Ryanair is to cancel more than 12% of its flights for two days next week in its biggest-ever strike as cabin crew escalate a staff revolt that began among disaffected pilots last year. The airline said it expected disruption to the travel plans of almost 50,000 customers traveling to and from Belgium, Portugal and Spain on July 25 and 26, as it would cancel up to 300 flights per day. “These strikes are entirely unjustified and will achieve nothing other than to disrupt family holidays,” the airline said. In the company’s largest previous industrial action, Ryanair cancelled 30 flights on July 12 when some pilots in Ireland held their first strike. Ryanair said it will cancel 24 flights on Friday during the second of three strikes planned by the pilots. Cabin crew from across Europe earlier this month published a list of 34 demands on July 4, including “a fair living wage”, improved sick pay and employment contracts in their own language, based on local rather than Irish law. Cabin crew have complained that they have to pay for drinking water during flights and must physically report to work when sick to provide written details of their symptoms. Ryanair, which published a list of cabin crew benefits on Twitter on Wednesday, including pay of up to 40,000 euros per year, said its staff has some of the best conditions in Europe’s low-cost airline sector.<br/>
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EasyJet has raised its profits forecast after soaring revenues in the spring, despite air traffic control strikes and the unusually hot weather dampening demand. Johan Lundgren, the airline’s CE, said costs from disruption had grown by GBP25m compared with the same period in 2017. Air traffic control strikes meant more than 2,600 flights were cancelled and left easyJet having to find 70,000 hotel rooms for stranded passengers. Lundgren said easyJet would make a legal complaint to the EC as it and other airlines, including IAG and Ryanair, seek a solution to the strikes, which are primarily French-based but affect overflying routes. EasyJet revenues nonetheless grew 14% to £1.6bn in the third quarter to 30 June, with ancillary revenues such as baggage up 21.1% to £328m, as it flew almost 10% more passengers. Lundgren said the heatwave and World Cup had dampened demand and would have an effect on the summer season. “We have taken into consideration slightly weaker late yields, for the quarter to come.” However, the airline said it anticipated higher annual profits of GBP550m-590m, as it unveiled the first in a fleet of bigger, quieter planes from Airbus.<br/>
Nigeria plans to re-launch a national airline in December, its junior aviation minister said Wednesday, as the government seeks to make good on President Muhammadu Buhari’s election campaign promise to introduce a new carrier. Decades of neglect and lack of investment have left Nigeria with low-quality infrastructure seen as a hurdle to prosperity. The government has said that upgrading it will require private investment. The Nigerian government will not own more than 5% of the new carrier, Nigeria Air, junior minister Hadi Sirika said at the Farnborough air show in England. “This will be a national carrier that is private sector led and driven,” Sirika said. “It is a business, not a social service. Government will not be involved in running it or deciding who runs it. The investors will have full responsibility for this.” The junior minister said 81 domestic, regional and international routes were planned, and that the government had been in talks with Airbus and Boeing about Nigeria Air’s planes.<br/>
Airbus said Wednesday it had signed an agreement to sell two commercial passenger planes to Uganda as part of the country's plan to revive its national airline which has been defunct for years. The government of long-ruling President Yoweri Museveni has said restarting the national carrier will help Uganda take a slice of the region's growing aviation business and also invigorate the service sector of the economy. Airbus said Uganda would purchase two A330-800neo aircrafts. An iteration of Airbus' A330 widebody airliner, the A330-800neo features new wings and Rolls-Royce's new generation Trent 7000 engines. Airbus' CCO, Eric Schulz said that the planes would "bring a range of benefits offering unrivalled efficiencies with the most modern cabin. We look forward to see the A330-800neo flying in the colors of Uganda." Founded by Uganda's former dictator Idi Amin in 1976, Uganda Airlines was liquidated in the 1990s by Museveni's government under a broader program to privatize troubled state firms and open up the economy to private enterprise.<br/>
Boeing struck a deal to sell 100 more of its 737 Max jetliners to VietJet Aviation JSC, an agreement that will make the Vietnamese discounter the biggest customer in Asia of the planemaker’s largest narrow-body jet. The MOU covers 80 of Boeing’s 737 Max 10 planes and 20 of the 737 Max 8 models, the companies said in a statement Wednesday at the Farnborough air show. The deal is valued at $12.7b at list prices before the customary discounts for aircraft purchases. VietJet is doubling a 737 Max order it announced two years ago during a visit to Vietnam by then-President Barack Obama as the carrier rapidly expands its regional network amid booming travel in Southeast Asia. The airline will now take a total of 200 737 Max planes and is on pace to become the nation’s largest carrier. Vietnam’s first privately owned airline said it would use the Max 10 jets to satisfy surging demand on domestic routes as well as travel from Vietnam to other Asian destinations. Boeing launched the newest and largest 737 variant at the aviation industry’s annual trade expo in Paris last year in an effort to counter the sales success of Airbus’s A321neo. The deal with Boeing also includes training and technical assistance in Vietnam, a boost to aviation in the country. VietJet currently relies on expatriate pilots from 40 countries, said Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, the carrier’s president and CEO, told reporters.<br/>