after the Arab Spring uprising. “Our focus will be on Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Africa,” CEO Adel Ali told Aviation Week at the Low Fare Airline Congress in London.
Despite Brazil’s weakened economic performance, Azul Linhas Aereas Brasileiras founder David Neeleman sees potential for strong growth in the South American country. The airline sees expansion to 20-30 new markets across Brazil, although Neeleman declined to clarify how many of those markets the carrier will pursue in the next five years. “Brazil’s aviation industry is underdeveloped,” Neeleman said at the Boyd Group International Aviation Forecast Summit in Dallas. “Fewer Brazilians fly per capita than Mexicans.”
Turkish low-fare airline Pegasus is about to announce a major narrowbody order, with CEO Ali Sabanci telling the World Low Fare Airline Congress in London that “we are already there, but I would like to announce it in my own country.” According to Sabanci, the carrier is choosing between the Airbus A320NEO and the Boeing 737 MAX and will buy more than 40 aircraft, the size of its current fleet. “The order will be a lot larger than that,” he says, noting that Pegasus could triple domestic capacity.
Vueling, International Airlines Group’s Spanish low-fare operation, is shifting more of its capacity to international routes to mitigate a weakness in domestic demand that has depressed traffic more than 10%. “We were about a 70% domestic carrier, but that is now coming closer to 50/50,” CEO Alex Cruz said at the World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London.
Spanish carrier Vueling has endorsed Bombardier’s CSeries CS300 as a viable airframe for budget carrier, with CEO Alex Cruz telling the World Low Fare Airlines Congress in London that “the CSeries will be the new narrowbody in town for a long time.” Vueling is in the process of placing an order for at least 60 aircraft, and is considering the CSeries alongside the Airbus A320NEO and the Boeing 737 MAX. Cruz says an order will be placed in the next few months.
New Zealand-based Altitude Aerospace Interiors is beginning work on a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) based on a 737-700, which is the first time that interior completion of a new BBJ has been performed in the Australasian region. A Boeing spokeswoman tells Aviation Week that no BBJ completions have been done in Australia, and while Altitude has previously performed BBJ refit work, this will be the company’s first “green” aircraft of this type. The BBJ is owned by Samsung Electronics, Boeing says.
A Sept. 17 article detailing the White House’s Office of Management and Budget analysis of the near trillion-dollar sequestration measure scheduled to go into effect Jan. 2 should have said that 60% of the FAA’s operations account is exempt.
The world’s commercial fleet will double to almost 40,000 aircraft by 2031, with the bulk of this growth in the Asia-Pacific region, Air Lease Corp. founder Steven Udvar-Hazy said Sept. 18 at the Boyd Group International Aviation Forecast Summit in Dallas. Of today’s in-service fleet, only about 5,000 aircraft will be operating in 2031, so 13,000 aircraft will be needed to replace existing fleet, said Udvar-Hazy. Another 19,000 aircraft will then be needed to accommodate a 5% annual growth in passengers.
Singapore Technologies Aerospace (ST Aero) has expanded further into asset management by establishing ST Aero Rotables (STAR), which will primarily manage the lease of rotable spare parts. STAR will be headquartered in Singapore with marketing offices dotted around the world. ST Aero in recent years has added asset management divisions to its airframe and engine heavy maintenance functions. Last year, it established Total Engine Asset Management, an engine leasing joint venture with Japanese trading house Marubeni.
