United Continental is pushing ahead with its aggressive growth plan as robust demand enables the airline to boost fares even as it expands the seat supply. Revenue for each seat flown a mile, a proxy for pricing power, will rise 1 to 3% in Q2, the carrier said Tuesday as it reported earnings. That would be the third straight increase in the benchmark, also known as unit revenue. The pricing strength bolsters United’s bet that it can increase the number of seats and flights without sparking a fare war that would drag down profit. The carrier’s plan to boost seating capacity as much as 6 percent a year through 2020 sparked a stock selloff in January as investors anticipated depressed fares, especially in the Midwestern US markets where United is focusing much of its growth. “Investors were braced for unit revenues to be flat in Q2, but the positive 1 to 3% guidance assuaged fears” that rapid growth would hobble pricing power, said Andrew Davis, an analyst at T. Rowe Price Group, a major investor in US airlines. Investors should be relieved that United trimmed its plan for full-year capacity growth to no more than 5.5%, he said. The carrier said it would expand between 4 and 5% this quarter, following a 3.6% gain in the first three months of the year.<br/>
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Air NZ's international network faces further disruption as US regulators bring in tough new standards covering how far Dreamliners can fly from airports in the case of an engine shut down. The FAA order — seen by the Herald and about to be published online by the regulator — restricts the planes fitted with some potentially faulty Rolls-Royce engines from operating more than 140 minutes from a diversionary airport, down from 330 minutes. Air NZ is already doing more frequent checks on the "package C" engines at the centre of the FAA directive after an alert from the European regulators. The FAA airworthiness directive order threatens to be far more disruptive for operators of Dreamliners. Air New Zealand said 16 of its fleet of 27 long-haul aircraft were not Dreamliners, and would not be affected by the order and fly as normal. One of its 11 Dreamliners is fitted with newer Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 TEN engines which is not affected by the order. "By utilising our fleet flexibly we expect to continue to operate to all international destinations, although some routes will have aircraft and/or departure time changes. We apologise in advance to customers who may be inconvenienced during this time," a spokeswoman said.<br/>
Singapore Airlines and Fiji Airways have agreed to codeshare, adding popular leisure destination Fiji to the SIA network and broadening Fiji Airways’ global access. Under the deal, SIA and its SilkAir subsidiary will codeshare on Fiji Airways’ nonstop flights between Singapore and Nadi, Fiji. SIA currently does not have flights to Fiji. Connections from Nadi to three Fijian domestic airports will be covered by the codeshare. Customers from 10 destinations in Asia and Europe will also be able to connect to Fiji via Singapore under the new deal. Travelers from Fiji can access SIA and SilkAir routes to cities in China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and the UK. Fiji Airways CEO Andre Viljoen said the deal “leverages the [SIA] airline group’s impressive global distribution network and significantly grows our footprint across Asia and Europe, with some of these cities appearing on the Fiji Airways network for the first time.”<br/>