The G-EUPH British Airways Airbus A319-131 makes its final approach for landing at Toulouse-Blagnac airport, France, March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/Files
(Reuters)
– IAG said on Monday British Airways’ finance chief Steve Gunning will
replace company veteran and chief financial officer Enrique Dupuy de
Lôme, who steps down after more than eight years in the role.
Gunning,
who joined British Airways in 1998 and has been its CFO since January
2016, will take over from de Lôme at IAG’s annual general meeting in
June, the company said.
“After
eight years as CFO of IAG and prior to that, 20 years as CFO of Iberia,
I believe now is the right time for me to leave IAG,” de Lôme said.
IAG did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reason for de Lome’s departure.
Gunning takes the role as the airline industry braces for a potential hit from Britain’s impending exit from the European Union.
Shares of IAG jumped to session highs after the announcement and were last up 1.1 percent at 548.4 pence on London’s main index.
(Reporting by Shashwat Awasthi and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr)
DUBAI
(Reuters) – State-owned Qatar Airways on Thursday dismissed concerns
its 49 percent stake in Air Italy breaches a 2018 aviation agreement
between the United States and Qatar, designed to address U.S. concerns
that Gulf airlines had an unfair competitive advantage.
The
U.S is “looking very closely” at the deal after Republicans and
Democrats said on Wednesday they were concerned it violated the
agreement.
Qatar
Airways bought a stake in Italian airline Meridiana in 2017, rebranded
it Air Italy and transformed it into a carrier with five announced
non-stop U.S. destinations from Milan.
Qatar
Airways said the stake was “fully compliant” with the 2018 U.S.-Qatar
Understandings, an additional pact that accompanied the U.S-Qatar Open
Skies agreement.
Since 2015 the largest U.S carriers – Delta Air Lines, American Airlines Group and United Airlines – have argued their Gulf rivals are being unfairly subsidized by their governments, distorting competition.
Gulf
airlines have always denied those accusations and last year separate
voluntary agreements were reached between the U.S. and Qatar, and the
U.S. and the United Arab Emirates to address the concerns. Measures
included the airlines not adding new flights to the U.S.
However,
Air Italy has been flying to New York and Miami since June last year
and was due to start serving San Francisco and Los Angeles from this
month and Chicago in May.
Qatar
Airways said in a statement its investment in Air Italy, which closed
in September 2017, preceded the 2018 agreement but complied with it.
It
said its investments in other airlines were not raised as a point of
concern during the discussions that led to the 2018 agreement and that
the deal does not mention or prohibit cross-border investments.
Qatar Airways also said it did not codeshare on Air Italy’s flights to the U.S. and has no plans to do so.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
(Reuters)
– Virgin Atlantic on Wednesday reported an annual pretax loss for the
second consecutive year, hit by a shaky economy, the higher costs of
fuel generated by a weaker British pound and problems with Rolls Royce’s
Trent engines.
The
airline, the 1980s brainchild of British billionaire Richard Branson,
fell back into the red in 2017 after three years of profits, as
competition intensified and the weakening of the pound added to already
rising fuel costs.
Best
known in Europe for the trans-Atlantic planes it flies with Air
France-KLM and Delta, Virgin said its loss before tax and exceptional
items was 26.1 million pounds ($34.12 million) for the year ended Dec.
31, compared to a loss of 49 million pounds in 2017.
Total
revenue rose 5.8 percent to 2.78 billion pounds, as passenger numbers
grew just under 5 percent to 5.4 million and revenue per customer rose
1.7 percent.
The
company said performance had suffered from economic uncertainty and the
weaker pound – which increases costs because fuel is priced in dollars –
as well as the well-documented problems of the Trent 1000 engines used
on its Boeing 787 jets.
“While
a loss is disappointing, our performance has improved in 2018 despite
challenging economic conditions and put us on a trajectory for growth
and return to profitability,” Chief Executive Officer Shai Weiss said in
a statement.
Rolls-Royce
on Wednesday agreed to an early inspection of some Trent 1000 TEN
engines by regulatory authorities, a week after Singapore Airlines
grounded two Boeing 787-10 jets fitted with the units.
British
Airways owner IAG in February chose Boeing 777-9s, rather than a
competing package from Airbus in part powered by Rolls, underlining the
risks to airlines from the engine issues.
Since
then the industry has been thrown into chaos by the grounding of
Boeing’s new 737 MAX planes after a second fatal crash within six
months.
The
pound fell 5.6 percent against the U.S. dollar, in 2018 as Britain
contended with the political and economic uncertainty generated by its
negotiations on leaving the European Union.
Finance
chief Tom Mackay said that while economic factors would continue to
challenge the carrier in the year ahead, Virgin Atlantic was in a strong
cash position.
The
results are the company’s first since its acquisition of troubled
regional airline Flybe for $2.8 million earlier this year, in a joint
bid with Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital.
($1 = 0.7649 pounds)
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnamese carrier Bamboo Airways has signed a firm
deal to buy 50 Airbus A321Neo planes, its chairman Trinh Van Quyet said
on Thursday.
The first of the planes will be delivered in 2022, Quyet told Reuters.
He said Bamboo Airways will conduct its first international flights late next month, to Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; editing by David Evans)
FILE PHOTO: An Airbus A321 aircraft of Bamboo Airways taxis at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi, Vietnam January 16, 2019. REUTERS/Kham
ANA becomes Japan’s first carrier with Airbus’ double-deck jetliner and joins airlines that use A380s to serve the Tokyo Narita – Honolulu route
Japan’s All
Nippon Airways (ANA) today took delivery of its initial A380, which will
serve the popular Japan-to-Hawaii routing – and is appropriately
painted in a special livery depicting the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle,
also known as the Honu.
ANA becomes the world’s 15th operator – and Japan’s first – of this widebody passenger aircraft. It has ordered a total of three A380s.
Powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, the jetliner features ANA’s very latest in-flight entertainment systems, as well as full connectivity in all classes. It will enable the airline to almost double the capacity between Japan and the U.S. island state of Hawaii, generating value for the airline.
As the world’s largest and most spacious passenger aircraft, the A380 will be operated on ANA’s popular Japan-to-Hawaii route.
“This marks a new milestone in our relationship
with ANA – our longest-standing customer in Japan,” said Tom Enders,
Airbus Chief Executive Officer, during today’s delivery ceremony at
Toulouse, France. “We are confident the A380 will be a huge success in
service with All Nippon Airways, and we remain committed to supporting
the airline’s A380 operation – as we will for all operators of this
magnificent aircraft.”
Each of ANA’s A380s will feature the special livery depicting the
Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle. The no. 1 aircraft is blue, the second will
be green and the third orange. This elaborate paint scheme covers a
surface of 3,600 square metres and took the Airbus team 21 days to
paint, using 16 different shades of colour.
With this character design of
Honu, All Nippon Airways aims to raise awareness about environmental
issues and contribute to saving sea turtles and the environment.
Shohei Hattori, ANA Corporate Planning Manager
“Customers around the world were asked to create
an attractive design to be painted on Japan’s first A380 as part of a
contest – and the Honu, a symbol of good luck and prosperity in Hawaii,
was among the numerous ideas,” explained Shohei Hattori, the ANA
Corporate Planning Manager.
Airbus’ longstanding relationship with Japan
The relationship between Airbus and Japan’s All
Nippon Airways began in 1986, when the airline placed its first order
for 20 single-aisle A320s, the first of which entered service in 1991. Since then, ANA has operated a fleet of A320 Family
aircraft, consistently ranking among the top Airbus operators for
technical performance and achieving more than 99.5% operational
reliability with its latest A321neo fleet.
In recent years, Airbus also extended its operator base in Japan with
ANA subsidiaries Peach Aviation and Vanilla Air, both of which
exclusively fly Airbus A320 Family aircraft.
At the end of 2018, Airbus reached a milestone with 100 of its aircraft in Japanese operators’ service, representing 20% of total fleet flying in the country – with a target to reach 30% by 2020, and 50% in the long term.
As the first Japanese
customer for Airbus’ double-deck jetliner, ANA’s no. 1 A380 bears the
representation of a Hawaiian turtle – and will be part of promotions to
save sea turtles and the environment.
The unique A380 experience
More than 230 A380s have been delivered to 15
airlines worldwide, with the jetliners operated on 120-plus routes and
60 destinations.
An estimated250 million passengers already have flown aboard
the double-deck aircraft – and people actively seek out A380 flights for
the unique travel experience. To assist passengers, Airbus created a
dedicated iflyA380 website, where travellers can search and book their preferred flights – which now also include those operated by ANA.
Some 50% of weekly global A380 flights take place in Asia-Pacific –
with flights performed within the region, to or from it, demonstrating
that the jetliner offers the best solution for traffic growth in Asia.
As the world’s largest and most spacious passenger aircraft, the A380 is a favourite among travellers, with unmatched comfort and wider seats. For airlines, the jetliner has the lowest cost per seat of any competing widebody, delivering comfort and economic benefits and maximising revenue. With passenger traffic doubling every 15 years, the A380 is the solution to transportation growth and airport congestion, carrying more people with fewer flights at lower cost and reduced emissions.
As the first Japanese customer for Airbus’ double-deck jetliner, ANA’s no. 1 A380 bears the representation of a Hawaiian turtle – and will be part of promotions to save sea turtles and the environment.
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
ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Etihad Airways on Thursday reported its third consecutive annual loss despite finding cost savings of nearly half a billion dollars as it cut its workforce and fleet.
The Abu Dhabi state-owned airline blamed challenging market conditions including higher fuel prices for a $1.28 billion (965.2 million pounds) loss in 2018, narrower than the $1.52 billion it lost in 2017.
Etihad, which has trimmed its ambitions to be a major intercontinental airline to focus on point-to-point flights, has made losses of $4.75 billion since 2016.
Revenue fell nearly 4 percent to $5.86 billion last year, compared with the $6.1 billion it reported for 2017.
The airline launched a five-year turnaround strategy in 2017, the year current chief executive, Tony Douglas, was hired.
“In 2018, we continued to forge ahead with our transformation journey by streamlining our cost base, improving our cash flow and strengthening our balance sheet,” Douglas, said in a statement.
Etihad said it slashed costs by $416 million in 2018, or 5.5 percent, as it cut its workforce by 5 percent to 21,855.
The number of passengers carried fell by 4.3 percent to 17.8 million as it cut the number of aircraft in its fleet by nine and stopped flying to several routes it said were unprofitable.
Etihad has been rethinking its business since 2016 after piling billions of dollars into a failed strategy of buying minority stakes in other airlines.
Dozens of aircraft orders with Airbus and Boeing worth billions of dollars have since been canceled.
(Reporting By Stanley Carvalho; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
BERLIN
(Reuters) – Lufthansa has ordered 20 Boeing 787-9 and 20 additional
Airbus A350-900 long-haul planes to replace its older four-engine
aircraft as it seeks to boost the fuel efficiency of its fleet, the
airlines group said on Wednesday.
The
German company said it has also agreed to sell six of its 14 Airbus
A380 planes back to Airbus in 2022/2023 for economic reasons.
Airbus
said last month it would scrap production of the A380 superjumbo from
2021 following lacklustre sales. The decision reflected a dearth of
orders as airline bosses shied away from bulky, larger planes that are
harder to fill.
Qatar airways said last week it would phase out its A380 planes from 2024.
Lufthansa
said the new aircraft will be delivered between late 2022 and 2027. It
did not disclose how much it had paid for the planes which have a
list-price investment volume of $12 billion (9.1 billion pounds), but
said it had negotiated a significant price cut.
“In
addition to the cost-effectiveness of the A350 and B787, the
significantly lower CO2 emissions of this new generation of long-haul
aircraft was also a decisive factor in our investment decision,” Chief
Executive Carsten Spohr said in a statement.
Lufthansa
currently operates a long-haul fleet of 199 aircraft. It said the new,
more economical aircraft will lower its operating cost compared to
earlier models by around 20 percent.
The
airline will also seek to reduce the complexity of its fleet over the
next few years by taking seven aircraft types out of service to help
reduce maintenance costs and the supply of replacement parts.
(Reporting by Caroline Copley; editing by Thomas Seythal and Michelle Martin)
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s aviation regulator said on Monday it had ordered Chinese airlines to suspend their Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft operations by 6 p.m. (5.00 a.m. ET) following a deadly crash of one of the planes in Ethiopia.
An Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board.
It was the second crash of the 737 MAX, the latest version of Boeing’s workhorse narrowbody jet that first entered service in 2017.
In October, a 737 MAX 8 operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air crashed 13 minutes after take-off from Jakarta on a domestic flight, killing all 189 passengers and crew on board.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in a statement it would notify airlines as to when they could resume flying the jets after contacting Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ensure flight safety.
“Given that two accidents both involved newly delivered Boeing 737-8 planes and happened during take-off phase, they have some degree of similarity,” the CAAC said, adding that the order was in line with its principle of zero-tolerance on safety harzards. The 737 MAX 8 is sometimes referred to as the 737-8.
The cause of the Indonesian crash is still being investigated. A preliminary report issued in November, before the cockpit voice recorder was recovered, focused on airline maintenance and training and the response of a Boeing anti-stall system to a recently replaced sensor but did not give a reason for the crash.
Chinese airlines have 96 737 MAX jets in service, the state company regulator said on Weibo.
Caijing, a Chinese state-run news outlet that covers finance and economics, said many flights scheduled to use 737 MAX planes would instead use the 737-800 models.
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.
A U.S. official told Reuters the United States was unsure of what information China was acting on.
The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said there were no plans to follow suit given the 737 MAX had a stellar safety record in the United States and there was a lack of information about the cause of the Ethiopian crash.
Western industry sources say China has been at pains in recent years to assert its independence as a safety regulator as it negotiates mutual safety standard recognition with regulators in the United States and Europe.
In 2017, it signed a mutual recognition deal with the FAA, but industry sources say it has struggled to gain approval from the FAA that would allow it to sell its C919 airliner to Western airlines.
SAFETY STANDARDS
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24 there were no Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes flying over China as of 0043 GMT on Monday.
Most of Air China Ltd’s 737 MAX fleet of 15 jets landed on Sunday evening, with the exception of two that landed on Monday morning from international destinations, according to data on FlightRadar24.
It did not list any upcoming scheduled flights for the planes, nor did China Southern Airlines Co, which also has its fleet on the ground.
China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd four 737 MAX jets landed on Sunday evening and no further flights were scheduled until Tuesday, FlightRadar24 data showed.
Cayman Airways has grounded both of its new 737 MAX 8 jets until more information was received, the Cayman Islands airline said in a statement on its website.
Fiji Airways said it had followed a comprehensive induction process for its new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft and it had full confidence in the airworthiness of its fleet.
“We continue to ensure that our maintenance and training program for pilots and engineers meets the highest safety standards,” the airline said.
Singapore Airlines Ltd, whose regional arm SilkAir operates the 737 MAX, said it was monitoring the situation closely, but its planes continued to operate as scheduled.
Indonesia said it would continue to monitor its airlines operating the 737 MAX, which include Lion Air and Garuda Indonesia but it did not mention any plan to ground the planes.
(Reporting by Josh Horwitz and John Ruwitch; additional reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Stella Qiu in Beijing, David Shepardson in Washington, Tom Westbrook in Sydney, Jamie Freed in Singapore; Edward Davies in Jakarta and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Richard Pullin, Robert Birsel)
* Jet Airways says 28 planes grounded for non-payment of dues
* Lenders, Etihad yet to approve restructure (Adds graphic)
SINGAPORE,
March 8 (Reuters) – FLY Leasing Ltd has grounded three planes on lease
to India’s Jet Airways Ltd and will take them back and redeploy them
elsewhere if the airline cannot gain approvals for a restructuring plan
this month, the lessor’s CEO said.
Jet
Airways on Thursday said another three aircraft had been grounded due
to its failure to make payments, taking the total number to 28, but it
has not specified the lessors involved.
The
grounding of nearly one-quarter of the airline’s fleet has led to the
cancellation of hundreds of flights and complaints from customers on
social media.
Several
major global aircraft leasing companies, including AerCap Holdings NV
and BOC Aviation have exposure to the financially troubled airline,
which has defaulted on loans and has not paid pilots, leasing firms and
suppliers for months.
“We
have grounded our aircraft, we have control over our aircraft, but we
have not terminated the leases and we are waiting for the airline to
approve all its restructuring with the State Bank of India,” FLY Leasing
CEO Colm Barrington told analysts on a results call on Thursday.
“If
that goes through at the end of the month, obviously, we will stay with
Jet. If they can’t get that done, then we’ll take our aircraft back and
redeploy.”
The
airline had three relatively young Boeing Co 737-800s on lease to Jet
Airways, which accounted for around 3 percent of FLY Leasing’s revenue,
he said.
Jet
Airways has outlined a draft to sell a majority stake to a consortium
led by the State Bank of India at 1 rupee, under regulations that permit
banks to convert debt to equity in a defaulting firm.
The
stake sale will be followed by an equity raising, debt restructuring
and the sale and leaseback of jets to help plug a $1.2 billion funding
gap, but the plan needs approvals from several stakeholders, including
major shareholder Etihad Airways.
(Reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore; Additional reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates)
