The Italian government is begging U.S. major Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE: DAL) to up the proposed acquisition of a 10% stake in Alitalia for $100 million to at least 15%, according to a report in Italian media.
Loss-making Alitalia has been seeking new investors for more than two years after going into administration in May 2017 after workers rejected a plan to cut jobs and salaries. Successive Italian governments have had to balance the carrier’s massive losses with the need to placate a heavily unionized workforce.
4 New Dublin Routes To Marseille, Palanga, Podgorica & Verona
Ryanair, Ireland’s No.1 airline, today (25 Sept) launched its Irish Summer 2020 schedule, with 160 routes in total, including 4 new Dublin routes Marseille, Palanga, Podgorica and Verona, and 3 new summer services from Cork to Katowice and from Dublin to Billund and Toulouse, which will deliver 17.2m customers p.a. and support 12,900* jobs at Dublin, Shannon, Cork, Knock and Kerry airports.
Ryanair’s Irish Summer 2020 schedule will deliver:
At Dublin:
4 new routes: Marseille (5 per week), Palanga (3), Podgorica (2) & Verona (3)
2 new summer services: Billund (2), Toulouse (daily)
More flights on 4 other routes: Bristol (3 daily), Bydgoszcz (3), Riga (daily) & Vilnius (4)
105 routes in total
14.3m customers p.a.
10,725* “on-site” jobs p.a.
Shannon:
15 routes in total
775,000 customers p.a.
580* “on-site” jobs p.a.
Cork:
1 new summer service to Katowice (2)
More flights on 2 other routes: Malaga (6) & Palma (4)
23 routes in total
1.2m customers p.a.
900* “on-site” jobs p.a.
Knock:
11 routes in total
600,000 customers p.a
450* “on-site” jobs p.a.
Kerry:
6 routes in total
310,000 customers p.a.
210* “on-site” jobs p.a.
Irish consumers and visitors can now book their holidays on 160 routes as far out as October 2020, flying on the lowest fares and with the greenest/cleanest major airline in Europe, with the lowest CO2 emissions.
To celebrate, Ryanair has launched a seat sale with fares on its Irish routes available from just €14.99, for travel until the end of November 2019, which must be booked by midnight Friday (27 Sept), only on the Ryanair.com website.
In Dublin, Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said:
“Ryanair is delighted to bring the lowest emissions and fares to Ireland with our Summer schedule 2020, with 4 new Dublin routes to Marseille, Palanga, Podgorica and Verona, and 160 routes in total, which will deliver 17.2 million customers p.a. and support over 12,900* jobs at Dublin, Shannon, Cork, Knock and Kerry airports.
Irish customers and visitors can now book low fare seats on 160 routes as far out as October 2020. To celebrate, we are releasing seats for sale from just €14.99 for for travel until the end of November 2019, which are available for booking until midnight Friday (27 Sept). Since these amazing low prices will be snapped up quickly, customers should log onto www.ryanair.com and avoid missing out.”
Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said:
“Against the current economic backdrop, we welcome the fact that Ryanair capacity for 2020 will be up by +1%. Most of the routes which are important for Irish tourism will be retained and we look forward to co-operating with Ryanair to maximise the promotion of its new flights from Marseilles and Verona to Dublin Airport. As an island, the importance of convenient, direct, non-stop flights cannot be overstated – they are absolutely critical to achieving growth in inbound tourism.”
4 New Routes, 170,000 Customers Annually At Tbilisi & Kutaisi Expected
Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (21 August) announced its first ever flights from Georgia, the 39th country in the Ryanair network, with a new route from Tbilisi to Milan Bergamo and two new routes from Kutaisi to Bologna and Marseille, which start in November as part of Ryanair’s Winter 2019 schedule. Ryanair will also connect Tbilisi to Cologne in April as part of Ryanair’s Summer 2020 schedule and deliver 170,000 customers annually to/from Ryanair’s Georgian airports.
Ryanair’s Georgia 19/20 schedule will deliver:
2 new routes from Tbilisi to Milan Bergamo (4 pw) starting from November & Cologne (2pw) from April20
2 new routes from Kutaisi to Bologna (2 pw) & Marseille (2 pw)
170,000 customers p.a.
Over 100* “on-site” jobs p.a.
Georgian consumers and visitors can now book their holidays as far out as October 2020, enjoying even lower fares and Ryanair’s recently announced 2019 customer care improvements, including:
Lowest Fares –find a cheaper fare within 3 hours, get paid the difference plus €5 MyRyanair credit
Punctuality – deliver 90% target (excl. ATC) or 5% off following month’s air fares
Customer Care Charter – EU261 claims processed in 10 days, new 24/7 support, connect in 2 mins
Care Improvements – 48-hour free of charge grace period for changes to bookings
Environmental Improvements – carbon offset programme, environmental partners & plastic free in 5 years
New Ryanair Choice – €199 annual fee for free seats, fast-track & priority boarding for freq. guests
Digital Improvements – new fare finder, sports tickets, bespoke travel guides & faster mobile
To celebrate the launch of its first Georgian airports, Ryanair has launched a seat sale with fares from just €9.99, for travel in November and December, which must be booked by midnight Friday (23 Aug) only on the Ryanair.com website.
Ryanair’s David O’Brien said:
“We’re pleased to announce Ryanair’s low fares have arrived at Tbilisi and Kutaisi, our newest airports and 1st airports in Georgia. These four new routes that will start in November (except Cologne, starting in April next year), will further promote Georgian tourism, and will deliver over 170,000 customers annually to/from two European countries to one of Europe’s fastest-growing tourism destinations. We look forward to developing new Georgian traffic growth, new routes, and jobs in the coming years.
To celebrate, we are releasing seats for sale on our network from just €9.99 for travel in November and December which are available for booking until midnight Friday (23 Aug). Since these amazing low fares will be snapped up quickly, customers should log onto www.ryanair.com and avoid missing out.”
Sees first Max deliveries in October (Adds quotes; details on Max 737 delays)
DUBLIN, May 20 (Reuters) – Ryanair reported its weakest annual profit in four years on Monday and said earnings could fall further as European airlines wage what Chief Executive Michael O’Leary described as “attritional fare wars.”
After initially falling 6%, the shares made up some ground after O’Leary, who helped to develop the no-frills airline model in Europe, argued that lower fares and profitability for a couple of years were a price worth paying to boost market share and hasten consolidation.
O’Leary said the lower fares and profit were cyclical and that four or five European airlines were likely to emerge as the winners in the sector.
“Our strategy would be to keep adding capacity as quickly as we can in all the markets where we can,” said O’Leary, who has been in charge of Ryanair since 1994.
“Will it be painful for a year or two, yes it will. But will it shake out more of the competition, yes it will.”
Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost operator, had already signalled a sharp fall in profitability due largely to overcapacity in two warnings last year.
Its 29% fall in after-tax profits to 1.02 billion euros ($1.14 billion) for its financial year to March 31 was in line with investor forecasts.
But its profit forecast for the current financial year to end-March 2020 of between 750 million and 950 million euros, was “considerably worse than expected,” Goodbody analyst Mark Simpson said in a note.
A company poll of analysts published ahead of the release had forecast a figure of 977 million euros.
O’Leary said the forecast was effectively for profits to remain flat as the 2020 figure includes recently acquired and loss-making Laudamotion unit for the first time and would be a “very good outcome.” The equivalent figure in 2019 would have been 880 million.
737 MAX GROUNDING
Several rival airlines have warned of a worse trading environment – partly due to overcapacity and partly because European travellers are holding off booking their summer holidays for fear of how the Brexit process will pan out.
Alistair Wittet, portfolio manager at Comgest, which has a 0.74% stake in Ryanair according to Refinitiv Eikon, said some investors appeared to have been convinced by O’Leary’s line of argument.
“The long-term opportunity is fantastic for a company like Ryanair because that capacity will come out” even if Ryanair has to go through a lot more pain than expected in the meantime, Wittet said.
Ryanair has also been affected by delays in the delivery of the Boeing 737 MAX after its worldwide grounding in March following a fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash.
The airline, which has ordered 135 737 MAX 200s and has options on 75 more, was expecting to receive its first five planes between April and June but said it now expects them to be flying by November. O’Leary said he was “reasonably confident” it would have around 50 MAX aircraft flying next summer.
The grounding has forced Ryanair to cut around 1 million seats in the year to March 2020. But it still expects to fly 153 million passengers in the period, up from 139 million last year.
The airline plans to have a conversation with Boeing about “modest compensation”, Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorohan said.
Ryanair’s shares were trading down 3 percent at 10.46 euros at 1250 GMT, down over 40% from a peak of 19.39 euros in August 2017, before the airline was hit by a wave of industrial unrest, fare weakness and the grounding of the MAX.
In what O’Leary described as a vote of confidence from the board, Ryanair will begin a 700 million euro share buyback in the coming days. ($1 = 0.8966 euros)
(Additional reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Louise Heavens)
Low-cost Viva Air plans NYSE listing within two years
Budget carriers are disrupting transport across Latin America
Rendering of an Airbus A320neo Viva Air aircraft Source: Airbus SE
Viva Air, the Latin American group of carriers owned by a founder of Ireland’s Ryanair Holdings Plc, has plans for a third airline in the region plus an initial public offering, to cash in on strong demand for discount air travel.
The company aims to sell shares in New York within two years, Viva’s biggest shareholder, Declan Ryan, said in an interview in Lima. The shares could also be listed on another exchange, such as Colombia’s, he said.
LONDON (Reuters) – Thomas Cook has set a deadline of May 7 for expressions of interest in its airline business, with Indigo Partners and Lufthansa among the likely bidders, sources said.
The heavily-indebted British travel group put its profitable airline business up for sale in February after profit warnings in 2018 left it needing to raise cash.
Thomas Cook’s airlines business consists of Germany’s Condor, as well as British, Scandinavian and Spanish operations.
A sale of the business, in whole or in part, would enable the world’s oldest tour operator to invest more in its own hotels and improve its online sales.
A source familiar with the discussions said that Indigo and Germany’s Lufthansa appeared most interested in the business.
British Airways owner IAG should not be ruled out and easyJet has engaged in talks but is seen as less interested, the source added.
It is not clear whether Ireland’s Ryanair would bid.
Another source said that private equity groups KKR and Apollo might also look at taking over the whole of Thomas Cook.
The airlines business would provide access to valuable European slots linking Britain to Spain, Greece and Turkey.
Thomas Cook, Indigo, IAG and easyJet declined to comment, while Lufthansa and Ryanair were not immediately available.
Lufthansa executives have said repeatedly that the German airline wants to “play an active role” in consolidation.
Indigo, the private equity firm managed by Bill Franke, the veteran U.S. low-cost airline investor, has previously made investments in several airlines including Hungary’s Wizz.
Thomas
Cook has been revamping different parts of its business this year,
closing high street stores and reviewing its money division as it
focuses on holidays.
The company was hit badly in 2018 when a hot European summer deterred customers from booking holidays through the year.
One banking source said the airline would fetch less than 1 billion euros (£859 million). Thomas Cook has a current market value of just over £400 million.
Sources said that competition issues could influence which parts of the business different suitors go for.
Sky News has said China’s Fosun International, a Thomas Cook shareholder, was interested in its tour business.
(Reporting by Kate Holton and Clara Denina in London; additional reporting by Alistair Smout and Georgina Prodhan in London and Arno Schuetze in Frankfurt; Editing by Alexander Smith)
FILE PHOTO: A Thomas Cook Airbus A321-200 airplane takes off at the airport in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, July 28, 2018. REUTERS/Paul Hanna/File Photo
BRUSSELS
(Reuters) – Lufthansa on Friday lost its court challenge against
millions of euros in state aid being granted to Frankfurt-Hahn airport
to the benefit of rival Ryanair, after failing to prove the payments
dented its revenue or market share.
The
German carrier took its case to the Luxembourg-based General Court
after EU antitrust regulators in 2014 gave the green light to a series
of support measures for the airport, which is 82.5-percent owned by
China’s HNA Group with the rest held by the German state of Hesse.
The
support given to the airport, which is only used by Ryanair and Wizz
Air, included capital increases totalling 49 million euros (42.40
million pounds), direct grants and a charging scheme.
The
German airline argued that many of the benefits of the aid were passed
on to Ryanair, which was not paying high enough airport charges.
But
Europe’s second-highest court said that Lufthansa had failed to show it
took a financial hit or lost market share as result of the measures.
The
airline can appeal at the Court of Justice of the European Union but
only on points of law. The case is T-492/15 Deutsche Lufthansa v
Commission.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Kirsten Donovan)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Ryanair is in early discussions with Airbus about a potential future order for some 100 A321 aircraft for its recently acquired subsidiary Laudamotion, but for now the company is focusing on leased older aircraft, Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said on Wednesday.
The
Irish budget carrier is also interested in the latest Boeing
narrow-body model – the 737 MAX 10 – for its all-Boeing main fleet “at
the right price” but those conditions do not exist currently, O’Leary
told Reuters in an interview.
Any
future order of Airbus A321s for Austrian unit Laudamotion would most
likely “not include fewer than 100 aircraft” including 50 firm orders
and 50 options, O’Leary said on the sidelines of an airlines conference
in Brussels.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher; editing by Jason Neely)
FILE PHOTO: A Ryanair Boeing 737-800 plane taxis at Lisbon’s airport, Portugal September 27, 2018. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante
OSLO
(Reuters) – Norwegian Air’s shareholders overwhelmingly endorsed on
Tuesday the lossmaking airline’s plan for a deeply discounted cash call
to help bolster its finances, Chairman Bjoern Kise said.
Norwegian
Air said on Jan. 29 it would raise 3 billion Norwegian crowns ($348
million) in a rights issue, just days after British Airways owner IAG
ruled out a bid for the budget carrier.
Norwegian
is trying to replicate on transatlantic flights the low-cost model that
dominates the short-haul market, exemplified by the likes of Ryanair
and easyJet, but is struggling to make the business profitable.
The
European airline sector faces overcapacity and high fuel costs, with
several operators going out of business, the latest being British-based
Flybmi which filed for bankruptcy on Sunday.
In
the rights issue, Norwegian’s owners will get the right to buy two new
shares at 33 crowns each for every share they own, compared with
Monday’s closing price of 93 crowns.
Holders of more than 99 percent of Norwegian’s equity backed the proposal at a meeting on Tuesday, company officials said.
By
selling new shares far below the market price, Norwegian will boost the
value of each of the purchasing rights, which can be bought and sold.
This
in turn allows Norwegian Air Chief Executive Bjoern Kjos and his
business partner, the group’s chairman, to sell some of their
subscription rights and reinvest the proceeds in new shares, thus
limiting the dilution of their joint stake which stands at 24.66
percent.
Norwegian said last month that billionaire investor John Fredriksen was among those who had agreed to take part in the issue.
($1 = 8.6295 Norwegian crowns)
(By Terje Solsvik, Editing by Nerijus Adomaitis and David Holmes)
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)
