OSLO (Reuters) – Norwegian Air will lease planes and postpone the sale of older models in its fleet following the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, the airline said on Monday.
The budget carrier will also use some of its bigger Boeing 787 Dreamliners to offset the effects of the grounding of its 18 MAX jets – about 11 percent of its fleet.
The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide this month following a deadly crash in Ethiopia.
“In addition to continuing combining flights and reallocating aircraft, the company has decided to delay potential sales of six Boeing 737-800 aircraft and use available 787 Dreamliner capacity on high-volume routes, which will add flexibility,” Norwegian said in a statement.
“The company is further preparing to wetlease aircraft to fill the remaining capacity gap,” it added, referring to the industry practice of renting fully-staffed aircraft for a period of time.
Norwegian said earlier this month it would seek compensation from Boeing for costs resulting from the grounding of the global MAX fleet.
“The company has a good dialogue with Boeing and is confident of reaching a constructive agreement,” Norwegian said, without elaborating.
Norwegian Air CEO repeats plan to turn profitable in 2019
Norwegian Air aims to turn profitable this year, its chief executive said on Monday, reiterating plans to turn around the situation at the loss-making budget airline.
“We aim to become profitable in 2019,” Bjoern Kjos told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. “We’re managing well as an independent company.”
SINGAPORE/ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Boeing Co said it invited more than 200 airline pilots, technical leaders and regulators for an information session on Wednesday as it looks to return the 737 MAX to commercial service.
The meeting is a sign that Boeing’s planned software patch is nearing completion, though it will still need regulatory approval.
Over the weekend, Ethiopian Airlines executives had questioned whether Boeing had told pilots enough about “aggressive” software that pushes the plane’s nose down, a focus of investigation into a deadly crash in Ethiopia this month that led to the global grounding of 737 MAX jets.
The informational session in Renton, Washington on Wednesday is part of a plan to reach all current and many future 737 MAX operators and their home regulators to discuss software and training updates to the jet, Boeing said in a statement.
Garuda Indonesia, which on Friday said it planned to cancel its order for 49 737 MAX jets citing a loss of passenger trust after the crashes, was invited to the briefing, CEO Ari Askhara told Reuters on Monday.
“We were informed on Friday, but because it is short notice we can’t send a pilot there,” he said, adding the airline had requested a webinar with Boeing but that idea had been rejected.
A Boeing spokeswoman said the Wednesday event was one of a series of in-person information sessions.
“We have been scheduling and will continue to arrange additional meetings to communicate with all current and many future MAX customers and operators,” she said.
Garuda has only one 737 MAX and had been reconsidering its order before the Ethiopian crash, as has fellow Indonesian carrier Lion Air, which experienced a deadly crash in October.
Singapore Airlines Ltd said on Monday its offshoot SilkAir, which operates the 737 MAX, had received the invitation to the Wednesday event and would send representatives.
Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, which before the grounding had been due to receive its first 737 MAX in April, said it planned to send pilots to Renton.
The 737 MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with orders worth more than $500 billion at list prices.
Teams from the three U.S. airlines that own 737 MAX jets participated in a session in Renton reviewing a planned software upgrade on Saturday.
A U.S. official briefed on the matter Saturday said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not yet signed off on the software upgrade and training but the goal is to review them in coming weeks and approve them by April.
It remained unclear whether the software upgrade, called “design changes” by the FAA, will resolve concerns stemming from the ongoing investigation into the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash, which killed all 157 on board.
“After the crash it came to our attention that the system is aggressive,” Yohannes Hailemariam, vice president for flight operations at Ethiopian, told local reporters speaking in the Amharic language.
“It gives a message of stalling and it takes immediate action which is faster than the action which pilots were briefed to take by Boeing,” said Yohannes, himself a pilot with over 30 years of experience, including flying Boeing’s 777 and 787.
The U.S. official said planned changes included 15 minutes of training to help pilots deactivate the anti-stall system known as MCAS in the event of faulty sensor data or other issues. It also included some self-guided instruction, the official added.
American Airlines said Sunday it will extend flight cancellations through April 24 because of the grounding of the 737 MAX and cut some additional flights.
(Reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore and Jason Neely in Addis Ababa; additional reporting by Cindy Silviana in Jakarta, Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Michael Perry)
JAKARTA/OSLO
(Reuters) – Indonesian airline Garuda plans to cancel a $6 billion
order for Boeing 737 MAX jets, it said on Friday, saying some passengers
would be frightened to board the plane after two fatal crashes,
although analysts said the deal had long been in doubt.
The
news came as another 737 MAX customer, Norwegian Air, played down the
significance of a move by Boeing to make a previously optional cockpit
warning light compulsory.
Norwegian
said that, according to Boeing, the warning light would not have been
able to prevent erroneous signals that Lion Air pilots received before
their new 737 MAX plane crashed off Indonesia in October, killing 189
people.
Indonesia’s
national carrier Garuda is the first airline to publicly announce plans
to scrap an order since the world’s entire fleet of 737 MAX planes was
grounded last week, following an Ethiopian Airlines crash that left 157
people dead.
“Many passengers told us they were afraid to get on a MAX 8,” Garuda CEO Ari Askhara told Reuters on Friday.
However,
the airline had been reconsidering its order for 49 of the narrowbody
jets prior to the Ethiopian crash, including potentially swapping some
for widebody Boeing models.
Southeast
Asia faces a glut of narrowbody aircraft like the 737 MAX and rival
Airbus A320neo at a time of slowing global economic growth and high fuel
costs.
“They
have been re-looking at their fleet plan anyway so this is an
opportunity to make some changes that otherwise may be difficult to do,”
CAPA Centre for Aviation Chief Analyst Brendan Sobie said.
Indonesia’s
Lion Air has also said it might cancel 737 MAX aircraft, though
industry sources say it is also struggling to absorb the number of
planes on order.
Both
crashes are still being investigated. But regulators have noted some
similarities between the two, and attention has focused on whether
pilots had the correct information about the “angle of attack” at which
the wing slices through the air.
No direct link has been proven between the accidents.
RETROFITS
Boeing
now plans to make compulsory a light to alert pilots when sensor
readings of the angle of attack do not match – meaning at least one must
be wrong -, according to two officials briefed on the matter.
Investigators
suspect a faulty angle-of-attack reading led the doomed Lion Air jet’s
computer to believe it had stalled, prompting the plane’s anti-stall
system, called MCAS, repeatedly to push the plane’s nose down.
The
Lion Air plane did not have the warning light installed because it was
not compulsory. Ethiopian Airlines did not immediately comment on
whether its crashed plane had the alert.
But
the Ethiopian carrier, whose reputation along with Boeing’s is at
stake, issued a statement on Friday emphasising the modernity of its
safety and training systems, with more than $500 million invested in
infrastructure in the past five years.
The
Ethiopian crash has set off one of the widest inquiries in aviation
history and cast a shadow over the Boeing 737 MAX model intended to be a
standard for decades.
Boeing
did not comment on the plan to make the safety feature standard, but
separately said it was moving quickly to make software changes and
expected the upgrade to be approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) in coming weeks.
Chicago-based Boeing will also retrofit older planes with the cockpit warning light, the officials told Reuters.
Experts
said it could take weeks or months to be done, and for regulators to
review and approve the changes. Regulators in Europe and Canada have
said they will conduct their own reviews of any new systems.
Norwegian
said its 18 737 MAX jets did not have the cockpit warning light, but it
would follow any recommendations made by Boeing and aviation
regulations. The airline said last week it would seek compensation from
Boeing for the cost of grounding its 737 MAX planes, which makes up 11
percent of its fleet.
Since the Ethiopian crash, Boeing shares have fallen 12 percent and $28 billion has been wiped off its market value.
Pressure
has mounted on the company from U.S. legislators, who are also expected
to question the FAA. The company faces a criminal investigation by the
U.S. Justice Department as well.
Several
lawsuits have already been filed on behalf of victims of the Lion Air
crash referring to the Ethiopian accident. Boeing declined to comment on
the lawsuits.
( By Cindy Silviana and Terje Solsvik, Additional reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore, Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta, Maggie Fick and Jason Neely in Addis Ababa, Tim Hepher in Paris, and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh, Georgina Prodhan and Ben Klayman; Editing by Mark Potter)
NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s SpiceJet Ltd could benefit from cash-strapped Jet Airways being forced to ground planes, and the low-cost carrier is in talks with lessors to lease some of those aircraft, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Shares of SpiceJet rose as much as 7.2 percent on Wednesday in their biggest percentage gain since Dec. 18 as investors bet the airline could take advantage of Jet Airways’ woes.
SpiceJet last week was forced to ground its 12 Boeing Co 737 MAX 8 planes by India’s aviation watchdog, following safety concerns after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that killed 157 people.
SpiceJet and Jet Airways are the only carriers in India that operate this type of aircraft and have a total of about 400 on order. The airlines also operate the previous model, the 737-800 among other Boeing planes.
The 737-800 makes up the majority of the Jet Airways fleet, and the airline is now operating only 41 aircraft, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said on Tuesday.
That means around two-thirds of its fleet is grounded for non-payment to lessors, maintenance or other reasons.
“Lessors are panicking as they haven’t been paid and if Jet goes for insolvency, their planes will be stuck in India, so many of them are chasing SpiceJet,” said the person quoted earlier.
The person said SpiceJet needs at least twelve 737s to cover the grounded MAX planes and it is negotiating for more. Jet Airways pilots are also queuing up to join the budget airline.
Jet Airways’ lessors have offered 50 aircraft to SpiceJet, according to a report by news wire IANS.
SpiceJet and Jet Airways did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jet Airways shares dropped about 7 percent on Wednesday as its financial crisis deepened, with the Indian government calling for an emergency meeting and pilots threatening to go on strike over unpaid salaries.
The government has asked state-run banks to rescue Jet Airways without pushing it into bankruptcy, two people within the administration have told Reuters, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to avert thousands of job losses weeks before a general election.
The 25-year-old airline has defaulted on loans after racking up over $1 billion in debt, and owes money to banks, suppliers, pilots and lessors – some of whom have started terminating their lease deals with the carrier.
This has forced Jet Airways to cancel hundreds of flights, leaving passengers stranded and angry. The number of Jet Airways flights has fallen by 80 percent from a year ago, according to the DGCA.
(By Aditi Shah and Tanvi Mehta, Additional reporting by Arnab Paul in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Shreejay Sinha)
FILE PHOTO: A Jet Airways passenger aircraft takes off from the airport in Ahmedabad, August 12, 2013. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
We know lives depend on the work we do, and our teams embrace that responsibility with a deep sense of commitment every day. Our purpose at Boeing is to bring family, friends and loved ones together with our commercial airplanes—safely. The tragic losses of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 affect us all, uniting people and nations in shared grief for all those in mourning. Our hearts are heavy, and we continue to extend our deepest sympathies to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board.
Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing, and ensuring safe and
reliable travel on our airplanes is an enduring value and our absolute
commitment to everyone. This overarching focus on safety spans and
binds together our entire global aerospace industry and communities.
We’re united with our airline customers, international regulators and
government authorities in our efforts to support the most recent
investigation, understand the facts of what happened and help prevent
future tragedies. Based on facts from the Lion Air Flight 610 accident
and emerging data as it becomes available from the Ethiopian Airlines
Flight 302 accident, we’re taking actions to fully ensure the safety of
the 737 MAX. We also understand and regret the challenges for our
customers and the flying public caused by the fleet’s grounding.
Work is progressing thoroughly and rapidly to learn more about the
Ethiopian Airlines accident and understand the information from the
airplane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders. Our team is on-site
with investigators to support the investigation and provide technical
expertise. The Ethiopia Accident Investigation Bureau will determine
when and how it’s appropriate to release additional details.
Boeing has been in the business of aviation safety for more than 100
years, and we’ll continue providing the best products, training and
support to our global airline customers and pilots. This is an ongoing
and relentless commitment to make safe airplanes even safer. Soon we’ll
release a software update and related pilot training for the 737 MAX
that will address concerns discovered in the aftermath of the Lion Air
Flight 610 accident. We’ve been working in full cooperation with the
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Transportation
and the National Transportation Safety Board on all issues relating to
both the Lion Air and the Ethiopian Airlines accidents since the Lion
Air accident occurred in October last year.
Our entire team is devoted to the quality and safety of the aircraft
we design, produce and support. I’ve dedicated my entire career to
Boeing, working shoulder to shoulder with our amazing people and
customers for more than three decades, and I personally share their
deep sense of commitment. Recently, I spent time with our team members
at our 737 production facility in Renton, Wash., and once again saw
firsthand the pride our people feel in their work and the pain we’re
all experiencing in light of these tragedies. The importance of our work
demands the utmost integrity and excellence—that’s what I see in our
team, and we’ll never rest in pursuit of it.
Our mission is to connect people and nations, protect freedom,
explore our world and the vastness of space, and inspire the next
generation of aerospace dreamers and doers—and we’ll fulfill that
mission only by upholding and living our values. That’s what safety
means to us. Together, we’ll keep working to earn and keep the trust
people have placed in Boeing.
Dennis Muilenburg Chairman, President and CEO The Boeing Company
NAIROBI (Reuters) – There are encouraging signs that European planemaker Airbus is closing in on a long-negotiated deal with China for dozens of new narrow-body jets, an aide to French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.
The official said there were hopes Airbus would nail down the multibillion-dollar order when President Xi Jinping visits Europe later this month, but acknowledged there would unlikely be confirmation until the eleventh hour.
“The talks are ongoing,” the official said. “It will be difficult to know for sure until the day before, but the signs are positive.”
China has become a key hunting ground for Airbus and its leading rival Boeing, thanks to surging travel demand, but the outlook has been complicated by Beijing’s desire to grow its own industrial champions and, more recently for Boeing, the U.S.-China trade war.
Macron unexpectedly failed to clinch the Airbus order during a trip to China in early 2018 and the French government and Airbus have been working since to salvage it.
Macron said at the time that China would buy 184 A320 narrow-body jets, an order worth $18 billion at list prices.
The Elysee Palace official also said Airbus was discussing a new order with Ethiopian Airlines. The official gave no details on the size of the potential new Ethiopian order but cited the long-range A350, a model which Ethiopian already operates, and the single-aisle A320 jet as aircraft of interest to the airline.
Macron and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed discussed the negotiations during Macron’s visit to Addis Ababa on Tuesday, two days after an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed after taking off, killing all 157 people on board.
Industry analysts played down a possible link between any current negotiations and Sunday’s crash. Ethiopian has been undertaking a major fleet expansion and regularly talks to the market, they said, adding that order talks take time.
(Reporting by John Irish; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Mark Potter)
BUCHAREST, March 14 (Reuters) – Romania’s Blue Air will make a decision on its order for 12 Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets only after an investigation into a fatal crash of one of the planes in Ethiopia at the weekend, CEO Marius Puiu told Reuters.
Puiu said his company was “monitoring the situation very carefully.”
“We
trust the world-wide precautionary suspension of flights, a decision
that puts civil aviation transport safety first,” said Puiu, adding the
first 737 MAX 8 plane was planned to arrive in Romania this summer.
“We
are in permanent contact with the manufacturer, with EASA (the European
Union’s aviation safety regulator) and the Romanian civil aeronautical
authority,” he said.
Currently, Blue Air operates 25 Boeing 737 series aircraft – 737-300, 737-400, 737-500, 737-700 and 737-800, with capacities ranging from 120 to 189 seats.
(Reporting by Radu Marinas; Editing by Mark Potter)
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday grounded Boeing Co’s 737 MAX
jets, citing new satellite data and evidence from the scene of Sunday’s
crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that killed 157 people, the second
disaster involving the 737 in less than five months.
It
was the second time the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has halted
flights of a Boeing plane in six years. It had grounded the 787
Dreamliner in 2013 because of problems with smoking batteries.
Shares
of the world’s biggest plane maker, which were up earlier in the
session, fell 2 percent to $370.48. The shares have fallen about 13
percent since Sunday’s crash, losing about $32 billion of market value.
Shares of Southwest Airlines Co, which has the largest fleet of 737 MAX aircraft, fell 0.4 percent.
“The
agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and
new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today,” the FAA said in
a statement, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the
planes would be grounded.
“This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision.”
The grounding will remain in effect as the FAA investigates.
Boeing, which maintained that its planes were safe to fly, said it supported the move to temporarily ground 737 MAX flights.
The
United States joins Europe, China and other countries in grounding
Boeing’s newest plane since the Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed soon
after taking off from Addis Ababa.
The
still-unexplained crash followed another involving a Boeing 737 MAX in
Indonesia five months ago that killed 189 people. Although there is no
proof of any link, the twin disasters have spooked passengers.
The grounding was welcomed by air workers in the United States.
“He
(Trump) did the right thing by grounding this fleet, both for air
travelers and aviation workers,” John Samuelsen, international president
of the Transport Workers Union of America, which represent aviation
workers and flight attendants, told Reuters shortly after the
announcement.
“Our
members are excited, and are no longer concerned about stepping into a
workplace which could lead to the end of their lives, potentially.”
NEW SATELLITE DATA
Canada
also grounded 737 MAX jets on Wednesday, saying satellite data
suggested similarities to the previous crash involving the same plane
model in October.
U.S.-based
aircraft-tracking firm Aireon provided the satellite data to the FAA,
Transport Canada and several other authorities, company spokeswoman
Jessie Hillenbrand said.
Aireon’s
space-based system can monitor data from aircraft equipped with
Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) transponders. The
data is considered less detailed than that in black boxes, which look at
systems running inside the plane.
Earlier
on Wednesday, Germany’s federal agency responsible for investigating
air accidents said it would not analyze the black box from the Ethiopian
Airlines plane, casting uncertainty over the process of finding out
what may have caused the disaster. The U.S. FAA said the black boxes
were headed to France later on Wednesday.
Ethiopian
Airlines spokesman Asrat Begashaw said it was still unclear what
happened on Sunday, but its pilot had reported control issues as opposed
to external factors such as birds.
“The pilot reported flight control problems and requested to turn back. In fact he was allowed to turn back,” he said.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, Kumerra Gemechu in Gora-Bokka, Ethiopia, David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Doina Chiacu in Washington, Omar Mohammed and Maggie Fick in Nairobi; Tim Hepher in Paris; Jamie Freed in Singapore; Terje Solsvik in Oslo; Aditi Shah in Mumbai; Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Angela Moon in New York; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne, Frances Kerry and Bill; Rigby; Editing by Gareth Jones, Nick Zieminski and Grant McCool)
* Norwegian cancels some flights after grounding MAX 8 aircraft
* Airline says it maintains outstanding order for more planes
* Ethiopian crash was second involving MAX 8 since October
* Boeing has expressed confidence in safety of its plane
* Analyst sees limited short-term impact for Norwegian (Adds statement on Dublin-New York replacement aircraft)
OSLO, March 13 (Reuters) – Norwegian Air said on Wednesday it will seek compensation from plane maker Boeing for costs and lost revenue after grounding its fleet of 737 MAX 8 aircraft in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
“We expect Boeing to take this bill,” Norwegian said in an emailed statement.
The
Oslo-based airline has 18 ‘MAX’ passenger jets in its 163-aircraft
fleet. European regulators on Tuesday grounded the aircraft following
Sunday’s crash of a similar plane in Ethiopia, which killed 157 people
and was the second crash involving that type of plane since October.
Boeing
Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said on Monday that he was confident
in the safety of the 737 MAX in an email to employees, which was seen by
Reuters.
Industry sources, however, said the planemaker faces big claims after the crash.
Norwegian
has bet heavily on the ‘MAX’ to become its aircraft of choice for
short- and medium-range flights in coming years as the low-cost carrier
seeks to boost its fuel efficiency and cut the cost of flying.
“What
happens next is in the hands of European aviation authorities. But we
hope and expect that our MAXes will be airborne soon,” Norwegian Air’s
founder and Chief Executive Bjoern Kjos said in a video recording
released on social media.
“Many
have asked questions about how this affects our financial situation.
It’s quite obvious that we will not take the cost related to the new
aircraft that we have to park temporarily. We will send this bill to
those who produce this aircraft,” he added.
Idle
planes will add to pressures on the airline, which is making losses
amid intense competition at a time when several smaller European
competitors have gone out of business.
The
carrier has raised 3 billion Norwegian crowns ($348 million) from
shareholders in recent months and said it would cut costs as it tries to
regain profitability this year.
“If
this situation gets solved within the next fortnight, this will not be
very serious for Norwegian,” said analyst Preben Rasch-Olsen at
brokerage Carnegie, adding that seasonally low demand in March likely
leaves spare capacity.
“The little extra costs they are incurring, they can probably get that covered by Boeing,” Rasch-Olsen said.
“But
if this situation continues into the Easter holidays, or May and June,
then it is a problem. They (will) need to get in new planes. And then
comes the costs.”
Europeans
tend to book their summer holidays in May, so the grounding may not yet
affect bookings for the peak season for the airline industry, the
analyst said.
Meanwhile,
Norwegian was maintaining its order for more aircraft of the same type
from Boeing, spokesman Lasse Sandaker-Nielsen said.
Norwegian
is expected to take delivery of dozens more of the ‘MAX’ in coming
years, raising the overall number to more than 70 by year-end 2021,
according to recent company announcements.
Shares in the airline have now dropped 6.8 percent this week as investors worried about the impact of the Ethiopian crash.
They fell by 4.8 percent in early trade on Wednesday but later recovered to trade up 2.7 percent by 1246 GMT.
Norwegian
cancelled some flights on Tuesday, and on Wednesday it cancelled at
least three dozen departures, its website showed, most of which were due
to fly from airports in Oslo, Stockholm and other Nordic cities.
The airline was booking passengers on to other flights and using other types of planes from its fleet to help fill the gaps.
In
a separate statement, Norwegian said it would deploy one of its larger
Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft to operate its daily route from Dublin to
Stewart airport north of New York City, replacing the grounded MAX.
($1 = 8.6093 Norwegian crowns)
(By Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche. Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; Editing by Susan Fenton and Louise Heavens)
(Reuters) – Boeing Co said late Sunday it will postpone the planned ceremonial debut of its 777X widebody aircraft after Sunday’s crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that left 157 dead.
A Boeing spokesman said there was no delay to the 777X program.
Boeing said that after the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 it is focused on “supporting” the airline and would not proceed with Wednesday’s planned debut of the 777X in Seattle.
“We will look for an opportunity to mark the new plane with the world in the near future,” the company said.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Tim Hepher; Editing by Marguerita Choy & Kim Coghill)
