The Indian government is in the market to sell its stake of Air India – and on Monday set a March 17 deadline for initial expressions of interest.
Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group and US-based fund Interups are already reported to be submitting theirs.
It’s not the first attempt at a sale: in 2018 the government failed to divest 76 per cent of the airline, and with it over five billion dollars of debt.
Air India workers protested ….
And potential bidders opted out because of stringent conditions attached – such as retaining all employees.
This time, the government has indicated, it’s open to revising some provisions.
Though bidders must assume liabilities, including debt at just under 3.3 billion dollars.
And substantial ownership and control must remain with an Indian entity.
The sale might face opposition from within prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP Party – one lawmaker describes the deal as quote ‘anti-national’.
But if successful, the buyer gets over 7,000 landing slots in India and overseas …
Together with the carrier’s low-cost arm and a stake in its cargo and ground-handling operations.
As for staff, Air India currently has around 13,000 permanent and contract personnel on its books …
FORT WORTH, Texas — American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ: AAL) today reported its fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 financial results, including these highlights:
Fourth-quarter 2019 earnings were $0.95 per diluted share. Excluding net special items1, earnings were $1.15 per diluted share, up 19% year over year.
Full-year 2019 earnings were $3.79 per diluted share. Excluding net special items2, earnings were $4.90 per diluted share, up 8% year over year.
Accrued $213 million for the company’s profit-sharing program in 2019, including $74 million in the fourth quarter.
Returned $1.3 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in 2019.
“During the fourth quarter, we made important progress to address the issues that impacted our business in 2019, and, thanks to our incredible team, we ended the year with our strongest operational quarter on record,” said American Airlines Chairman and CEO Doug Parker.
“While our results for the quarter reflect this progress, we know there is more work to be done. Looking to 2020, we are focused on three key areas. First, we will continue to deliver operational excellence and build on our strong fourth-quarter results. Our team has done a tremendous job, and we will keep driving improvement in key operational metrics in the year ahead. Second, we will deliver those results while growing where we have a competitive advantage in our most profitable hubs. And third, these initiatives combined with our capital plan will enable us to drive significant free cash flow in 2020 and beyond.”
Fourth-Quarter Revenue and Expenses
Pre-tax earnings were $571 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Pre-tax earnings excluding net special items for the fourth quarter of 2019 were $679 million, a $90 million increase from the fourth quarter of 2018, or 15.1% year-over-year increase from the same period last year.
Continued strength in passenger demand and a record passenger load factor drove a 3.4% year-over-year increase in fourth-quarter 2019 total revenue to a record $11.3 billion. Driven by a 2.4% increase in passenger load factor, passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) grew 0.9% to 14.72 cents, a record for the fourth quarter. Cargo revenue was down 18.3% to $216 million due primarily to a 15.6% decline in cargo volume. Other revenue was up 5.4% to $750 million due primarily to higher loyalty revenue. Fourth-quarter total revenue per available seat mile (TRASM) increased by 0.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2018 on a 2.9% increase in total available seat miles.
Total fourth-quarter 2019 operating expenses were $10.6 billion, up 2.1% year over year, driven primarily by higher salaries and benefits, maintenance, and regional expenses. Total fourth-quarter 2019 cost per available seat mile (CASM) was 15.06 cents, down 0.8% from fourth-quarter 2018. Excluding fuel and net special items, consolidated fourth-quarter CASM was 11.59 cents, up 2% year over year.1
2020 Priorities
In 2020, American is focused on operational excellence, efficient and profitable growth, and generating significant free cash flow.
Operational excellence: Running a reliable operation is a significant driver of customers’ likelihood to recommend and American’s goal to become customers’ airline of choice.
Efficient and profitable growth: Grow in high-revenue markets that produce at or above average unit revenues, largely due to new gates in Dallas-Fort Worth and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Generating significant free cash flow3: Use free cash flow to naturally de-lever the company’s balance sheet and return capital to American’s shareholders.
(Reuters) – Boeing Co <BA> reported its worst annual net orders in decades on Tuesday, along with its lowest numbers for plane deliveries in 11 years, as the grounding of its 737 MAX jet saw it fall far behind main competitor Airbus <EADSY>.
Boeing’s gross orders plunged 77% to 246 in 2019, while net orders after cancellations or conversions were just 54 airplanes compared with 893 the previous year.
After an accounting adjustment representing jets ordered in previous years but are now unlikely to be delivered, Boeing said its net total for orders this year sank to a negative 87 airplanes.
As a result, Boeing’s book-to-bill ratio, which measures orders against deliveries, came in at a negative 0.23 in 2019.
Boeing said unidentified customers canceled orders for three 787-9’s in December and another customer canceled an order for a 787-8.
Ten months after the MAX was grounded in March following two fatal crashes, Boeing still has a backlog of more than 5,400 orders for its long- and short-distance commercial jets.
By comparison, Airbus said earlier this month it racked up a net 768 orders last year after cancellations and delivered a record 863 planes.
Boeing said on Tuesday deliveries fell by 53% to 380 planes over the whole of last year, as the MAX’s grounding made it impossible for it to deliver the planes to customers, forcing it to halt production last month and lose the top spot to its European rival for the first time in eight years.
Planemakers receive most of their revenue when aircraft are delivered – minus accumulated progress payments – making final delivery crucial for their finances.
Analysts estimate that Boeing has been losing around $1 billion a month because of the grounding and it reported an almost $3 billion negative free cash flow in the third quarter. Fourth-quarter figures are due on Jan. 29.
Boeing parted ways with Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg last month as it became increasingly clear that he was making little headway in resolving the crisis.
The company is still working to fix the MAX and there is little clarity on when Boeing is likely to get the green light from regulators to bring the airplane back into service, making analysts and investors jittery about the company’s prospects in 2020.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris, and Ankit Ajmera and Rachit Vats in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham, Shounak Dasgupta and Amy Caren Daniel)
Unpainted Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are seen parked at Renton Municipal Airport in Renton
Workers leave the General Motors CAMI car assembly plant where the GMC Terrain and Chevrolet Equinox are built in Ingersoll
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – General Motors Co <GM> will revive the Hummer name to sell a new family of electric pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles and will tout the return with a Super Bowl ad featuring NBA star LeBron James, two people briefed on the matter said on Friday.
The vehicles will be sold under the GMC nameplate. Reuters reported in October that GM planned to build a new family of premium electric pickup trucks at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant beginning in late 2021 and was considering reviving the Hummer name, citing several people familiar with the plans.
The Wall Street Journal reported GM’s decision to move forward earlier on Friday. GM declined to comment.
The electric truck and SUV program is the centerpiece of a planned $3 billion investment in the Detroit-Hamtramck plant to make electric trucks and vans, and part of a broader $7.7 billion (5.9 billion pounds) investment in GM’s U.S. plants over the next four years that was part of a new contract signed with the United Auto Workers union last year.
The investment moves the automaker into a part of the EV market that is largely untested and where GM has a higher likelihood of turning a profit, analysts said.
Reuters reported GM plans to first build EV pickups in late 2021 and then an electric SUV in 2023.
Tesla <TSLA> CEO Elon Musk in November unveiled an electric pickup called “Cybertruck” it plans to build starting in late 2021.
Rivian, a start-up electric company backed by Amazon.com <AMZN>, will begin building 100,000 electric delivery vans for Amazon starting in 2021.
Hummers were rugged civilian utility vehicles with low gas mileage that were inspired by military vehicles and were popular with such celebrities as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger but derided by environmentalists as gas-guzzlers. GM shut down its Hummer brand after a deal to sell the SUV-line to an obscure Chinese machinery maker was blocked by Chinese regulators in 2010.
Michael Harley, executive editor for Kelley Blue Book, noted “the original Hummer was ostracized out of showrooms for being heavy and ponderous with an insatiable appetite for gasoline. An all-electric powertrain essentially exonerates the truck on all charges.”
Electric pickups and SUVs – the heart of the U.S. market – could help Ford Motor Co <F> and GM generate significant sales of EVs needed to meet tougher California emission standards and electric vehicle mandates.
The Trump administration is moving to roll back those standards – and eliminate extra credits that automakers receive from EV sales but electric trucks are a hedge if California prevails.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sandra Maler and Alistair Bell)
BERLIN (Reuters) – Luxury German carmaker Daimler <DDAIF> and Volvo Cars, owned by China’s Geely, are considering cooperating to cut the costs of developing combustion engines, a magazine reported on Sunday, citing unnamed company sources.
The Automobilwoche weekly cited a Volvo manager as saying there were initial talks with Daimler, but no concrete plans, while a company spokesman said it was too early to talk about firm projects, although it was not excluding anybody.
A Daimler spokesman said the company’s cooperation with Geely, which owns a 10% stake in the German carmaker, was developing in a positive way, but declined to comment further.
Global tariffs, accelerated by a trade war between China and the United States, as well as higher investment requirements for electric and autonomous vehicles, are forcing carmakers to seek new ways to cut and share costs.
In October, Volvo said it would merge its engine development and manufacturing assets with those of Geely, creating a division to supply in-house brands and also potentially others with next-generation combustion and hybrid engines.
The Automobilwoche said this new division would start operating by the end of March, which could be a possible starting point for cooperation with Daimler, while a further step could be a partnership to develop electric power trains.
Geely and Daimler have said they plan to build the next generation of Smart electric cars in China through a joint venture and the two companies are also cooperating on a premium ride-hailing service in China.
Geely bought Volvo Cars in 2010 from Ford Motor Co <F.N>, allowing the Swedish brand to operate on an arms-length basis. But in recent years, it has deepened cooperation between the two brands.
Volvo already supplies engines to some Geely-branded vehicles, sharing technology through Geely’s Lynk brand. Both companies share and develop common vehicle platforms.
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson and Georg Merziger; editing by Jason Neely)
(Reuters) – Teams combing the wreckage of a Hawaii sightseeing helicopter that crashed on Kauai island found no sign of survivors on Friday and recovered six sets of human remains before suspending the search due to bad weather, police and fire officials said.
The grim announcement came in a news conference almost 24 hours after the aircraft, first reported missing on Thursday evening, went down in a remote area of rugged terrain near the end of a tour flight over the island’s famed Na Pali Coast.
The crash was at least the ninth, and by far the deadliest, involving sightseeing helicopters in Hawaii over the past five years, according to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) records.
The confirmed manifest of the ill-fated aircraft, flown by Kauai-based tour operator Safari Helicopters, consisted of six passengers, two of them children, and one pilot, Kauai County fire battalion chief Solomon Kanoho told reporters.
The identities of the dead were being kept confidential until next of kin could be notified, authorities said.
“We are heartbroken by this tragedy and we continue to ask the public to consider the sensitive nature of this devastating situation,” Mayor Derek Kawakami said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of all victims during this extremely difficult time.”
The Kauai fire department called off its search-and-recovery efforts late Friday afternoon due to fog and poor visibility but planned to resume the operation at daybreak on Saturday, Kanoho said.
Although the remains of just six of the seven people who were aboard the ill-fated aircraft have been recovered, Kanoho added: “There are no indications of survivors.”
TOURISTS FROM TWO FAMILIES
Kanoho previously said the passengers on board the helicopter had been in two groups – a party of two from one family and a party of four from another.
Kanoho declined to describe details of the wreckage out of respect for the victims’ loved ones.
While the cause of the crash has yet to be determined, Kanoho said the area where the helicopter went down had experienced “some very bad weather” beforehand, adding that the chopper had crashed within its prescribed flight route.
The NTSB, which said it was sending a three-member team to investigate the crash, reported in May that there had been eight accidents involving Hawaii tour helicopters over the past five years, with four deaths and 18 injuries.
The agency made that report after a tour helicopter went down in a residential neighborhood on the island of Oahu in April, killing three people.
The latest crash was in Koke’e State Park in an area called Nu’alolo, a steep-sided valley north of Waimea Canyon State Park, according to a statement posted by the Kauai police department on Facebook.
Waimea Canyon is a tourist destination known as the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific,” and police said the helicopter was last heard from at about 4:40 p.m. on Thursday, when the pilot radioed that the aircraft was just departing that area.
A search was launched a short time later, after Safari alerted authorities that the helicopter was 30 minutes overdue on its flight back to the airfield in Lihue on the island’s southeast end, officials said.
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter vessel and helicopter search crew were immediately dispatched. The search was expanded at daybreak on Friday to include air, sea and ground teams from the Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, police, fire department and other agencies.
The missing aircraft was equipped with an electronic locator beacon, but no signals were received after it disappeared, the Coast Guard said.
According to its website, Safari offers aerial sightseeing excursions to Kauai’s major attractions over the Na Pali Coast and Waimea Canyon. The Na Pali Coast, known for jagged green cliffs laced with towering waterfalls, is one of the most visited attractions on Kauai, the fourth-largest island in the Hawaiian chain.
Reporting by Maria Caspani and Peter Szekely in New York and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler
(Reuters) – Nine people were killed and three were injured in an airplane crash in the U.S. state of South Dakota, the Associated Press reported late on Saturday, citing authorities.
The aircraft, a Pilatus PC-12, carrying 12 people on board, was bound for Idaho from South Dakota before it crashed around noon on Saturday, the news agency said, citing National Transportation Safety Board’s Peter Knudson.
The cause for the crash has not yet been determined, the report said.
Reporting by Akshay Balan in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Raju Gopalakrishnan
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: British Airways logos are seen on tail fins at Heathrow Airport in west London
(Reuters) – British Airways and its pilots’ union BALPA have reached a preliminary agreement to end the pay dispute that resulted in the first walkout by pilots in the airline’s history, the union said on Friday.
The agreement came after the two sides held talks under the auspices of the ACAS arbitration service.
BALPA said in a statement: “We can confirm that BALPA, BA and ACAS have put together a new pay and conditions proposal and, subject to final checks, BALPA expects it will shortly be consulting its 4,000 BA members on them.”
A BA spokeswoman said “We welcome this positive step.”
As part of the agreement, BA agreed to insert an inflation protection clause to its previous pay offer of an 11.5% rise over three years, the Financial Times reported.
The airline also offered improvements to working conditions, rostering and flight bonuses, the paper added.
British Airways pilots went on strike for 48 hours in September, grounding 1,700 flights.
BA, part of International Consolidated Airlines Group <ICAG.L>, said in September that the strikes had cost it 137 million euros ($151 million).
(Reporting by Alistair Smout in London and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Louise Heavens)
MILAN (Reuters) – Delta Air Lines <DAL> could pull out of a consortium looking to rescue Italy’s Alitalia as it is unwilling to enter a possible bidding war with Lufthansa <DLAKY>, newspaper Il Corriere della Sera reported on Sunday, citing two sources.
Delta is expected to say it will not raise its offer to invest about 100 million euros ($112 million) in Alitalia in a letter to be sent in the middle of this week to its consortium partners, Italy’s state railways firm Ferrovie and infrastructure group Atlantia, Il Corriere reported.
It said the rough investment figure could go as high as 120 million euros.
But Germany’s Lufthansa might invest about 150 million euros, Il Corriere said.
Lufthansa is seeking up to 6,000 job cuts, however, versus 2,500 envisaged by a plan drafted by the Delta consortium, the newspaper reported.
A source said last week Lufthansa was ready to invest up to 200 million euros in Alitalia which is running out of cash and scrambling to find new funds.
Italy’s industry ministry has extended to Nov. 21 a deadline for binding bids after an Oct. 15 deadline passed without an agreement among potential rescuers.
Alitalia’s temporary administrators said last month that the company’s liquidity amounted to 310 million euros at the end of September.
But that figure was inflated by advanced payments on pre-paid tickets, Sunday’s Il Sole 24Ore newspaper reported, citing unidentified sources.
The report added that adjusted for future costs, the cash amounted to just 160 million euros, and that it would run out in December.
($1 = 0.8957 euros)
(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari; editing by Jason Neely)
FILE PHOTO: Cessna employee works on an engine of a Cessna business jet at the assembly line in their manufacturing plant in Wichita, Kansas March 12, 2013. REUTERS/Jeff Tuttle
(Reuters) – Cessna business jet maker Textron Inc reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday, benefiting from robust aircraft deliveries, sending its share up 1.6 percent in early trading.
Business jet demand has been growing steadily in the United States, the world’s biggest market, on the back of an expanding economy and rising corporate profits.
Textron said it delivered 44 jets in the first quarter ended March 30, up from 36 last year. Commercial turboprop deliveries rose to 44 aircraft from 29 last year.
“We think this quarter has pretty much ticked all the boxes for Textron. Aviation growth has continued, with a positive book to bill in the quarter,” Vertical Research Partners analyst Robert Stallard said.
Textron has faced delays in final certification of its newest super mid-size Longitude jet, which is expected to contribute a ‘big chunk’ to the company’s revenue growth in 2019.
Analysts have warned that the certification delays from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration due to partial government shutdown followed by the regulator’s intense focus on re-certifying Boeing Co’s 737 MAX aircraft might impact sales growth at the company in the short.
Though the aviation business was among the drivers for a profit beat, Textron’s revenue missed Wall Street estimates, hurt by lower sales in its systems unit, which makes tactical armored patrol vehicles.
Textron re-affirmed its full-year profit outlook range of $3.55 to $3.75 per share.
Sales in the company’s aviation business, its biggest, rose 12.3 percent to $1.13 billion in the first quarter, while sales in the systems unit fell more than 20 percent to $307 million.
The company’s net income fell to $179 million in the quarter ended March 30 from $189 million a year earlier.
Textron earned 76 cents per share, above analysts’ average estimate of 68 cents, according to Refinitiv data.
Textron’s revenue fell 5.7 percent to $3.11 billion, below analysts’ estimates of $3.17 billion.
(Reporting by Divya R and Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
