Singapore Airlines appointed Senior VP-Finance Goh Choon Phong as president of SIA Cargo effective June 1. He replaces Hwang Teng Aun, who will become senior VP-marketing (special projects). Divisional VP-Finance Chan Hon Chew will replace Goh.
ExpressJet Holdings, Regional partner of Continental Airlines, reported first-quarter net income of $23.8 million, 2% above earnings of $23.3 million in the year-ago quarter. ExpressJet cited rising demand as a key factor behind its 20th consecutive profitable quarter. The Houston-based carrier reported a 7.7% rise in revenues to $404.2 million while operating expenses increased 9% to $366.8 million, producing operating income of $37.3 million, down 3.9% from the year-ago quarter.
Virgin Blue's unhedged exposure to escalating jet fuel prices undermined its net earnings for the first half of the financial year, with the carrier reporting an 8.5% fall in profit to A$68.2 million ($52.4 million), reflecting a 33.7% rise in the cost of fuel over the six-month period to March 31. CEO Brett Godfrey said the A$49 million in additional fuel expense was offset partially by the benefits of Virgin Blue's new corporate business strategy and improved productivity, which contributed to a 6.1% increase in revenue to A$935.9 million.
Ryanair said it filed a complaint to the European Commission claiming Air France received some €1 billion ($1.28 billion) in illegal state aid "over the past number of years."
Condor Airlines, the German leisure carrier jointly owned by Lufthansa and tour operator Karstadt/Quelle, denied rumors that it will take over certain long-haul services on behalf of Lufthansa in markets where yields are too low for LH to operate profitably. "We can operate flights for Lufthansa as we did in the past. But so far there are no discussions about that," MD Ralf Teckentrup told ATWOnline. Condor made a profit of €20.5 million ($26.2 million) in 2005 compared to a loss of €39 million the year before.
Japan Airlines Group blamed sluggish traffic growth caused by "safety-related occurrences" and anti-Japanese sentiment in China for its inability to overcome rising fuel costs, resulting in a drastic reversal in financial fortunes and a loss of ¥47.2 billion ($423.2 million) in the fiscal year ended March 31 compared to earnings of ¥30 billion in FY05.
Bankruptcy-related charges totaling $975 million propelled Northwest Airlines to a net loss of $1.1 billion for the first quarter of 2006 from a loss of $537 million in the year-ago period. NWA filed for Chapter 11 protection last September. Excluding reorganization and unusual items, the carrier trimmed its first-quarter deficit to $129 million from $450 million in 2005, largely on the strength of improved cost performance.
Preliminary figures released yesterday by Lufthansa Group indicate the company narrowed its first-quarter net loss to €98 million ($124.6 million) from €116 million in the 2005 quarter.
American Airlines Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said the carrier needs at least $1 billion in additional annual savings to keep pace with rivals restructuring through bankruptcy and "just to keep even with our costs last year," and has evaluated replacing the JT8D-200 engines on its MD-80 fleet to save fuel.
Varig will auction off a portion of its assets to raise the money it needs to maintain operations under a plan approved yesterday during a meeting in Rio de Janeiro of employees, government officials and the carrier's creditors, according to media reports. The government confirmed it will not bail out the bankrupt carrier, which reportedly will be split into two companies and sold in approximately two months. Two options are on the table, depending on investor intentions. One would split Varig into a flight operations company and a service unit handling distribution, reservations, etc.
Record revenue and a commitment to cutting costs helped Singapore Airlines Group reduce the impact of soaring fuel prices to record a massive S$1.24 billion ($791.3 million) profit for the fiscal year ended March 31, just 8.3% down on the previous year.
US airlines reported an ontime performance rate for March of 76.1%, down 0.8 point from the year-ago month but up 0.8 point from February, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Hawaiian Airlines had the highest March ontime rate at 90% among the 19 airlines reporting while United Airlines was lowest at 69.3%.
Touting synergies created by the merger of America West Airlines and the former US Airways, US Airways Group reported a first-quarter profit of $64 million compared to a profit of $28 million for America West in the year-ago quarter and said it now expects to be profitable for the full year, "even after accounting for merger-related expenses and continued high fuel costs."
Sun Country Airlines, a privately held LCC based at Minneapolis-St. Paul, said its first-quarter net income increased nearly 7% over the year-ago quarter to $5.5 million as revenues rose 15% to $76.5 million and passenger boardings grew 7% to 531,867. The airline said it maintained "virtually identical" year-over-year unit costs excluding fuel. It operates a fleet of seven leased 737-800s to destinations in the US, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Air France-KLM flew 16.49 billion RPKs in April, a 10% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity rose 4.8% to 19.86 billion ASKs and load factor was up 3.9 points to 83.1%. AF-KLM flew 918 million RTKs, an increase of 1.1%, as cargo capacity grew 2.1% to 1.36 billion ATKs. Frontier Airlines said its April RASM increased 6.8% to 8.27 cents as yield climbed 1.1% to 10.25 cents and traffic grew 27% to 707.7 million RPMs. Capacity increased 20.1% to 877.4 million ASMs and load factor rose 4.4 points to an April record 80.7%.
Gulf Air faces a deficit of approximately BHD80 million ($211 million) despite "strong improvements" in key performance indicators during the first quarter because "revenue growth simply cannot keep pace with oil price rises," according to President and CEO James Hogan. "We are looking at a range of options to mitigate these additional costs. We are already seeing a more consistent application of fuel surcharges in all our markets," Hogan said.
ABX Air posted a 14.3% profit increase in the first quarter to $8.1 million, rebounding from a difficult 2005 that saw profits drop as primary customer DHL Worldwide Express struggled to compete against FedEx and UPS in the US market. The carrier earned $7.1 million in the year-ago period. "Our operating results reflect the success of our initiatives to drive down costs and improve productivity in our sort, line-haul and air operations for DHL," President and CEO Joe Hete said.
AirTran Airways yesterday resumed negotiations with its 1,400 pilots, represented by the National Pilots Assn. Talks in Orlando are aimed at renewing a labor contract that became amendable in April 2005. This week's talks are scheduled to run through Thursday and another round of negotiations is slated for May 30-31 in Baltimore. Separately, AirTran yesterday launched flights from Chicago Midway to Dallas/Ft. Worth (thrice-daily) and Charlotte (twice-daily) aboard 717s.
Ethiopian Airlines earned a profit of $43.4 million in 2005 on revenues of $495 million, it said at a Saturday news conference marking its 60th anniversary, according to Reuters. A carrier official said the airline intends to increase its annual net earnings to $116 million by 2010 and generate $1 billion in revenues. Ethiopian carried 1.6 million passengers in 2005.
US Airways Group reported a 6.8% decline in consolidated April traffic to 5.45 billion RPMs. Capacity dropped 12.4% to 6.65 billion ASMs and load factor rose 4.9 points to 82%. British Airways flew 9.83 billion RPKs in April, up 9.8% on the year-ago month. Capacity rose 4.2% to 12.49 billion ASKs, lifting load factor 4 points to 78.7%. BA said the increase in traffic comprised a 3.8% gain in premium and a 10.9% lift in nonpremium traffic.
British Airways will implement e-ticket interlining with 80 new partners through Amadeus in the next two years. BA, which is hosted on the Amadeus e-Ticket Server, already has implemented e-ticket interline links with 40 airlines, including its oneworld partners. "These new interline links will allow us to grow the number of routes on which our customers can travel using an e-ticket and help British Airways advance towards the 100% e-ticket target set by IATA for the end of 2007," Product Delivery Manager Jerry Foran stated.
Reporting its first quarterly results since exiting Chapter 11 in February ( ATWOnline, Feb. 2), United Airlines parent UAL Corp. said it lost $306 million excluding bankruptcy-related items, widened from a deficit of $302 million in the year-ago period. Including noncash gains related to its restructuring, United earned $22.9 billion in the three months ended March 31 versus a loss of $223 million last year.
Aviation Capital Group reported first-quarter activity comprising leases of two new A320s by Air Deccan, one 737-300 by BRA Transportes Aereos of Sao Paulo, a new A320 by Royal Jordanian, a new A320 by Wizz Air, a 737-400 by Aegean Airlines, an A319 by Mexicana de Aviacion and an A320 by Air China and extension of leases on three 767s by LOT Polish Airlines. ACG also acted as agent and sold nine 757s subject to leases with US Airways on behalf of a group of institutional investors and three 757s to US on behalf of an institutional client.
Bahrain and Thailand reached an open-skies agreement allowing designated airlines to offer unlimited flights. Annual air traffic between the countries has been growing at 15% over the past five years.
Hawaiian Holdings, parent of Hawaiian Airlines, reported that its net loss for the first quarter ended March 31 widened to $12.3 million from $2.1 million in the year-ago period. The 2005 results are only for the parent company, which acquired the airline as part of the latter's emergence from bankruptcy in June 2005. On a pro-forma basis with the results of Holdings and the airline combined for the 2005 period, the year-ago loss was $1.7 million.
