Ryanair hopes to find an agreement with German unions before Christmas, Chief Marketing Officer Kenny Jacobs said Tuesday, after pilots and cabin crew staged a full-day walkout this month and threatened further strikes. Ryanair’s cost position would be significantly more attractive than that of rivals even if Europe’s biggest low-cost carrier struck deals with unions, he added.<br/>
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US President Donald Trump’s trade battles and the accumulation of global debt to pre-financial crisis levels are among factors that will drive a major reset of the world economy in the next two to three years, according to the head of the world’s biggest long-haul airline. “We have some extraordinary geopolitical forces at play,” Emirates President Tim Clark said. The industry could be facing a “mini” global financial crisis within two to three years and “there is going be a major reset,” he added. The US is set to impose tariffs on $200b of Chinese imports spanning bicycles and baseball gloves to digital cameras, two months after introducing a first round of levies. China has promised to respond in an ongoing tit-for-tat. There’s already intense competition in the Chinese market and declining passenger traffic from there to North America has prompted US airlines to withdraw from some core routes to the world’s second biggest economy. Air China has complained that subsidies for its rivals is distorting the market and lowering fares beyond what’s economically viable. Carriers will have to learn how to deal with dumping by heavily subsidized state-owned carriers, Clark added.<br/>
The small Balkan state of Albania, which has been without a national airline for seven years—has launched Air Albania. The new airline operates a single Airbus A319, but reportedly plans to acquire two A320s in the future. The former national carrier, Albanian Airlines, ceased operating in 2011 and the privately owned Belle Air closed down three years later. The small southern European nation has had a succession of short-lived national carriers since the country emerged from a pro-Beijing Communist dictatorship in the early 1990s. Details of the new airline are sketchy, but it has been something of a pet project for Albanian prime minister Edi Rama, whose Facebook page has provided many of the few details so far available.<br/>