Traffic at Ryanair for August increased by 10% to 12.7m passengers on the back of “lower fares”, the company said Tuesday. Some 1.2m additional customers used the airline in Aug 2017 compared with the same period in 2016 when the airline recorded 11.5m passengers. The company’s load factor increased by 1% to 97%. By the end of August the airline had carried 126.2m customers this year, an increase of 13% on last year. The company also announced Tuesday that it had opened its 10th German base in Memmingen. For its summer 2018 schedule the company will have 1 aircraft based at the airport which will help service 6 new routes from the base to bring its total there to 19 routes. Ryanair’s traffic at Memmingen will grow by 26% to about 860,000 customers, it predicted. <br/>
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Virgin Atlantic has completed its Wi-Fi roll-out, which the airline said makes it the first European airline to be fully connected. Virgin Atlantic has equipped 39 aircraft under the roll out, fitting out its Boeing 787s with equipment from Panasonic and its Airbus A330s, 747s and A340-600s with Gogo technology. The service is now available on up to 39 daily transatlantic flights, operated by Virgin Atlantic and its US JV partner Delta Air Lines. Virgin said this positions it a year ahead of its European long-haul rivals. “Results so far have shown that 42% of customers opt for the Wi-Fi max package, which lasts the entire flight, and the most popular routes for Wi-Fi use are London Heathrow to New York JFK, San Francisco and Atlanta,” Virgin said. <br/>
Newbie airline Latin American Wings is going where others fear to tread: crisis-ridden Caracas. Even more remarkable, it’s making money. The Santiago-based carrier has been turning a profit by flying immigrants to Chile from Venezuela and Haiti since it started operating early last year, CE Andres Dulcinelli said. Flights arrive in Santiago full and leave half empty as immigration to South America’s wealthiest nation soars. While companies such as Delta Air Lines, Latam and Avianca have nixed flights to Caracas on security issues and the near impossibility of getting money out of the country, LAW has expanded. It’s secret? A deal with local carrier Aerolineas Estelar Latinoamerica, which takes care of the hassle of converting bolivars into dollars. Now, the airline is planning to increase flights to Caracas and across Latin America. <br/>
Hong Kong Express Airways, part-owned by Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, plans to add widebody aircraft to its fleet eventually to make use of limited airport slots and allow for growth to longer-range destinations, its CE said Tuesday. The airline and sister carrier Hong Kong Airlines have been expanding rapidly in a challenge to Hong Kong's dominant airline, Cathay Pacific Airways, which last month reported its worst first-half loss in at least 20 years amid increased competition that lowered fares. "I think we will certainly progress to widebodies," HK Express CE Andrew Cowen said. "One solution to the slots constraints is to perhaps do fewer frequencies but with widebodies. Obviously widebodies would also allow us to go further afield." <br/>
Alaska Airlines’ regional flying subsidiary Horizon Air will defer delivery of 6 Embraer E175s, an Alaska Airlines spokesperson confirmed. “As to what is going to happen with those aircraft, nothing has yet been finalised,” the spokesperson said. Horizon Air CE David Campbell announced Sept 1 that 3 E175s will be deferred this fall and 3 additional E175s will be deferred in the first half of 2018. Horizon Air has 25 E175s on order, with an additional 33 of the model on option; as of Aug 17 8 E175s have been delivered. Campbell reportedly said the deferrals are in response to a shortage of pilots, but are a temporary measure, with the airline still expecting to take delivery of all of its ordered aircraft by the end of 2018. <br/>