Ryanair is again claiming air traffic control discrimination against London Stansted flights, submitting a new complaint to the EC and the UK Civil Aviation Authority. The complaint comes a year after a formal CAA investigation cleared air navigation service NATS of breaching licence conditions, after Ryanair and Stansted airport’s operator accused NATS of discriminating against Stansted flights and failing to provide adequate resources to manage traffic. Ryanair’s latest complaint states that London Heathrow is “being given special treatment”, citing CAA data for Q1 of this year indicating that Stansted suffered 15,268min of air traffic control delays. This figure included 13,420min attributed to air traffic control capacity but just 31min linked to staffing. <br/>
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The parent company of Indonesia AirAsia posted an operating loss of Rp514b (US$34.7m) for Q2 of 2018, reversing the Rp212b operating profit last year, as it was pummelled by higher operating costs. AirAsia Indonesia's revenue for the quarter to 30 June fell 4.4% Rp1.83t. Expenses jumped 38% to Rp2.35t, driven by higher aircraft operating costs, and sales and marketing activities. Its attributable net loss narrowed 24% to Rp426b, as the company benefited from a Rp130b tax gain. Cash and cash equivalents as of 30 June 2018 stood at Rp119b, down from the Rp198b it had at the same time the year prior. <br/>
VLM Airlines has cancelled all flights and ceased to function, a company spokesperson said. The announcement came during an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting in London. VLM recently cut its schedule back to only offer flights to London City and Zurich; those routes are now also abandoned. The staff of 85 people will lose their jobs. Management of parent company SHS Aviation announced the cancellation of the majority of flights in August, in what one flight economist described as the “chronicle of a death foretold”. The loss of VLM leaves Antwerp airport with little to work with, but is not an “unavoidable disaster,” according to Marcel Buelens, CE of the airport company. “We’re been looking into alternatives for some time,” he said. “We certainly want to hold on to the London connection, and talks are ongoing with Flybe.” <br/>
The Virgin Australia board did 2 things last week that not only cleaned up the group’s balance sheet for John Borghetti’s successor but may also have created a window for the much-speculated re-making of its cluttered share register. The board wrote-off more than A$760m of assets, including $452m of deferred tax assets, in the group’s results for the year to June, overwhelming the $109.6m of underlying pre-tax earnings and pushing Virgin to a $653.3m statutory loss. The board also did something that was, for Virgin, quite unusual. It provided firm guidance for the first half, saying that on both an underlying and statutory level the airline was expected to post a profit. The write-downs and the guidance provided a signal that the appointment of a new CE is imminent. <br/>
An airline is creating 300 jobs in Scotland after announcing expansion plans at 2 airports. Jet2.com and Jet2holidays is increasing capacity at Glasgow and Edinburgh's terminals next summer with more than 1.7m seats in total. It is also launching new destinations - Bourgas in Bulgaria from Glasgow and Edinburgh and Izmir in Turkey from Glasgow. The company boasted of a "bumper summer". More than 150 cabin crew and more than 100 ground operations staff will be recruited, along with experienced pilots for roles on the flight deck. In total the company is recruiting more than 3,000 staff across the UK and Europe in a variety of positions. More than 2,000 jobs are located across the company's 9 UK bases - in flight deck, cabin crew and ground operations roles. <br/>