ONCE LITTLE MORE THAN A ground handling company at the country's gateway airport, Oman Air's fortunes are changing dramatically as, for the first time in its history, the feisty domestic and regional airline assumes national carrier status. With that new status comes access to international routes that were beyond its reach as long as Gulf Air was officially the national airline for Oman. Earlier this year, however, the Omani government decided to withdraw from the troubled multistate entity to concentrate its energies and finances on building up the local airline.
Tiger Airways is upping the ante down under ahead of the late-November launch of flights from its new Australian base in Melbourne, placing 40,000 tickets on sale from A$9.95 ($9.13) inclusive of taxes and charges and announcing Newcastle, Canberra and Hobart as new destinations. Separately, Tiger launched Singapore-Chennai service over the weekend and today will begin flying to Xiamen, its fifth Chinese destination.
Benefiting from yuan appreciation and fast-growing demand in the domestic market, Chinese carriers reported a collective profit in the third quarter. Hainan Airlines posted net income of CNY228.9 million ($30.6 million) in the period, up 19.1% over CNY191.5 million earned in the year-ago quarter. Operating revenue increased 5.5% to CNY2.26 billion against a 0.6% drop in operating expenses to CNY1.72 billion. Net profit for the first nine months of 2007 was CNY418.62 million.
New Congolese airline established by SN Brussels Airlines and Hewa Bora Airways will carry the name airDC, SN Brussels announced yesterday ( ATWOnline, Sept. 12). AirDC's commercial passenger flights are expected to start in early 2008. It will operate 737s and BAe 146s from its home base at Kinshasa N'Djili on a domestic and continental network. SN African Projects Manager Johan Maertens was appointed CEO. The name airDC is a reference to RDC, the French acronym for Democratic Republic of Congo.
Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Tony Tyler said the airline is not close to making any decision on acquiring A380s, 787s or A350 XWBs, noting that orders placed today likely would mean deliveries not occurring for five years or longer. "I don't think we are comfortable ordering that far ahead on a new aircraft type," he told Reuters. "I don't think we'll be making any decision on any of these aircraft for at least two years. .
Russian authorities suspended Lufthansa Cargo's right to fly over Russia. An LHC spokesperson told ATWOnline that "since Oct. 28 midnight, we have no traffic rights any more to fly via Russian territory." The change affects 49 weekly flights between Frankfurt and Astana, where LHC has established a hub for its network to the Far East. "We have installed an emergency schedule. Each flight to or from Astana has to be diverted around Russia. That takes an additional 90 minutes flying time, up to three hours for a roundtrip,'" the spokesperson said.
Malev Hungarian Airlines will suspend its two North Atlantic routes starting in mid-November and lasting through the winter season. Budapest-New York JFK and Budapest-Toronto services should resume in the spring. Malev said that as part of its structural transformation and cost-efficiency program, it will lease out two 767-200ERs while a single 767-300ER will continue flying to Bangkok. That thrice-weekly service will become four-times-weekly from Jan. 8.
Royal Jordanian signed a lease agreement, initially for six months, with Jordan's Transworld for a 737 freighter. RJ will begin flying the aircraft to Baghdad and Damascus. It already operates A310-300 freighters.
Singapore Airlines reported net income of S$507.8 million ($349.8 million) for its fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30, up 73.2% over a S$293.2 million net profit in the year-ago quarter, on a 9.9% boost in revenue to S$3.97 billion.
Hawaiian Airlines received a double dose of good news late Tuesday after a bankruptcy court judge awarded it $80 million in damages in its lawsuit against Mesa Airlines. The verdict came hours after Hawaiian reported that net income for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 more than doubled to $19.6 million from $7.7 million in the year-ago period.
Sale of its hotel assets propelled ANA Group to a record consolidated net profit of ¥105.5 billion ($920.1 million) on record revenue of ¥763.2 billion, up 1.4% year-over-year, for the fiscal semester ended Sept. 30.
South African Airways named former Telkom CFO Kaushik Patel to the same position at the airline. He replaces Acting CFO Clive Else, who will become CEO of SAA Technical effective Dec. 1. Jan Blake will leave the latter position to become GM-mergers, acquisitions and disposals. Fortune Ntlhoro was named chief procurement officer. Boeing Commercial Airplanes named VP-Sales & Marketing Operations Martin Bentrott as VP-Middle East and Africa sales.
Air France KLM Group estimated the net impact on operating income associated with the recently concluded five-day strike by AF cabin crew at some €60 million ($86.5 million). The figure reflects an €80 million loss in revenue offset by a €20 million reduction in costs linked mainly to fuel. The estimate will be refined at a later stage, the carrier said in a statement. AF cabin staff were on strike Oct. 25-29 over pay and working conditions. The airline's flight schedule returned to normal yesterday.
Air China reported third-quarter net income of CNY2.19 billion ($292 million), down 26.5% from a CNY2.98 billion net profit in the year-ago quarter that was boosted significantly by a one-time gain from the sale of its equity interest in Dragonair. Excluding the gain, CA said its net profit for the reporting period ended Sept. 30 grew 92.8%. Third-quarter revenue was CNY14.47 billion and operating profit was CNY2.83 billion, according to a company statement.
Midwest Air Group shareholders approved the company's acquisition by Midwest Air Partners, an affiliate of TPG Capital, at a special meeting yesterday. Each outstanding share of Midwest common stock will be converted into the right to receive $17 per share in cash, MAG said ( ATWOnline, Aug. 20). The transaction is expected to be completed during the current quarter. Northwest Airlines also is participating in the acquisition and reportedly will hold 49% of Midwest.
Korean Air credited increasing long-haul revenue and rising yields for a 3.9% year-over-year gain in profit to KRW131.7 billion ($144.7 million) in the quarter ended Sept. 30. Revenue jumped 8.1% year-over-year to KRW2.37 trillion and operating profit soared 45.2% to KRW281.4 billion as operating expenses climbed just 4.6%, KE said.
Fast-growing AirTran Airways reported third-quarter net income of $10.6 million, reversing a net loss of $4.6 million in the year-ago quarter, as it continued to buck the growth-cautious US industry by increasing capacity 20.9%.
China Eastern Airlines nearly doubled its third-quarter profit, posting net income of CNY976 million ($130.4 million), up 98.7% from the CNY492.9 million earned in the year-ago period. It also reported a net profit of CNY1.04 billion during the nine-month period ended Sept. 30 based on domestic accounting standards, a reversal from a CNY910 million loss in the first nine months of 2006.
Barco was awarded a contract by the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Dept. to provide an arrival metering and sequencing system based on its OSYRIS arrival management software for a six-month trial period. The system, to be installed by year end, will enhance air traffic efficiency at Hong Kong International. Separately, Barco in cooperation with Marshall Aviation Services of the UK announced that its OPScenter-based Airport Display System entered operational service at Inverness Airport.
Northwest Airlines earned $244 million in net income for the third quarter, its first full reporting period out of bankruptcy protection, significantly reversing a net loss of $1.2 billion in the year-ago quarter when it was operating under Chapter 11. President and CEO Doug Steenland hailed the "remarkable turnaround" and said the "strong performance makes it possible for us to continue to invest in the airline so that we can enhance shareholder value." One possible way of growing shareholder value, he said, is to spin off the WorldPerks frequent-flier program.
Paxport announced the launch of PaxRelax, a Web-based sales platform that allows airlines and tour operators "to sell services such as choice of seats, catering, excess and/or special baggage." Launch customer is Thomas Cook Northern Europe, which will offer the service to customers in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Kitty Hawk, the Dallas/Fort Worth-based air cargo operator that specialized in expedited delivery of time-sensitive heavyweight cargo in the US, said yesterday that it "will immediately cease all scheduled network air and ground operations" owing to declining demand and rising fuel costs.
Kunpeng Airlines, the regional joint venture between Shenzhen Airlines and Mesa Air Group, formally launched on Saturday after nine months of preparation. It had been operating a Xi'an-Taiyuan-Tianjin route on a trial basis but now is flying on 11 routes to the aforementioned cities plus Yichang, Huhehaote, Nanchang, Zhengzhou and Hefei with three 48-seat CRJ200s ( ATWOnline, Sept. 28).
In a quarter during which it added three 777-300ERs and launched service to North America, Jet Airways posted income of INR284 million ($7.2 million), reversed from a INR551 million deficit in the three months ended Sept. 30, 2006. Revenue for the second fiscal quarter climbed 26.1% to INR22.54 billion against an 18.9% rise in expenses to INR22.12 billion. The carrier reported a 6% year-over-year increase in passenger numbers to 2.6 million and a 3.3-point lift in load factor to 66.8%. Traffic was up 30% to 3.62 billion RPKs and capacity grew 23.6% to 5.42 billion ASKs.
