LAN Airlines' impending fleet upgrade, for which it approved a capital increase this week ( ATWOnline, March 8), reportedly will comprise four 777-200Fs, six 767-300s with an option to convert those to 787s, six A340-300s and 15 A320 family aircraft. The latter constitute option conversions. A formal announcement is expected shortly.
CAE announced the sale of its first three 787 full-flight simulators, two to Qantas and one to China Eastern Airlines subsidiary Shanghai Eastern Flight Training. It also sold a 737-800 FFS to KLM. The four orders are worth a combined C$67 million ($56.9 million), CAE said. The airlines will take delivery next year.
AirTran Holdings extended the deadline on its offer to Midwest Air Group shareholders in hopes the two sides will reach a deal. The $345 million stock and cash exchange offer was due to expire yesterday but was pushed back to April 11. Meanwhile, AirTran continues its campaign to win over Midwest shareholders and has nominated three candidates for Midwest's board, none of whom are connected to either airline but who have experience in "corporate business issues," Senior VP, General Counsel and Secretary Richard Magurno told ATWOnline.
Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Philip Chen will step down effective July 1 to lead Swire Pacific's China investment strategy as chairman of John Swire & Sons (China), Swire and CX announced yesterday. Chen will be replaced as CEO by COO Tony Tyler, who has been with the airline since 1978. Chen will remain on the board as nonexecutive deputy chairman. "The appointments open up new horizons for me to help drive the group forward in areas that hold the greatest potential," he said. Swire Pacific Executive Director and Swire Beverages MD John Slosar will succeed Tyler as COO.
DayJet yesterday announced the receipt of $50 million in capital resulting from the completion of its third round of private equity financing. The company said the money will allow it to launch its delayed on-demand VLJ service, to be based in Florida, in the second quarter ( ATWOnline, June 15, 2006).
Accommodations Plus International of New York signed a multiyear deal with JetBlue Airways to provide hotel accommodations and services for crewmembers. API also will furnish an integrated crew management system transferring crew information from the airline to hotel and transportation partners.
British Airways said at its Investor Day yesterday that the impact of August's terror alert, fog, baggage belt failures at London Heathrow and January's planned cabin crew strike will cost it £200 million ($385.1 million). CFO Keith Williams also revealed that the sale of BA Connect to Flybe ( ATWOnline, March 6) will cost the carrier an additional £130 million, including £96 million in cash paid to Flybe.
JetBlue Airways yesterday named Russell Chew COO effective March 19. Formerly COO at US FAA and before that MD at American Airlines, Chew had been named executive VP-operations at Hawaiian Airlines less than a month ago ( ATWOnline, Feb. 13).
GE Aviation signed a five-year OnPoint Solutions maintenance agreement with North American Airlines covering CF6-80C2s powering five 737-300ERs. Deal is valued at more than $20 million.
First Choice Airways of the UK exercised options for four 787-8s yesterday, bringing its commitment to 12 ( ATWOnline, Dec. 8, 2006) and making it the type's largest European customer. "The success of our long-haul program with our upgraded Boeing 767s has given us the confidence to order 12 Boeing 787s," First Choice MD Dermot Blastland said. It selected GEnx engines for the order, which will double the size of its long-haul fleet by 2013.
Copa Holdings, parent of Copa Airlines and AeroRepublica, said it posted record net income of $134.2 million in 2006, up 61.7% from $83 million the prior year, on a 39.9% jump in revenue to $851.2 million. "We continue to see solid economic growth in the region and we continue to see solid passenger growth," CFO Victor Vial said. Fourth-quarter net income was $41.8 million, more than double the $17.7 million earned in the year-ago quarter. Full-year operating income jumped 51.8% to $166.9 million from $109.2 million in 2005.
LAN Airlines' board approved a capital increase of 22.1 million ordinary shares this week, replacing the increase of 7.5 million shares approved in January ( ATWOnline, Jan. 4). Proceeds will help finance LAN's fleet expansion, comprising five unidentified long-haul aircraft, four freighters and 15 A320 family aircraft scheduled for delivery through 2011.
Cathay Pacific Airways continued to consolidate its position in Asia last year by purchasing low-cost rival Dragonair, firming up its relationship with Air China and posting a profit attributable to shareholders of HK$4.09 billion ($523.4 million), an increase of 24% over earnings of HK$3.3 billion in 2005. The airline said it was able to limit the impact of a 29.7% increase in fuel costs with a 19.4% rise in revenue to HK$60.78 billion, fuel surcharges, a slight lift in yield and a 1.3% drop in cost per ATK excluding fuel to HK$1.53 (excluding Dragonair).
Indonesia's air safety record was under intense scrutiny yesterday following a second fatal 737-400 accident in 10 weeks, this one involving a Garuda Indonesia aircraft that skidded off a runway upon landing in Yogyakarta and caught fire in an adjacent rice field, killing 21 of 133 passengers and one of seven crewmembers.
Continental Airlines will launch daily Newark-Mumbai flights Oct. 30 aboard two-class 777-200s. BOM will be CO's second Indian destination following Delhi. CO will launch daily Newark-Athens flights June 7 aboard 174-seat, two-class 767-200ERs. Service will be five-times-weekly in April, May, September and October and thrice-weekly from November through March. Finnair will launch daily Helsinki-Osaka service at the end of May on MD-11s and add a fourth weekly A340 flight to Nagoya from mid-June.
General Electric has ruled out a variant of the Engine Alliance GP7000 powerplant, which powers the A380, for the A350 XWB-1000. A GE spokesperson told ATWOnline yesterday that "it is not being considered." The engine, a joint venture of GE and Pratt & Whitney, is currently offered only on the A380. The XWB-1000 is to be powered by a Trent 1000 at 95,000 lb. thrust. There had been brief discussions between GE and Airbus on a possible 105,000-lb. GEnx derivative but those talks lapsed.
Bmi is reconfiguring and expanding its regional and medium-haul operations following its acquisition of British Airways franchise partner BMED and BA's sale of BA Connect to Flybe, which was finalized Monday. Tuesday bmi unveiled its plans for BMED, in which it acquired a 99% stake last month through a £30 million ($57.8 million) share subscription ( ATWOnline, Feb. 5). "To achieve this kind of growth without the acquisition and integration of BMED could take years to achieve," bmi CEO Nigel Turner said.
Air France KLM flew 14.41 billion RPKs in February, up 3.5% from the year-ago month. Capacity rose 1.9% to 18.28 billion ASKs, lifting load factor 1.2 points to 78.9%. US Airways Group flew 4.51 billion RPMs in February, up 1.9% from the year-ago month. Capacity rose 0.9% to 5.92 billion ASMs and load factor improved 0.7 point to 76.3%.
Singapore Technologies Aerospace and Boeing announced that ST Aero's ST Aviation Services Co. was selected to perform "certain passenger-to-freighter conversions" under the 767-300 Boeing Converted Freighter program, with ANA as its first customer. ANA launched the 767-300BCF program in 2005. SASCO will perform conversions on five firm aircraft with two options. The initial ANA commitment was for three firm and four options. SASCO is the second conversion center chosen by Boeing for the 767-300 after Aeronavali of Italy.
JetBlue Airways will remove each of its 26 E-190s from service for up to three days through the end of April to fix a software glitch affecting a variety of systems onboard the aircraft. In order to avoid delaying or canceling flights, it will contract ExpressJet Airlines to operate four 50-seat E-145s on affected routes. A JetBlue spokesperson told ATWOnline that the airline will inform passengers and that no more than two daily lines of E-190 flying out of 120 will be affected.
South African National Assembly voted last week to take direct control of South African Airways, removing the carrier from the Transnet group of companies, as a step toward eventual privatization, the South African Press Assn. reported. "It makes it possible for SAA to rely on its own balance sheet to raise funds for its operations, instead of always relying on the government," Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said.
Emirates will lease five 777-300ERs from GECAS to bridge the gap created by the A380 delay. Delivery is scheduled for the second half of next year. EK operates 23 of the type and has firm commitments for 36, including this week's order.
Air Canada will begin taking delivery next month of eight 777s coming this year and plans to use them to launch daily Vancouver-Sydney flights on Dec. 14, the first nonstop service between Canada and Australia. Air New Zealand will codeshare. A 270-seat 777-200LR will replace the -300ER from Feb 1. AC said it suspended plans to fly to Australia via Los Angeles. It will introduce the 777 on its Toronto-London Heathrow service in April. Subsequent introductions will be on YYZ-Frankfurt and YYZ-Tokyo Narita in June, YVR-NRT in July and YYZ-Hong Kong in August. It has 18 777s on order.
ANA accelerated its fleet rationalization program ( ATWOnline, July 13, 2006) with an order for four more 777-300ERs announced yesterday and the sale of three 747-400s to Oasis Growth Income and Investments for operation by Oasis Hong Kong Airlines. The 777s are worth $1 billion at list prices. ANA operates eight 777-300ERs and the new order brings its commitment for the type to 17. It operates 23 747-400s. It sold six to Iceland's Avion Aircraft Trading last summer.
The A$11.1 billion ($8.61 billion) sale of Qantas to Airline Partners Australia took a giant stride forward yesterday when Australian Treasurer Peter Costello announced that the government has no objections to the sale ( ATWOnline, March 2) and that the Foreign Investment Review Board examined and approved the bid, which now is before QF shareholders.
