Norwegian Air Shuttle is entering the critical summer travel season with a bet that jet fuel prices will recede from 3 1/2-year highs -- a position that risks weakening CE Bjorn Kjos’s hand as he negotiates a potential buyout by the owner of British Airways. The airline typically hedges about half its fuel needs to protect against abrupt jumps that could explode costs. But it started scaling back last year, after kerosene prices were already on the rise. “We were reluctant to hedge at the high levels after the summer and have not hedged more for 2018,” said a spokesman. Instead of dropping, though, fuel prices have continued their upward march -- advancing more than 20% since last summer to more than US$700 a ton. Norwegian ended Q1 with 27% of its fuel costs hedged this year, well below rivals. <br/>
unaligned
Traffic at Ryanair increased by 9% in April compared with the same month last year, according to its latest report on passenger numbers. The number of customers who travelled with the airline grew to 12.3m, compared with 11.3m in April last year. Load factor was unchanged at 96%. Rolling annual traffic to April grew 8% to 131.4m customers. Ryanair CMO Kenny Jacobs said the airline would seek to roll out more “always getting better” improvements – a reference to the airline’s latest marketing strategy. The airline recently exercised options to buy 25 Boeing 737 MAX 200 aircraft, in a move which will bring its total firm orders for the aircraft up to 135 and allow it to grow its traffic to 200m customers a year by 2024. The order means Ryanair has now ordered more than 650 Boeing 737s since 1994. <br/>
Air France is cutting its Joon subsidiary's service between Paris and Tehran to the summer season only, blaming a poor economic performance over 2 years in operation. Air France's move comes amid international uncertainty over whether US president Donald Trump will pull out of a nuclear deal with Iran, although a spokeswoman said the decision was not linked to the political climate with Iran. "This just shows how the uncertainty on the Iran deal is beginning to have an impact on the business sentiment towards Iran," said a European diplomat. Bankers and others involved in business with Iran say they have been reluctant to travel to the country to close deals or negotiate the financing of existing ones because of uncertainty over the status of underlying US sanctions, even before the latest standoff. <br/>
India’s market regulator is examining the cause for the worst drop in 7 months in InterGlobe Aviation’s shares before the operator of IndiGo announced the resignation of its president, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Securities and Exchange Board of India is investigating a 6.1% tumble in the stock April 27, as well as the reasons behind the delay in the disclosure of Aditya Ghosh’s exit, the people said. Ghosh resigned as a director April 26, a day before the company made the announcement. The watchdog is reviewing stock-price data to determine if market-sensitive information was disseminated properly or if insider-trading rules were breached, the people said. SEBI will also seek details of connected persons who were aware of Ghosh’s move, they said. <br/>
Pilots of a Southwest Boeing 737-700 diverted to Cleveland and landed safely May 2 after a window cracked in flight. Southwest flight 957 was enroute from Chicago Midway International to Newark Liberty International with 76 passengers aboard when the incident happened. The aircraft flew as high as 33,000 ft. before pilots began a descent, landing in Cleveland less than an hour into the flight. Less than 3 weeks ago, the crew of a Southwest 737-700 made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International after an inflight engine failure blew out a window, leading to the death of a passenger. In the latest incident, “the aircraft maintained pressurisation, as there are multiple layers of panes in each window. No emergency landing was requested, and the flight landed uneventfully with no reported injuries,” Southwest said. <br/>
Mexican ultra-LCC Volaris reported a MXP1.1b (US$61.5m) net loss for Q1 of 2018, narrowed from a MXP1.3b net loss in Q1 2017, as competitive low-cost fares in the country’s domestic market and increased industry capacity continued to inflict pressure on the carrier. Volaris closed out 2017 with a full-year MXP595m net loss. Foreign exchange volatility also challenged the airline’s financial bottom line. Compared to Q1 2017, the Mexican peso appreciated 8% against the US dollar in the past year, resulting in Volaris registering a MXP691m net foreign exchange loss for the quarter, an 18-fold increase over MXP38m in net exchange losses a year ago. Volaris’ Q1 revenue totaled MXP5.9b, up 2.7% year-over-year, with passenger revenues up 2.3% YOY to MXP5.5b, buoyed by a 17.4% increase in ancillary revenues. <br/>