FILE PHOTO: Chief Operating Officer Bellew of Ryanair attends a news conference in Frankfurt
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair <RYAAY> heads to court on Tuesday to try to prevent operations chief Peter Bellew from joining arch-rival easyJet <ESYJY> until 2021.
Europe’s biggest budget airline said in July that the former Malaysia Airlines boss would step down at the end of the year.
But after easyJet announced Bellew’s appointment as its new chief operations officer a week later, Ryanair launched legal proceedings in Ireland’s High Court.
Ryanair argues that all its senior executives commit to non-compete clauses barring them from joining a competitor for 12 months after leaving the Irish airline.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary told reporters in September that the only issue was whether Bellew, who is currently working out his notice, can join easyJet on Jan. 1, 2020, or Jan. 1, 2021, a full 18 months after easyJet announced his appointment.
An easyJet spokeswoman declined to comment on the case. Bellew has not commented on the case since Ryanair initiated proceedings.
O’Leary has said the timing of Bellew’s switch is sensitive because of the problems Ryanair is currently having with Boeing’s <BA> grounded 737 MAX jet, which have slowed down its growth plans.
Ryanair is one of Boeing’s biggest customers for the MAX 737, with 210 on order, and the airline said last month it expected a further delay to deliveries that could leave it without the new jets next summer.
Bellew left his role as CEO of Malaysia Airlines two years ago to return to Ryanair where he was director of flight operations before leaving for Kuala Lumpur in 2014.
Tasked with tackling a pilot revolt that resulted in Ryanair’s first ever strikes, Bellew has helped patch up relations with staff and agree deals on pay and conditions with trade unions that have quelled the unrest.
An Irish national, Bellew described his return to Ryanair in 2017 as “a form of national service” to help what he described as Ireland’s greatest company. Some observers had seen Bellew as a possible future Ryanair chief executive.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Mark Potter)
Boeing 787 Dreamliner performs air display during the second day of Dubai Air Show in Dubai
DUBAI (Reuters) – After insisting for 15 years that the superjumbo is the future, Emirates airline has been forced by the demise of the A380 to embrace smaller wide-body jets, resulting in a flurry of maneuvers between planemakers at this week’s Dubai Airshow.
The 555-seat A380 is near the end of production, setting off a series of interlocking deals as top buyer Emirates reviews its fleet against the backdrop of fragmenting travel demand. Delays in the 406-seat Boeing 777X also weighed in the shake-up.
“We have to face the reality of the cancellation of the (A380) program and the effect it has on our network, which is why we conducted a root and branch (review),” Emirates President Tim Clark told reporters at the airshow.
The double-decker A380 superjumbo and the big twin-engined Boeing 777, plus mid-sized 787s and A350s, were all spread out in front of VIP chalets – the queens, bishops and knights in a game of industry chess being played out across the globe.
Big jets tend to be profitable especially when full.
Periodically, the industry designs smaller planes that match both the range and efficiency of larger ones, allowing smaller pieces on the industry chess board to topple larger ones.
While reducing its remaining orders for A380s, Emirates placed an expanded order at the show for 50 Airbus A350s but shelved earlier plans to order the 330-seat A330neo, an upgrade of an earlier model.
It substituted part of an order for delayed 777X jets for 30 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners – 10 fewer than originally planned in a tentative 2017 order – as part of a $25 billion order shake-up.
For passengers, the roughly 300-seat, lightweight mid-sized jets offer more choice and frequencies.
Many airlines say they can fly almost as profitably as the larger models but with less risk to the bottom line.
The downside? Planes fill more quickly and passengers can flee to other carriers. Airport congestion is also a concern.
Emirates insists the superhub model it pioneered – which takes advantage of Dubai’s location to capture global traffic using large aircraft – remains intact despite the new twist.
But the smaller planes allow some of its rivals to fly profitably with fewer commercial risks and this week’s deals imply Emirates no longer feels immune from such pressure.
“Given the changed environment, Emirates has been forced to adapt the tactics of some of the carriers they have been competing with,” said analyst Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group.
STALEMATE
The shift sparked frantic talks by planemakers to ensure their models were included in the new mix of Emirates’ mid-sized jets. Each suffered losses but the result was broadly a stalemate, analysts said.
Airbus suffered a setback with the loss of the A330neo at Emirates and may have to cut output, they said.
But it ensured its own A350 picked up the slack and won a ticket to any future contests to replace A380s still in service.
Boeing <BA.N> cemented a key win for the 787 after two years of uncertainty over the earlier provisional deal. But recent 777X delays opened the door to Emirates readjusting the blend in favor of the Airbus A350, at the expense of the 787.
Emirates’ decision to expand its A350 order coincided with cancellations for the same jet at Abu Dhabi’s struggling Etihad, prompting speculation of a politically balanced adjustment.
Airline officials strongly denied any link and Clark said planners had identified more room for future growth in revenues with the A350 than the A330neo, which would nonetheless remain “in the mix” for the future alongside more 777X purchases.
Analysts said the net result of reducing A380 and 777X orders and switching to smaller models was about 18,000 fewer seats on order than previously planned before the show,
which some analysts described as a response to overcapacity.
“Manufacturers have sold too many airplanes,” Adam Pilarski, senior vice-president at consultancy AVITAS, said.
While the spotlight fell on the Emirates wide-body order rejig, the Dubai show highlighted Boeing’s efforts to shore up confidence in its grounded 737 MAX with fresh sales and changes sweeping the narrow-body markets. Beefed-up single-aisle jets increasingly cover distances reserved for wide-bodies.
Sharjah’s Air Arabia <AIRA.DU> ordered 120 Airbus including 20 of the long-range 200-240-seat A321XLR. Sources say it may leapfrog northern Africa to fly non-stop as far as Casablanca, a mission currently served from neighboring Dubai by an Emirates A380.
“The single aisles are the pawns of the industry but very effective ones,” Rob Morris, head consultant at UK-based Ascend by Cirium, said.
(By Tim Hepher and Alexander Cornwell; Additional reporting by Ankit Ajmera; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Emiratis walk past an airbus A350 displayed at the Dubai Airshow on November 8, 2015. Dubai Airshow took off today to a slow start amid little expectations of major orders to match the multi-billion-dollar sales generated at the last edition of the biennial fair. AFP PHOTO/MARWAN NAAMANI (Photo by MARWAN NAAMANI / AFP)
* All 347 passengers, 18 crew members safe – airline
* Flames, smoke came out of right engine – video
* Cause of engine failure not yet clear (Adds Boeing comment in 9th paragraph)
Nov 21 (Reuters) – A Philippine Airlines flight bound for Manila suffered an apparent engine failure on Thursday shortly after takeoff from Los Angeles and made an emergency landing, authorities said.
All 347 passengers and 18 crew aboard Flight 113, a Boeing Company 777 widebody, are safe, an airline spokeswoman said.
Pilots of flight 113 declared an emergency and reported a possible engine failure, Los Angeles International Airport said.
A witness on the ground described “bursts of flames” coming out of an engine.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said the plane returned and landed safely. Television station ABC-7 in Los Angeles aired video of the aircraft after takeoff that showed flames and smoke coming out of the right engine.
The plane landed around noon local time (2000 GMT) and was met by the Los Angeles Fire Department, the airport said. The emergency landing did not affect other flights.
Although the cause of the apparent engine failure was not immediately clear, it comes as Boeing faces intense scrutiny over twin deadly crashes involving its 737 MAX single-aisle jetliner. The 737 MAX has been grounded worldwide since March.
GE Aviation, a subsidiary of General Electric, which makes the GE90 engine for the 777 twin-aisle jetliner, said it was aware of the incident and was “working with the airline to determine the cause of the event and to promptly return the aircraft to service”.
Boeing said it was aware of an incident regarding Philippine Airlines and was closely monitoring the situation.
“You saw bursts of flames, little flames shooting out from the engine,” said Andrew Ames, a 36-year-old fitness professional in Los Angeles, who watched as the 777 ascended over the ocean after takeoff. “It almost looked like backfire flames from a motorcycle or car.”
“I had never seen a plane spew flames repeatedly. Then it stopped. As soon as it stopped, I saw the plane bank left, like it was heading back to airport,” Ames said.
The Philippine Airlines spokeswoman said the flight crew noticed smoke in the plane’s second engine, declared an emergency and returned safely to the airport.
“All passengers are safe and sound,” spokeswoman Cielo Villaluna said. “They are all being assisted to another flight.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Martin Petty in Manila and Jamie Freed in Hong Kong; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Rosalba O’Brien, Himani Sarkar and Gerry Doyle)
FILE PHOTO: A number of grounded Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft are shown parked at Victorville Airport in Victorville, California
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Boeing Co <BA> this week will present to the board of its largest 737 MAX customer, Southwest Airlines Co <LUV>, an overview of its plans to return the grounded jet to service, a spokesman for the airline said on Monday.
The meeting on Wednesday and Thursday comes after Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly said last month that the airline could look next year at diversifying its fleet beyond Boeing 737 aircraft. Budget-friendly Southwest has structured its business model around flying only 737 aircraft for the past 50 years and bet its entire growth strategy on the 737 MAX, the latest iteration of Boeing’s narrowbody workhorse.
With the MAX parked since mid-March following crashes on Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines that together killed 346 people, Southwest has had to scale back its growth plans and cancel north of 100 daily flights, wiping $435 million from its earnings between January and September.
Kelly, who is also Southwest’s chairman of the board, invited Boeing to address the timing and logistics of dozens of 737 MAX deliveries that it was supposed to receive this year. The meeting will also give Boeing a chance to defend its product and the steps it is taking to restore public confidence after the two fatal crashes, sources said.
“It’s an overview of the Return to Service Plan, timing, and plans moving forward,” Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said. “Just a good chance for our Board to hear directly from Boeing, but nothing more to it than that.”
It is not the first time that Boeing has presented to a regularly scheduled board meeting, he said.
Southwest had 34 MAX jets in its fleet when global regulators grounded the aircraft in March. The airline was supposed to receive 41 more 737 MAX planes before the end of the year, but most of those deliveries are now scheduled for 2020.
Hundreds of undelivered 737 MAX jets are parked at Boeing facilities in Washington state, where the planemaker is facing a delivery logjam once the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration gives approval for them to fly commercially.
While Boeing is targeting approval in December, the FAA has pushed back on any fixed timeline.
Southwest has removed the 737 MAX from its flying schedule until early March. The airline has said it will need one to two months to train its pilots and prepare the jets for flight once regulators approve new software and pilot training.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Dubai; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
FILE PHOTO: A Boeing 737 MAX aircraft is seen grounded at a storage area in an aerial photo at Boeing Field in Seattle
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration process for certifying new airplanes is not broken but needs to be improved, the chair of an international panel of air-safety regulators, tasked to review Boeing Co’s <BA> 737 Max, said on Friday.
Speaking on the sidelines of an event at a New York City college, Christopher Hart, chair of the multi-agency panel, said there was no need to question the agency’s overall way of certifying airplanes.
“The U.S. aviation system each day transports millions of people safely, so it’s not like we have to completely overhaul the entire system, it’s not broken. But these incidents have shown us that there are ways to improve the existing system,” Hart said, referring to fatal crashes of a Lion Air 737 MAX in Indonesia and an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX five months apart that killed a total of 346 people.
The MAX remains grounded and Boeing has not set when it will conduct a key certification test flight. Some in Congress and in aviation have criticized the FAA’s longstanding practice of delegating certification tasks to manufacturers.
Michael Perrone, who heads the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said at a House hearing in July that external entities designated by the FAA “are now performing more than 90 percent of FAA’s certification activities despite serious concerns that oversight is lacking.”
Hart, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and a licensed pilot, heads the Joint Authorities Technical Review, a panel including air-safety regulators from the United States, Canada, China, Indonesia, European Union and Brazil.
Reuters reported on Sept. 17 the review’s recommendations will include citing regulations that need to be harmonized internationally and where communications can be improved at the FAA and among international regulators, citing a person briefed on the matter.
Hart on Friday said the panel would release its recommendations to the FAA “shortly,” but declined to provide more details on the timeline. He said the panel’s goal was not for all of its members to agree, but to provide a wide range of opinions and recommendations to the FAA.
Hart spoke to students the Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in Queens. Asked by a student whether passengers can be expected to fly again on a 737 MAX, Hart said he predicted people would “sooner or later forget” about the crashes and investigations.
“This will be the safest airplane out there by the time it has to go through all the hoops and hurdles,” he said.
He also was optimistic when asked whether the deadly crashes would spell the end for Boeing’s 737 MAX programme.
“It will be a cold day in hell before Southwest starts moving away from 737s because that’s all they got,” Hart said, referring to Southwest Airlines Co <LUV.N>, which has cancelled flights into January because of the MAX grounding.
A Southwest Airlines spokesman declined to comment directly on Hart’s comments but said the airline has “no plans to veer away from our all-737 fleet.”
(Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration late on Friday said it would require operators of some Boeing 737 NG jetliners to conduct inspections for structural cracks and make repairs as needed following the discovery of cracks on a small number of planes.
The FAA said Boeing notified it of the issue “after it discovered the cracks while conducting modifications on a heavily used aircraft.” Subsequent inspections “uncovered similar cracks in a small number of additional planes.” Boeing said on Friday it has been in contact with 737 NG operators about a cracking issue, but added that “no in-service issues have been reported.”
Neither the FAA nor Boeing immediately said how many planes were impacted by the required inspections.
The 737 NG, or Next Generation, was introduced in 1997 and is the third generation version of the best-selling Boeing airplane. The 737 MAX, which was grounded in March after two fatal crashes in five months, is not affected by this issue, Boeing said.
The FAA said it would ask operators of the NG to “report their findings to the agency immediately” after completing inspections. Boeing said “over the coming days, we will work closely with our customers to implement a recommended inspection plan for certain airplanes in the fleet.”
KOMO News reported on Friday the issue involved cracked “pickle forks” in some 737 NG jets. The pickle fork attaches the plane’s fuselage, or body, to the wing structure and manages forces. A failure of the part in flight could pose a serious risk. KOMO said workers found a severely cracked pickle fork on a Boeing 737NG earlier this month.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler)
USA Today has reported that Southwest will cut nearly 20 nonstop routes across its network to free up airplanes for higher demand flights, including its new Hawaiian service. The routes being cut include Austin to San Francisco, which will be discontinued on January 6th. After the discontinuation, you’ll still be able to fly nonstop to San Francisco on Alaska, Frontier, and United Airlines.
Southwest also confirmed in July that it would discontinued nonstop service to Newark Liberty International Airport in November due to the grounding of its Boeing 737 Max aircraft this year. United will continue to fly nonstop to Newark with American, Delta and JetBlue serving New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Despite the cuts in Austin service, Southwest Airlines will still be the top air carrier at Austin Bergstrom International Airport by passenger traffic.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A unit of Russian conglomerate Rostec said on Tuesday it was ready for an out-of-court settlement with Boeing over its order for 35 Boeing 737 MAX jets, a spokesman for Rostec’s subsidiary Avia Capital Service told Reuters.
Boeing MAX 737 jets have been grounded worldwide and airlines are cancelling multimillion contracts following crashes in October and March that killed 346 people.
Earlier on Tuesday, Rostec said its unit had filed a lawsuit in the United States to cancel its order for the 35 MAX jets. The Financial Times, which first reported the move, said Avia Capital Service gave Boeing a cash deposit of $35 million.
A spokesman for Avia Capital Service told Reuters that delivery of the jets was first scheduled for October 2019 but was moved to March 2022. The Rostec unit had paid Boeing a deposit and was suffering losses from non-delivery, he said.
“If Boeing executives show a good will, we are ready to hold talks and find a mutually-beneficial out-of-court settlement for compensation of the losses we have suffered,” he said.
He added that the jets were ordered for a number of Russian air companies, including domestic low-cost firm Pobeda, a unit of the state carrier Aeroflot.
Russia is mainly using Boeing and Airbus jets for passenger flights, with a number of domestic airlines also adding Russian-made regional Sukhoi Superjet aircraft to their fleets.
The Rostec subsidiary now wants the deposit to be returned by Boeing with interest, along with $75 million in “lost profit” and about $115 million in compensatory damages, plus “several times the amount” in punitive damages, the FT said.
Rostec declined to provide further details about the lawsuit.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; writing by Anton Kolodyazhnyy and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips/Katya Golubkova and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
CHICAGO/WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday it would invite Boeing 737 MAX pilots from across the world to participate in simulator tests as part of the process to recertify the aircraft for flight following two fatal crashes.
Earlier, Reuters reported that the agency had asked the three U.S. airlines that operate the MAX to provide the names of some pilots who had only flown the 737 for around a year, including at least one MAX flight.
In a statement, the FAA said it had not specified the number of required hours of flight experience, but said the candidates would be a cross-section of line pilots and must have experience at the controls of the MAX.
Boeing Co’s latest 737 narrow-body model, the MAX, was grounded worldwide in March after two crashes within five months in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.
Boeing has been reprogramming software for a stall-prevention system at the center of both crashes, which the FAA must approve before the plane flies again commercially.
The FAA said it had not yet specified a firm schedule for the tests.
Boeing has said it is working toward getting the 737 MAX flying again commercially in the early fourth quarter. Reuters reported on Thursday that it had told suppliers it planned to ramp 737 production back up in February, sending its shares 4% higher.
The world’s largest planemaker slowed its 737 production rate in April because deliveries of the MAX, which makes up the bulk of its single-aisle production, were frozen under the grounding, hitting its supply chain and airline customers.
In the United States, MAX operators Southwest Airlines Co , American Airlines and United Airlines have had to cancel hundreds of daily flights as they wrestle with slimmer fleets at a time of strong domestic air travel demand.
The MAX is Boeing’s fastest-selling aircraft, with about 5,000 pending orders.
As part of its own testing process, Boeing has invited senior airline pilots to experiment with the software fix and use simulators to run scenarios similar to the ones that led to the two crashes.
But sources told Reuters that the FAA also wanted to observe newer 737 pilots. One source said the simulator tests were supposed to be conducted during the first week of September but had been pushed back to the middle of the month.
The FAA, which is working alongside global regulators, has said repeatedly it does not have a fixed time line to approve the grounded jets to fly commercially again.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and David Shepardson in Washington; Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Peter Cooney)
CHICAGO, July 1 (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines expects it will have to remove the grounded Boeing Co 737 MAX jets from its flying schedule beyond the current Oct. 1 re-entry date following the discovery of a fresh safety issue, Chief Executive Gary Kelly told employees on Monday.
Last week, Boeing said that it would take until at least September to solve 737 MAX software issues – later than airlines had been expecting – after U.S. aviation regulators uncovered a new problem during simulator sessions.
“I’m sure this will cause us to have to take the MAX out of the schedule beyond Oct. 1,” Kelly said in an internal update, adding that the company would also see “what other modifications we might need to make our plans for this year because it’s obviously extending well beyond what I had hoped.”
Kelly did not elaborate on the possible modifications. So far, the Texas-based airline has tried to substitute its MAX routes with spare aircraft but has still been forced to cancel about 115 daily flights.
American Airlines Group and United Airlines Holdings , the other two U.S. carriers that operate the 737 MAX, have removed the jetliner from their flying schedules until early September.
The three airlines are expected to provide more details on the financial toll of a prolonged MAX grounding during second quarter results later in July.
Boeing’s fast-selling narrowbody was grounded worldwide in March following two deadly crashes within five months.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
