Wizz Air sees profit soaring again this year as bigger, more efficient A321 planes help it to keep costs down, putting it on course to outshine larger rival Ryanair which is more pessimistic about prospects. Wizz, which mainly serves passengers in central and eastern Europe, said Thursday that profit could climb as much as 24% in the 12 months to the end of next March, boosting its shares by 4.5%. By contrast Europe's biggest low cost airline Ryanair said this week that its profits would fall for the first time in five years, hit by higher fuel and staffing costs and flat fares. Wizz Air is also expecting labour costs to rise this year, but said the growing proportion of Airbus A321 aircraft in its fleet gave it an advantage as the planes were more fuel efficient and carried more passengers. Overall it was guiding for costs excluding fuel to fall by 1%. "That is a significantly different position from our competitors. You are seeing cost creep with all of them," Wizz CE Jozsef Varadi said. For the 12 months to March 31, Wizz reported net profit of E275m, a 22% jump on the year before. "Overall, this is a very positive outlook," Goodbody analysts said.<br/>
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South Africa’s Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) said Thursday it had suspended all flights of state-run airline SA Express over safety concerns. The decision comes after Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday that he had appointed an “intervention team” to help at the troubled airline, which has lost several executive managers who have been suspended over graft allegations. President Cyril Ramaphosa has pledged to clean up the graft and misgovernance that critics say bedeviled the administration of his predecessor Jacob Zuma. “The decision to revoke the airline’s permits comes after the SACAA conducted an audit at the airline and its maintenance organization in the past several days, which uncovered severe cases of non-compliance that pose serious safety risks,” SACAA said. “SA Express PTY can no longer continue to operate as an airline. In order to be able to operate, SA Express will have to re-apply and be issued with relevant approvals,” it said. Nine of its 21 aircraft have had their certificates of airworthiness suspended, SACAA said.<br/>
Allegiant Air and its flight dispatchers, represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), reached a tentative agreement May 22 on a five-year contract, the first ever for Allegiant’s 34 dispatchers. Negotiations for the contract began in 2017. IBT Local 986 Secretary-Treasurer Chris Griswold said the contract “includes significant improvements in job security, benefits and compensation.” Allegiant VP-operations control centre Michael Wuerger lauded the dispatchers as being “at the heart of Allegiant, forecasting conditions, working in real time with airports and crews, and in many ways enhancing safety and powering our daily operations.” “A first agreement is an important milestone, and having a contract in place that supports our team members and keeps us competitive across the industry is a win for all involved,” Allegiant chairman and CEO Maury Gallagher said. The tentative agreement remains subject to ratification; results of the flight dispatchers’ vote on the contract are expected by the end of July.<br/>
The CEO of Norwegian Air, under pressure to staff its fleet as it ramps up transatlantic business, said the airline has “more than enough” pilots to cover strong bookings this summer. The company, which has been courted by British Airways owner IAG, struggled last summer to have enough pilots on duty and had to lease extra planes and staff, which weighed on its bottom line. “We have more than enough pilots this year and we have hired many pilots that we have trained up. We are very well covered for the summer,” CEO Bjoern Kjos said. Asked whether bookings for the busy summer season were strong, Kjos said: “Yes.”<br/>