African budget airline Fastjet has appointed Nico Bezuidenhout as chief executive, filling a position that was vacant for nearly three months after the previous CEO resigned due to pressure form the company's second-largest shareholder. Fastjet's former boss Ed Winter stepped down on March 18, weeks after Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who owns a 12% stake in the carrier through a private investment vehicle, called a general meeting to dismiss Winter. Bezuidenhout will join Fastjet on August 1 from Mango Airlines, a low-cost carrier unit of South African Airways.<br/>
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Philippines budget airline, Cebu Pacific, is looking to acquire two more Airbus A330s, company president Lance Gokongwei said. "That is under consideration because we're looking to fly to additional routes particularly Honolulu or increasing potential flights to the Middle East," Gokongwei said. The carrier, which has a fleet of 57, mostly Airbus, aircraft, expects to increase its fleet to 69 by end-2018. Asian budget carriers have been placing big orders for jets from Airbus and Boeing to take advantage of a regional travel boom. Last month, eight Asian low-cost carriers, including Cebu Pacific, set up an alliance allowing people to book flights across their platforms for the first time, aiming to reach more customers outside their home markets.<br/>
Emirates may offer premium-economy seats in a reversal of its resistance to a class combining a touch of luxury with reasonable fares, as declining oil revenues prompt Middle Eastern customers to tighten travel budgets. Introducing a cabin pitched between coach and business would improve fare flexibility as falling crude prices prompt a “paradigm change” in travel habits among wealthier passengers and companies exposed to the Persian Gulf that took hold elsewhere after the recession, Emirates President Tim Clark said. Emirates, which counts on petroleum-rich markets for a chunk of bookings, has previously avoided the industry’s rush to economy-plus products for fear of cannibalizing sales of more lucrative seats. With oil reaching a 12-year low in February after falling by about one-third in 2015, the airline is now finding it tougher to fill the world’s biggest fleet of wide-body jets. “There’s clear and present evidence that this is something that we too should take seriously,” Clark said. “The job of the industry is now to adjust to the growing demand in other segments that don’t yield as much as the corporate segments did.” Emirates, which would become the only major Middle Eastern airline to offer premium economy should it adopt the class, reported its first annual sales decline in a decade in the year through March, while the proportion of first- and business-class seats filled dropped 3.2 percentage points.<br/>
Emirates airline announced Thursday that it has repaid a bullet bond [Bullet bond is a debt instrument whose entire face value is paid at once on the maturity date] in full for the value of $1b on its maturity date of June 8. The bond was raised in 2011 to address Emirates’ working capital requirements. Emirates will also be repaying a bond totaling S$150m later this month that was raised in 2006. The airline is repaying both bonds from its own cash resources. By the end of 2016, Emirates will have repaid six bonds and sukuks in full over the course of the last five years, totaling $2.84b. “The repayment of these bonds illustrates Emirates’ continued ability to access international funding and garner support from financial markets and institution. Our strong business model and long-term financing strategy will position Emirates to unlock further growth with the delivery of 36 aircraft this financial year,” said CE Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum.<br/>
Virgin Atlantic Airways will suffer a slump in demand if Britain exits the EU as international businesses desert London for major cities still inside the 28-nation bloc, according to Craig Kreeger, the carrier’s American CEO. A longer-term dip in sales might mean evaluating the case for exiting some markets and targeting entirely new ones, Kreeger said. Trans-Atlantic flights, which account for 70% of Virgin’s total capacity, could see bookings slide as US companies favour locations such as Paris and Frankfurt, which it doesn’t serve, the CEO said. “Most travel-intensive businesses -- consulting, banking, technology -- can make a pretty good argument that London right now is the center of Europe,” he said. “If Brexit has a risk that’s easy to understand, it’s the possibility that that center would move east to the larger European open market.” A victory for the “Leave” campaign in a referendum on June 23 would also prompt a further weakening of the pound, increasing costs for UK airlines that pay in dollars for fuel accounting for 40% of total expenses, Kreeger said Wednesday. “The long-term impact is whether the economy weakens in a way that makes it just too hard for more Brits to travel, particularly on long-haul vacations to the United States, which is kind of a big part of our business,” he said.<br/>
Ryanair will launch the new Ryanair Rooms service in October, offering everything from 5-star hotel rooms to hostels and spare rooms in private homes. It will add at least two partners to Booking.com, currently its exclusive accommodation partner. "We see this as a natural progression towards Ryanair.com becoming the Amazon of air travel," chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said. Ryanair is Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers, flying 106 million journeys last year, and management says it wants to leverage this base to compete with fast-growing web firms. CE Michael O'Leary said Ryanair would charge commissions to accommodation suppliers of under 10% compared to up to 20% charged by some online aggregators. Ryanair is entering a fragmented holiday lettings market, with the four largest companies - Airbnb, Homeaway, Tripadvisor and booking.com - controlling a market share of less than 25% between them, according to a company called Tripping.com, a search engine for holiday villas and short-term lets.<br/>
Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsia, has restricted Moscow-based Red Wings Airlines’ air operator’s certificate, prohibiting it from SSJ100 aircraft operations. The decision takes effect from July 1. The restriction was made after an inspection carried out earlier this year, Rosaviatsia said. Red Wings disclosed the decision to cease SSJ100 operations in April 2016. Moscow-based Red Wings took delivery of the first of three leased SSJ100s from Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft in January 2015. Two more aircraft were delivered to the carrier in the second half of last year, while the first three delivered aircraft were sold by SCAC to the State Transport Leasing. The airline also operates a fleet of Russian-built Tupolev Tu-204 aircraft. In 2015, the airline carried 1.035m passengers, up 12.7% year-over-year.<br/>