ACE Aviation Holdings, which was created in 2004 as part of Air Canada's restructuring and still holds a 75% stake in AC, indefinitely postponed an April 7 shareholders meeting at which it was slated to hold a vote on the company's dissolution ( ATWOnline, Dec. 12, 2008). The ACE windup would make AC an independent company, but "current market conditions" made the postponement "appropriate," ACE said.
ArkeFly took delivery of a second new 737-800 fitted with 180 seats across two classes. The Dutch TUI Travel airline will deploy the aircraft on its Mediterranean network. A third -800 will join the fleet in May.
Germanwings will launch thrice-weekly Cologne-Kiev Boryspil flights on May 16 AeroMexico launched daily Mexico City-Toronto service aboard a 737-700 Monday. Flights to Montreal are scheduled to begin April 2.
Air China is pessimistic about its financial prospects and now is not expecting a turnaround this year. It already has said it expects to report a heavy loss for 2008 ( ATWOnline, Jan. 21), and this week Chairman Kong Dong said, "We don't have confidence that the carrier will earn a profit this year," Reuters reported. Kong revealed that CA's cargo volume has hit a new low, dropping 30%-40%.
Qantas was forced to withdraw its three A380s from service Monday because of unrelated fuel system problems that came after what had been described as the best entry into service of any aircraft with Australia's national airline. One A380, QF's first, had technical troubles in Sydney Saturday and was delayed 19 hr. before taking off for London Heathrow. On the return trip, the aircraft suffered a fuel leak and passengers were transferred 12 hr. later to a 747-400. Engineers in London fixed the leak and the A380 was back in service yesterday.
Air France will defer delivery of its sixth and seventh A380s in order to "create some savings on the down payment this year and the year after," Air France KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said Monday at the Reuters Travel and Leisure summit in New York. Last month the group announced it would cut capital expenditure by €1.2 billion ($1.51 billion) to address the economic downturn and would defer delivery of half-a-dozen planes including "777-300ERs, 777Fs and some Airbus aircraft."
TNT reported a €556 million ($700 million) profit in 2008, down 43.6% from the €986 million earned in 2007 as the air cargo market continued to deteriorate and the company took a €70 million one-time charge related to job and fleet cuts in its Express division. It said those reductions will result in €51 million in savings this year, part of a €400 million cost-cutting effort. Group revenue rose 1.2% year-over-year to €11.15 billion and operating income fell 17.6% to €982 million.
Spirit Airlines yesterday began charging passengers booking flights on its website or through its reservation center a fee of $4.90 per segment. The new "passenger usage fee" is the latest in a series of ancillary revenue generators implemented by Spirit ranging from bag check fees to onboard beverage charges. Customers who purchase tickets at airport check-in counters will not be charged the fee. "It's all part of our overall philosophy. We like to break out the base fare from additional fees and taxes," a Spirit spokesperson told ATWOnline.
Vueling Airlines and Clickair have started cross-selling seats online on all domestic and international flights as the first step in a joint marketing initiative launched by the merging Spanish LCCs.
IATA said the global airline industry lost up to $8 billion in 2008, $3 billion higher than its previous estimates, stating that a "larger than expected" $4 billion fourth-quarter loss owing to the recession and fuel hedging losses weighed down full-year results.
Transaero Airlines launched twice-weekly Moscow Domodedovo-Magadan service Sunday aboard a Tu-214. DME-Kazan flights begin March 30. Ryanair yesterday relaunched its daily London Stansted-Newquay Cornwall service. Etihad Airways will operate thrice-weekly Abu Dhabi-Larnaca flights beginning in June aboard an A320. Spirit Airlines launched daily Fort Lauderdale-Medellin flights aboard an A319.
Virgin America is denying adamantly that it is in danger of losing the financial support of its US-based investors and claims that it may be profitable by year end. The airline is majority owned and operated by US investment groups Black Canyon Capital of Los Angeles and Cyrus Capital Partners of New York, which are rumored to be preparing to divest their stakes. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin brand, maintains a 25% share.
AVIC is expected to launch an aero engine company, airborne systems company and composite material engineering center in conjunction with the Beijing municipal government. According to the strategic cooperation agreement signed yesterday, the three new companies will have total registered capital of CNY11.5 billion ($1.68 billion), with total investment of CNY21 billion.
Southwest Airlines announced a tentative three-year labor agreement with the Transport Workers Union covering freight agents and ramp, operations and provisioning employees. Negotiations began in January 2008 and the contract, if approved, will run through June 30, 2011. The TWU board has submitted to deal to its 7,780 SWA employees for a ratification vote.
Southwest Airlines yesterday agreed to pay US FAA a $7.5 million fine to settle an enforcement action stemming from the carrier's operating 46 737 Classics for nine days in March 2007 after it had disclosed to the agency that the aircraft were in noncompliance with an airworthiness directive.
General Electric said it signed a definitive agreement to purchase Teleflex Inc.'s 51% share of Airfoil Technologies International-Singapore for $300 million in cash. GE and Teleflex are partners in the Singapore-based compressor airfoil overhaul facility. According to GE, ATI-Singapore started operations in 1998 servicing CF6 and CFM56 components "but has expanded to service all GE commercial aviation, marine and industrial engines, as well as Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell components." Its 535 employees repair more than 2 million compressor airfoils annually.
Thomson Airways, the new name of the merged Thomsonfly and First Choice Airways ( ATWOnline, June 17, 2008), and the British Airline Pilots Assn. reached an agreement in advance of the May combination that will see 11 aircraft removed from the fleet. None of the 96 surplus pilots will be laid off. All Thomson pilots will take pay cuts of up to 5%, receive extra days off and be eligible for voluntary redundancy.
SITA and Swissport announced deployment of the world's first common-use bag-drop solution at Zurich, allowing passengers from multiple airlines to use the same queue. Eleven Star Alliance carriers will use 10 common-use counters at the airport, where the departure control system will employ SITA's PassengerBagdrop software. Star Manager-Product and Services Anita Elste said the common-use bag drops have helped reduce processing time to under 30 sec. per passenger.
Carpatair Saab 2000 safely executed an emergency landing Saturday in Timisoara, where the aircraft touched down on a 200-m. bed of foam after a nose gear malfunction. The aircraft, en route from Chisinau, circled above the airport for nearly 2 hr. to spend fuel before landing. None of the 47 passengers or four crew onboard was injured. The pilots discovered the landing gear problem some 6 mi. from the airport, the Associated Press reported. Carpatair, based in Timisoara, operates 14 Saab 2000s and three F100s to 30 destinations.
DAE Capital, the aircraft leasing arm of Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, signed an operating lease agreement with Garuda Indonesia for eight 737-800s. The deal is a sale-and-leaseback transaction covering aircraft scheduled to begin delivery in June. The eight -800s covered in the contract are the first of 50 737NGs (25 firm plus 25 options) that Garuda ordered at last year's Singapore Air Show ( ATWOnline, Feb. 20, 2008).
BOC Aviation finalized a sale-and-leaseback deal with Virgin Blue for one 737-800 delivered late last year and -800s scheduled for delivery in the 2009 fourth quarter. Aircraft will be leased for an average of 10 years each. BOCA has a portfolio of 104 aircraft and has 70 more on firm order for delivery through 2013.
Thai Airways reported a THB21.38 billion ($592.1 million) loss in 2008 compared to a THB4.43 billion profit in 2007 as the economic downturn and the protest-induced closure of Bangkok Suvarnabhumi in the fourth quarter proved too much to overcome. Thai suffered a THB14.8 billion fourth-quarter loss that represented a reversal from a THB1.84 billion profit in the final three months of 2007 ( ATWOnline, Dec. 5, 2008).
While noting that last year was "one of the most difficult in recent memory," Iberia Group still managed to achieve its 13th consecutive full-year profit with net earnings of €32 million ($40.8 million), down 90.2% from the €328 million reported in 2007.
Aeroflot transported 635,900 passengers in January, up 0.3% from the year-ago month. Traffic climbed 2.6% to 1.97 billion RPKs and load factor slipped 1.4 points to 62.5%.
