Air Transport News announced the winners of the 2016 Air Transport News Awards. Turkish Airlines won the Airline of the Year award and Turkish Cargo is awarded Cargo Airline of the Year. Turkish Technic was named the maintenance, repair and operations company of the year at the 2016 Air Transport News Awards. Istanbul's Atatürk International was selected Airport of the Year. THY chairman İlker Aycı said: "Our flight network is getting bigger day by day, and the contentment of our passengers continues to be our priority." Regarding aircraft passenger capacity, Aycı said: "As a result of a big breakthrough, we increased our passenger capacity to 62m, compared to 10mpassengers in 2012. By flying to 284 destinations in 113 countries, we still preserve the title of the airline flying to the largest number of countries in the world." <br/>
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The United Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Association (MEC), which represents more than 12,000 pilots at United Airlines, has announced a picket to take place April 6 at the headquarters of PAR Capital and Altimeter in Boston, to protest the attempt of the hedge funds to gain control of the board of directors of the carrier. In a letter from the MEC to its members, the union accuses the firms to “have made disturbing statements in an attempt to force many changes within United’s Board of Directors.” The hedge funds proposed a 6-member shareholder slate, headed by former Continental CE Gordon Bethune. Todd Insler, chairman of the MEC, alleged that the proposal is “being done for their own benefit and without publicly stating their intentions for the future of the airline.” <br/>
Avianca will hold off on receiving new aircraft as it looks to weather the region's economic downturn with a conservative strategy. By delaying the new plane deliveries, Avianca will ease its need for capital, company president German Efromovich said. Avianca will also look to cut routes that are not "strategically important," and will not look to significantly increase capacity this year. "The initial plan was to renew the entire fleet for 2024, starting in 2017," Efromovich said. "What we're looking at now is shrinking this process to the maximum extent possible and stretching its start out to 2019-2020." Avianca will wait until April to determine the extent to which the company will delay deliveries for 130 planes already under order. The company's arrangement with Airbus allows for some flexibility in this regard, within a "given deadline". <br/>
Air China's 2015 net profit jumped 77.5%, boosted by low fuel prices and robust leisure and business travel demand. Net profit was CNY6.8b, up from CNY3.8b a year earlier. Air China's fuel bill, which accounts for about 40% of its operating costs, fell 30.4% from the year-ago level. However, it booked a CNY5.2b (US$803m) foreign exchange loss, due to a weakening yuan. The after-tax profit of its cargo joint venture with Cathay Pacific Airways also dropped 87.7% from a year ago. The airline, like many Chinese peers, abandoned hedging to cover variations in fuel costs after being hit by wrong-way bets late in 2009. As a result, these carriers reap the full benefit when oil prices slide. The carrier's performance was also helped by the number of Chinese tourists going abroad, which topped 100m in 2014 for the first time. <br/>