(Corrects “cancels” to “plans to postpone” in the first paragraph after AZAL changed its comment. Removes quote)
MOSCOW,
June 3 (Reuters) – Azerbaijan airline AZAL plans to postpone a $1
billion contract with Boeing to purchase 10 737 MAX jets, a spokesman
said on Monday, following fatal crashes involving the aircraft in
Ethiopia and Indonesia.
Boeing’s
top-selling aircraft, the 737 MAX, has been grounded worldwide since
the March 10 disaster, which killed 157 people and came just five months
after a Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 in a plane of the
same model.
Many countries barred 737 Max jets from taking off or landing at local airports.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; writing by Margarita Antidze)
DUBAI (Reuters) – Emirates will “work smart and hard” to improve its performance after the Gulf airline’s profit hit a decade low as soaring fuel costs and a strong dollar took a toll on earnings, while passenger growth stalled.
After years of growth, during which it has become one of the world’s biggest airlines as other long-established national carriers have struggled, Dubai-based, state-owned Emirates warned last week profit would be lower than previous years.
It revealed just how badly it had fared on Thursday, reporting a 69 percent fall in net profit to 871 million dirhams ($237 million) in the year to March 31.
Meanwhile, the number of passengers flying Emirates rose 0.2 percent to 58.6 million, its weakest growth rate in at least 15 years, while cargo increased 1.4 percent to 2.7 million tonnes.
Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum said in a statement that the year had been “tough”, with higher oil prices, a strong dollar and stiffer competition, adding “our performance was not as strong as we would have liked”.
While revenue at the airline rose 6 percent to 97.9 billion dirhams, its profit fell to its lowest level since 2009. And profit at Emirates Group, which includes other units, fell 43.7 percent to 2.3 billions dirhams, its lowest since 2012.
Despite the profit fall, Emirates said it will pay the Investment Corporation of Dubai a dividend of 500 million dirhams for the year.
“SMART AND HARD”
Sheikh Ahmed said it was difficult to predict the year ahead but Emirates would “work smart and hard to tackle the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities.”
Unfavorable currency moves in key markets cost Emirates $156 million, while operating costs rose 8 percent with the airline recording its biggest ever fuel bill of 30.8 billion dirhams.
Emirates filled an average of 76.8 percent of passenger seats, slightly lower than the previous year, while increasing the number of available seats by 4 percent.
Fare increases helped Emirates register a 3 percent increase in passenger margin, despite it filling fewer seats.
The number of airline employees fell by 2,074, or 3.3 percent. Overall group workforce rose 1.9 percent to 105,286.
Emirates agreed with Airbus in February to cancel dozens of A380 orders and buy smaller A350’s and A330’s as the planemaker scrapped production of the world’s largest passenger jet.
Emirates, which will take 14 more A380’s between this year and the end of 2021, is developing a new route network for a fleet that will include smaller aircraft, it said last week.
Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Alexander Smith
FILE PHOTO: Emirates Airline Boeing 777-300ER planes are seen at Dubai International Airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Christopher Pike/File Photo
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Avianca Brasil canceled more than 1,045 domestic flights this week because it has to return 18 aircraft to leasing agencies.
Brazil’s National Aviation Agency said the planes needed to be returned Monday to avoid affecting Holy Week holiday passengers. Customers can either get refunds for canceled flights or rebook through partner airlines.
Avianca Brasil declined to say how many planes it has left. But the G1 news portal reports that the airline has just seven planes still in its fleet.
On April 1, the airline canceled several international routes from Sao Paulo to New York, Miami and Santiago, Chile.
Avianca Brasil filed for bankruptcy in December after failing to pay leases on its aircraft. The airline, formerly known as Ocean Air, has licensed the name Avianca since 2010 from Colombian carrier Avianca Holdings SA. They are separate companies with the same owners: brothers German and Jose Efromovich. The latter is being investigated for allegedly failing to pay airport fees in Salvador airport in northeastern Brazil.
A company representative from Avianca’s headquarters in Colombia stressed that the Brazilian company is independent from Avianca Holdings group, both operationally and financially. The company said in a statement that flights operated by Avianca Holdings SA from hubs in Bogota and Lima, Peru, to destinations in Brazil will not be affected by the Avianca Brasil cancellations.
Airbus A320 Neo of Avianca at GRU Airport – Guarulhos International Airport, Sao Paulo, Brazil – 2017
(Reuters)
– Alphabet Inc’s Google on Wednesday raised the monthly membership
price of its YouTube TV online service by 25 percent to $49.99, while
adding channels such as Discovery, Animal Planet and TLC.
The
second price rise in nearly 14 months comes as YouTube expands its
offering to better compete with a growing number of services, including
Dish Network Corp’s Sling TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Hulu, which are
vying to attract viewers cancelling cable subscriptions, or cord
cutting.
Google had raised the price of YouTube TV from $35 to $40 in February last year.
The
cost for competing services such as Hulu’s offering with more than 60
channels is $44.99 per month, while its library of shows and movies
costs an additional $5.99.
YouTube
TV will be adding eight new channels, including the Travel Channel,
HGTV and Food Network, to take the total number of networks to more than
70.
The
new price takes effect from April 10 for new members, while the revised
fee for existing subscribers will come into force after May 13, it said
in a blog post.
The price for members billed through Apple will be $54.99 per month, it added.
(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel)
Rumors are starting to swirl that United Airlines is considering backing out of a $69 million deal to add its name to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The deal, which was offered to the University of Southern California in 2018, was offered by the Chicago-based airline to call the stadium “The United Airlines Memorial Coliseum.”
The deal, which was offered to the University of Southern California in 2018, was offered by the Chicago-based airline to call the stadium “The United Airlines Memorial Coliseum.”
Once the deal became public knowledge, criticism began to mount that the re-branding could tarnish the image of the stadium that was named in honor of those lost during World War I.
The Coliseum is currently going under a $270 million renovation by the university, which has responded to the airlines concerns by stating that “They are open to accepting the wishes of the veteran community to modify the name change agreement.”
United Airlines has responded to university officials that it has made “a significant commitment to financing this project” in exchange for the naming rights. The airline went on to add that “If USC is not in a position to honor the terms of the agreement, including in particular the name change, United would be amenable to abiding by the wishes of the community, stepping away from this partnership with USC, and mutually terminating the agreement.”
USC has responded that they are “open” to changing the agreement, but did not provide any further details.
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)
* 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)
BERLIN
(Reuters) – The German Defence Ministry is evaluating a bid from Canada
to buy a high-altitude surveillance drone prototype that has been
parked at a German air base for years after the cancellation of the Euro
Hawk programme in 2013.
A
formal bid for the prototype aircraft, which was demilitarised by the
United States in 2017, was received from Canada, a ministry spokesman
said on Wednesday without providing further details. The Canadian
embassy in Berlin had no immediate comment.
NATO was also considering a bid for the drone, but had not yet submitted it, according to sources familiar with the process.
A
sale of the drone would end an embarrassing chapter that raised
concerns about the German military’s procurement process and triggered
the transfer of former Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere to another
cabinet post.
The
German government told lawmakers last year that it had spent about 700
million euros ($793.5 million) on the Euro Hawk prototype built by U.S.
arms maker Northrop Grumman and the ISIS surveillance system built by
Airbus.
Berlin
initiated plans in 2000 to buy five Euro Hawk drones based on
Northrop’s Global Hawk unmanned system at a cost of about 1.2 billion
euros but later cancelled the programme because of cost overruns and
problems obtaining certification for use in civilian airspace in
Germany.
It had only received the one prototype aircraft that is now being sold.
Berlin
is now negotiating with Northrop to buy several MQ-4C Triton drones for
delivery after 2025. Northrop last year said the process could take
years to complete.
German
opposition lawmaker Andrej Hunko, a member of the radical Left party,
said the German government had declared the aircraft incapable of flight
after the U.S. Air Force removed key systems.
“The airplane has salvage value at best,” he told Reuters.
“Any proceeds from the sale would be a drop in the bucket, compared with the huge amounts spent on the programme.”
For
NATO, the drone could provide additional support to the fleet of five
high-altitude unmanned Global Hawk planes it agreed to buy from Northrop
in 2012 for $1.7 billion, along with transportable ground stations.
Industry
officials said the Euro Hawk saga highlighted problems in German
military procurement, noting that NATO’s sister aircraft regularly
traverse German air space to conduct surveillance missions over the
North Sea. They also have no blanket approval for use in German civilian
airspace but use case-by-case permissions from air traffic authorities.
It was not immediately clear what steps would be needed to return the German Euro Hawk prototype to flight.
($1 = 0.8821 euros)
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Editing by Riham Alkousaa and David Goodman, William Maclean)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian pilots have overwhelmingly voted in favour of a deal with Ryanair on pay and rosters, the Belgian cockpit association (BeCA) said on Friday.
The BeCA said that 98.5 percent of those participating in a secret ballot had voted in favour of the deal that the association said guaranteed stability for pilots for the next four years and harmonised working conditions and pay for all pilots based in Belgium.
Belgian cabin crew and pilots had reached a preliminary deal in October.
“However, it is not all over. It is now up to Ryanair to establish an appropriate local management structure that will guarantee the quick implementation of these commitments,” BeCa said in a statement.
Ryanair suffered a number of strikes last year by cabin crew and pilots, forcing it to cancel hundreds of flights, after the airline recognised unions for the first time in 2017.
The Irish low-cost carrier has sought to reach agreements with unions in a series of countries across Europe.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Airbus acknowledged reports last Thursday that Quantas has cancelled an order for its 8 remaining A380 aircraft. The announcement comes on the heels of Emirates re-evaluating its decision to add on to its remaining Super Jumbo order book.
Qantas Airlines of Australia confirmed it would not take any more of the world’s largest airplane, operating a fleet of 12 aircraft, instead of the 20 it had originally ordered. This news comes on the heels of Airbus’ largest A380 customer Emirates beginning discussions with Airbus over the possibility of changing some, or all, of its remaining A380 orders to smaller A350 or A330neo models after failing to secure an engine contract from Rolls-Royce for the last A380 order it placed.
Airbus has declined to comment on the future of the A380 at this time, but reports indicate that an announcement could come as soon as this Thursday.
Airbus also reported the cancellation of an order for five of its smallest aircraft, the 110-seat A220-100. The identity of the A220 buyer was not disclosed, but is widely believed to be the Swiss-based business charter carrier PrivatAir, which filed for insolvency at the end of 2018. PrivatAir had placed an ordered for 5 of the type, the Canadian Bombardier CS100 at the time of the order, in early 2012.
