Facing a projected $250 million drop in revenue this year, Mesa Air Group is finding it impossible to "support the same level of overhead" and is reducing staff across the board, Chairman Jonathan Ornstein told ATWOnline yesterday. "The company will be smaller this year and we needed to right-size the workforce to the new level of reductions," Ornstein said. "Reductions were made throughout the company at all levels. It was a very difficult process for everyone, me in particular." He did not disclose further details.
Air France subsidiary Brit Air converted six CRJ1000 NextGen options into firm orders, Bombardier announced. Aircraft are worth $299 million at list prices. Original order for eight firm plus eight options was placed in February 2007 ( ATWOnline, Feb. 21, 2007). Brit currently operates 15 CRJ100s and 15 CRJ700s. The CRJ1000 NextGen completed its inaugural flight last month at Montreal Mirabel ( ATWOnline, Sept. 4).
Chinese carriers should get some relief in the fourth quarter as the Chinese government decided to cut the price of fuel by CNY570 ($82.37) per ton owing to the recent drop in international oil prices. The reduction took effect Oct. 1. It marks the fifth time that Beijing has adjusted the domestic fuel price. It introduced a CNY210 per ton increase in the first quarter, a CNY80 drop in the second quarter, a CNY1,500 hike on June 20 and a CNY720 addition on July 8.
Thai Airways said last week that its third-quarter loss would narrow from the THB9.25 billion ($269.7 million) deficit reported in the second quarter, executive VP Pandit Chanapai said, according to Reuters. He cited declining costs as the reason for the improvement. Load factor is expected to be around 70%. For the full year, Pandit said revenue will fall from the THB174 billion reported in 2007.
Boeing booked 11 more commercial aircraft orders last week, taking its year-to-date net to 623, but said that third-quarter deliveries fell 23% year-over-year. Last week's most notable commitment was ANA's order for nine 767-300ERs, which was announced last month but incorrectly identified with an identical order logged for nine -300ERs the prior previous week ( ATWOnline, Sept. 29).
Emirates SkyCargo announced development of its White Cover application for shipment of temperature-sensitive freight. Design includes heat shielding, air and water resistance and internal escape prevention features. Patent is pending.
Brussels Airlines' recent financial tie-up with Lufthansa and its possible entry into Star Alliance will not affect its cooperation with Jet Airways, SN MD Bernard Gustin told ATWOnline last week.
Sun Country Airlines faces an uncertain future following last week's resignation and arrest of its former chairman, warning employees that a shutdown by Dec. 1 is "a distinct possibility."
KD avia 737-300 en route from Barcelona landed on its belly at Kaliningrad on Oct. 1, although none of the 138 passengers and six crew were hurt, according to press reports and Flight Safety Foundation's Aviation Safety Network. KD Executive Director Leonid Itskov told Interfax that the fuselage was not destroyed and that passengers evacuated with slides. According to ASN, the crew declared an emergency following an unsafe gear indication and confirmed gear did not deploy following a low pass. The crew landed the aircraft gear up on its second approach.
Continental Airlines said September consolidated RASM rose an estimated 8%-9% year-over-year, with mainline RASM climbing 9%-10%. It flew 6.49 billion consolidated RPMs last month, down 10.9%, against an 8.1% fall in capacity to 8.49 billion ASMs. Load factor dropped 2.5 points to 76.5%. American Airlines flew 9.86 billion system RPMs in September, a 9.1% decline from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 7% to 12.87 billion ASMs, dropping load factor 1.8 points to 76.6%. American Eagle flew 587.4 million RPMs, down 17.2%, against a 9.9% fall in ASMs to 910.7 million.
Lufthansa will increase its winter schedule capacity 2.4% year-over-year as it adds flights to six airports to its network, lifting the number of destinations served to 194. European ASKs will rise 1.9% from the 2007-08 winter schedule and long-haul capacity will grow 2.7%, LH said. The winter schedule begins Oct. 26 and runs to March 28. Flights to domestic and European destinations will comprise 91.6% of the weekly program, roughly equal to last year.
British Airways admitted that its full-year revenue forecasts "carry some risk" as "forward bookings are being affected by the increased anxiety in financial markets and by the uncertain economic outlook." It said long-haul premium traffic has "softened." It continues to target a breakeven result at the operational level and said that "good yields and the stronger [US] dollar are broadly offsetting volume impact. It anticipates fuel costs to be around £3 billion ($5.3 billion). BA flew 9.29 billion RPKs in September, down 4.8% year-over-year.
Mesa Air Group announced that Paul Foley has been tapped to serve as COO. Foley formerly was president and CEO of Mesaba Holdings, parent of Mesaba Airlines and Big Sky Airlines. Under his leadership, Mesaba Airlines exited bankruptcy protection and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Northwest Airlines. Big Sky shut down in March after continued losses ( ATWOnline, Dec. 21, 2007).
Hawaiian Airlines last week took delivery of the first of four 717-200s on lease from Boeing Capital Corp. Remaining aircraft will arrive one per month in November, December and January, at which point HA will have 15 717s operating on its inter-island network. Aircraft will seat 118-123 passengers with eight seats in first class and will replace a 767-300 used on inter-island routes while restoring a spare aircraft to HA's 717 and 767 fleets.
Aer Lingus said Friday that it will "proceed with a cost-reduction program to deliver. . .substantial savings," adding that "fundamental change" is needed to keep the carrier "competitive" going forward. Meetings are planned this week to detail the cost-cutting plan to EI's labor unions. The SIPTU union representing more than 1,500 ground workers last week voiced "total opposition to outsourcing any part of the Aer Lingus operation." EI reportedly has approached labor groups about outsourcing ground handling operations.
Alitalia Extraordinary Administrator Augusto Fantozzi said he received several expressions of interest for acquisition of the group's assets and activities. Deadline for offers was Sept. 30 ( ATWOnline, Oct. 1). Fantozzi said only one proposal directly concerned air transport activities whereas the other expressions of interest were for specific branches and/or activities of various companies comprising Alitalia Group.
Sun Country Airlines, which is seeking to gain financial independence from scandal-hit parent Petters Group Worldwide ( ATWOnline, Oct. 1), announced yesterday that President and CEO Stan Gadek was appointed chairman replacing Tom Petters, who resigned. DHL Express named George Kerschbaumer executive VP-commercial division. He formerly served as Deutsche Post World Net's executive VP-corporate development.
Porter Airlines reached agreement with Bombardier to convert two existing options on 70-seat Q400s into firm orders. Aircraft will be the 17th and 18th in the Toronto-based regional's fleet. Value of the new contract is $52 million at list prices.
Wizz Air said it will base one extra A320 each at Timisoara, Bucharest Baneasa and Cluj Napoca and double its Romanian capacity over the next six months. From Timisoara it will launch thrice-weekly Dortmund (Dec. 18), thrice-weekly London Luton (Oct. 27), twice-weekly Paris Beauvais (Feb. 20), thrice-weekly Treviso (Feb. 19), thrice-weekly Bergamo (Feb. 19), thrice-weekly Rome Fiumicino (Feb. 17), thrice-weekly Barcelona (Feb. 19) and twice-weekly Valencia (Feb. 22).
Jetstar Airways' new CEO, Bruce Buchanan, downplayed the impact of Tiger Airways in the Australasian market, telling ATWOnline yesterday that his focus is on "bigger [low-cost] competitors with large fleets that have a significant impact on the market. There is only one or two in the Asian region and I don't put Tiger in that category." Virgin Blue operates more than 50 aircraft and has local market presence, while Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia has 70 aircraft and has been frank about its ambitions ( ATWOnline, Sept. 19).
KrasAir and Domodedovo Airlines, two of the five members of the defunct AiRUnion alliance, have been granted approval by Russian authorities to operate certain flights until Oct. 31. The other three carriers--Omskavia, Samara Airlines and Sibaviatrans--will shut down operations by Sunday.
Transaero DG Olga Pleshakova said the carrier plans to announce an order for six A350 XWBs or A380s very soon. She told the Vedomosti business daily that the airline is awaiting a detailed offer from Airbus, adding that the A350 "is a more economical aircraft" than the 787. Transaero has ordered eight A330-200s and four A320s but currently operates no Airbus equipment. It expects its fleet to reach 43 by year end, up from 38 one year ago. It recently took delivery of its first 777-200.
European Low Fares Airline Assn. criticized the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency for its "abusing pricing policy" and called on it to reduce its cost base significantly and introduce a single charge zone for terminal navigation services in Poland. "PANSA's pricing policy is clearly to the detriment of passengers and regional airports, which risk losing many of the direct routes, opened by low fares airlines in recent years, as operating to Polish regions becomes prohibitively expensive compared to other European regions," ELFAA Secretary General John Hanlon warned.
Jet Airways is "very pleased" with the performance of its European hub in Brussels, which it launched in August 2007 with a daily Mumbai-BRU-Newark 777 service, claiming that its first year "proves that the concept of hubbing out of your home market works." But CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer confirmed to ATWOnline on the sidelines of a presentation in Brussels that the venture is not yet profitable. "We remain optimistic to achieve our target to break even after 18 months of operations despite the current slowdown," he said.
