Ryanair’s CCO will leave the crisis-hit airline at the end of the month, its CE, Michael O’Leary, has announced. Michael Hickey’s resignation comes after the airline had to scrap the bookings of more than 700,000 passengers last month due to an apparent shortage of pilots, having failed to plan for enough leave for staff. O’Leary said: “He will be a hard act to replace, which is why we are grateful he has agreed to continue in an advisory role to smooth the transition to a successor and to complete a number of large projects he is currently working on”. Hickey will be the first executive to leave the embattled airline after the scheduling crisis. The company was already under heavy fire for cancelling up to 50 flights a day in the middle of September before an extra 18,000 flights were axed at the end of the month. <br/>
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One of the interesting subplots from the recent Ryanair horror show is the cold war between Michael O'Leary's carrier and Norwegian. Early last month Ryanair CCO David O'Brien said that the airline was confident of interlining with Norwegian, feeding short-haul passengers to its transatlantic services. The only issue in the way was getting their respective IT systems to link together. But that plan nosedived in spectacular fashion, after O'Leary said recently that "given our concerns over Norwegian's financial ability ... we are focusing now our discussions with Air Europa and Aer Lingus" for interlining. That attack came just days after a deal was struck between EasyJet and Norwegian that would see the former selling the latter's services on one platform, a deal that surely ruffled feathers at Ryanair HQ. <br/>
EasyJet posted record passenger numbers over the summer as it benefited from the struggles of rivals in the fiercely competitive European short-haul airline market. Despite a GBP100m currency hit in the wake of the Brexit referendum, EasyJet said pre-tax profits for the year ending in September are expected to be between GBP405m and GBP410m, at the upper end of the previously guided range. Profits are still below the GBP495m recorded by the airline in 2016, and down from GBP686m in 2015, but form a bright contrast to the collapse of Monarch and the flight cancellation fiasco at Ryanair. During the 3months to the end of September, EasyJet flew 24.1m passengers, with capacity reaching a high of 95.6%. <br/>
EasyJet is counting on the failure of 3 rival carriers to help accelerate its expansion into major European markets, bringing a silver lining to a fare war that depressed full-year earnings. The impact of a weaker pound should also ease, while fuel costs are set to decline, EasyJet said Friday. Monarch Airlines, its neighbour at Luton, went into administration this week, while Air Berlin and Alitalia filed for insolvency over the summer. “The current turmoil in the sector provides EasyJet with opportunities to capitalise on its strong customer proposition and grow and strengthen our positions in Europe’s leading airports still further,” CE Carolyn McCall said. EasyJet has been battling for market share after low oil prices encouraged European carriers to splurge on seating, spurring price drops that contributed to the demise of its rivals. <br/>
Boeing helped finance the GBP165m bailout of Monarch Airlines last year in a bid to keep the struggling carrier flying. The owners of Monarch, which collapsed last week leaving thousands of passengers stranded, confirmed Sunday that the aircraft maker facilitated a substantial capital injection into the faltering business in several tranches between Oct 2016 and March this year. Boeing is understood to have pumped more than GBP100m into the airline in a move that both staved off its immediate closure and proofed its private equity owner — Greybull Capital — against further losses. Greybull refused to comment on the details of the financing, saying that they were “commercially confidential”. It denied, however, that there had been anything secretive about the transaction. <br/>
More than 60% of holidaymakers left overseas when Monarch Airlines collapsed have now flown back to the UK, the Civil Aviation Authority says. The CAA stepped in after all of Monarch's flights and holidays were cancelled, leasing and chartering planes from 16 different countries. Saturday, 51 flights carried more than 11,000 people back to UK airports, bringing the total to 67,522. By Sunday morning, more than 350 flights chartered or leased by the CAA had brought Monarch customers back from their destination. It said the vast majority of the 110,000 passengers who were on holiday and booked to fly home with the airline when it went into administration will be back in the UK by next weekend. The CAA called the flight operation "the biggest peacetime repatriation effort", and still expects it to cost close to GBP60m. <br/>
Citing huge losses, Pakistan International Airlines will be discontinuing flights to the US from Oct 31, airline officials said Friday. According to the officials, PIA had been incurring losses of up to US$19m annually due to its US operations — a concern which prompted the management to discontinue the flights. The airline is no longer booking US flights through its reservation system after Oct 31. PIA had been operating flights to the US since 1961 without any disruption. A total of 5 weekly flights to New York and 3 other US cities were being operated. The airline had decided several times in the past to discontinue US flights due to the financial losses. However, it faced “political pressure” each time, which hindered its plans, sources privy to the matter said. <br/>
Emirates airline said its financial performance in the first 6 months of this year was “a lot better” than that at the same time in 2016 when it recorded a 75% drop in net profit. Tim Clark, president of Emirates airline, did not elaborate on financial performance Sunday, but said the carrier has had a “very robust summer” in terms of its flights to the US, for example. Emirates is expected to announce its results for the first half of this year next month. Last year, when the carrier reported US$213m in profits for the first half of the year, Emirates attributed the decline to a stronger US dollar and a challenging operating environment. This year, the carrier has to contend with continued challenges in the environment including pressure on airline yields and lower consumer spending. <br/>