An Airbus concept aircraft with a wing design inspired by nature, dubbed Bird of Prey, is displayed at the Royal International Air Tattoo at Raf Fairford, near Fairford
RAF FAIRFORD, England (Reuters) – Airbus <EADSY> on Friday unveiled a concept aircraft with splayed wingtips and a fanned tail inspired by the feathers of an eagle as it experiments with “biomimicry” technology that could eventually lead to quieter landings and less pollution.
The European planemaker’s UK subsidiary sought to capture the imagination of future engineers by showing off a model of the raptor-like airliner at a military air show in England.
The propeller-driven aircraft would have individually controlled “feathers” on the wingtips to provide what Airbus calls “active flight control” used by an eagle or a falcon.
Also evident is the absence of a traditional vertical tail, relying instead on a split, wedge-shaped tail to reduce drag.
The regional aircraft would carry as many as 80 passengers up to 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) and burn 30% to 50% less fuel than today’s equivalent planes, Airbus said.
Inaugurating the display to curious military chiefs and visitors to the Royal International Air Tattoo, Britain’s Trade Secretary Liam Fox said it highlighted Britain’s technical capability and its attractiveness as a place to invest.
Airbus said its concept plane would have a geodesic or curved fuselage in a throwback to the contours of the Wellington bomber designed by British aircraft designer Barnes Wallis.
That aircraft was built in Broughton in Wales from the 1930s to keep it beyond the range of German bombers.
Airbus now uses the same site to produce wings for over 800 jetliners a year. But it has warned the plant faces competition from European nations such as Germany, or others such as Korea, for future generations following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Brexit supporters are sceptical Airbus would take such a step given Britain’s experience with wingmaking.
LONDON (Reuters) – Jaguar Land Rover (TAMO.NS) is making a multi-million pound investment to build electric vehicles in Britain, in a major boost for the UK government and a sector hit by the slump in diesel sales and Brexit uncertainty.
Britain’s biggest car company, which built 30 percent of the UK’s 1.5 million cars last year, will make a range of electrified vehicles at its Castle Bromwich plant in central England, beginning with its luxury sedan, the XJ.
“The future of mobility is electric and, as a visionary British company, we are committed to making our next generation of zero-emission vehicles in the UK,” Chief Executive Ralf Speth said on Friday.
The announcement gives a boost to Britain’s automotive sector hit this year by Honda and Ford’s (F.N) plans to close factories.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has highlighted the dangers of a no-deal Brexit and the need to maintain frictionless trade with the European Union, echoing warnings from the industry that just-in-time production could be hit by customs delays and additional bureaucracy.
But it has signed a deal with workers at the Castle Bromwich factory to go from a five-day to a four-day working week with the same amount of hours which should allow the plant to operate more efficiently.
Three of JLR’s four European car plants are in Britain, giving it limited capacity elsewhere on the continent.
The other, in Slovakia, only opened last year and is still being ramped up with other models allocated there.
“We are making this investment because the ongoing Brexit uncertainty has left us with no choice, we had to act, for our employees and our business,” JLR said.
“We are committed to the UK as our home and will fight to stay here but we need the right deal.”
Both candidates to replace Prime Minister Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, have both said they are prepared to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 without a deal, although it is not their preferred option.
Brexiteers have argued that the EU’s biggest economy Germany, which exports hundreds of thousands of cars to Britain ever year, would do its utmost to protect that trade
Friday’s announcement comes after a turbulent few months for Jaguar which announced around 4,500 job cuts earlier in January and posted a 3.66 billion pound ($4.5 billion) loss in 2018/19.
The carmaker is undergoing a turnaround designed to offer an electrified option to all of its new models from 2020 as it seeks to move away from its reliance on diesel vehicles which are being increasingly shunned by buyers.
Jaguar also called on the government to bring giga-scale battery production to the country so that Britain is not left behind in the rush to produce low and zero-emissions vehicles and technology.
Britain’s business minister Greg Clark said the government was doing all it can to meet that goal.
“We are determined to realize that ambition,” he said.
($1 = 0.7952 pounds)
Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Michael Holden and Jane Merriman
FILE PHOTO – A car hangs on the wall of Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich manufacturing facility in Birmingham, Britain, November 17, 2016. REUTERS/Darren Staples
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)
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)
LONDON (Reuters) – British regional airline Flybmi has gone into administration and has cancelled all flights with immediate effect, the company said in a statement on Saturday, blaming Brexit uncertainty as one of the reasons for its collapse.
A spokesperson for British Midland Regional Ltd said the company had taken the decision due to increased fuel and carbon costs and to uncertainty arising from Britain’s plans to leave the European Union on March 29.
The airline, based in the English East Midlands, operates 17 planes flying to 25 European cities. It employs 376 people in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Belgium.
“We sincerely regret that this course of action has become the only option open to us, but the challenges, particularly those created by Brexit, have proven to be insurmountable,” the company said.
Spikes in fuel and carbon costs had undermined efforts to move the airline into profit.
It added: “Current trading and future prospects have also been seriously affected by the uncertainty created by the Brexit process, which has led to our inability to secure valuable flying contracts in Europe and lack of confidence around bmi’s ability to continue flying between destinations in Europe.”
The airline, which said it carried 522,000 passengers on 29,000 flights in 2018, advised customers with bookings to contact their bank or payment card issuer to obtain refunds.
MADRID (Reuters) – The Spanish government is confident national flag carrier Iberia will be able to fly across Europe in the event of a disorderly Brexit, even though the airline is majority-owned by Britain-based Anglo-Spanish group IAG (ICAG.L).
Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29 but has yet to seal a withdrawal agreement, posing a potential risk to airlines that don’t meet EU rules requiring European carriers to be majority-owned and operated in the bloc.
“From the public works ministry’s point of view, we’re convinced that Iberia is a Spanish company,” a spokesman for the ministry told Reuters.
“We are also convinced that, if necessary, the company will make the necessary adjustments to make sure it complies with European regulations,” he said.
Iberia carries 19 million passengers a year and is a major employer in Spain with almost 17,000 workers.
IAG, which also owns British Airways, is registered in Spain but headquartered in Britain and has shareholders from around the world. Iberia has a Spanish shareholder with just over 50 percent of voting rights via a complex ownership scheme.
“We are confident that we will comply with the EU and the UK ownership and control rules post-Brexit,” IAG said, adding that IAG was a Spanish company.
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Brussels had doubts about IAG’s arguments that its individual airlines are domestically owned.
European Commission sources told Reuters that Brussels encouraged IAG and all airlines concerned to check with the national licensing authorities whether they would still meet the operating licence requirements in case of a “no deal” Brexit.
They said the Commission was in regular contact with the national authorities that review compliance.
While IAG wholly owns the economic rights of Iberia Holdings, it holds just 49.9 percent of voting rights. Garanair, wholly owned by Spain’s retail giant El Corte Ingles, has the remaining 50.1 percent voting stake.
(By Belén Carreño. Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Writing by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Mark Potter)
