Flybmi's announcement that it had collapsed summed up the airline industry's woes: fuel costs, green taxes, Brexit uncertainty, falling passenger numbers. It might have added fierce competition. Several European airlines have folded or hit financial trouble during the past 2 years. Monarch collapsed in Oct 2017, while Germania filed for insolvency earlier this month. Air Berlin and Alitalia went bust, although the latter was propped up by the Italian govt. Primera, Cobalt, Azurair Germany, Small Planet Airlines and SkyWork also all succumbed to the market turbulence sweeping across the sector. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary warned this month that the industry would see more bankruptcies. "There are simply too many seats and not enough people," said Travel expert Simon Calder. <br/>
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The sale of ailing UK regional airline Flybe for 1p a share was “an insult to the aviation industry”, according to the company’s second-biggest investor. Andrew Tinkler, who has not previously spoken about why he in January bought a 12% stake in Flybe, said he was motivated to do so after a consortium of Virgin Atlantic, the Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital swooped with their ultra-low GBP2.2m bid. “Since buying those shares, a lot of people have contacted me and do think there’s a lot of value in that business,” said Tinkler, who has supported an effort to eject the airline’s chairman and to investigate the sale. Hosking said accepting the offer made by the 3-group consortium, which will be called Connect Airways, had been “very cavalier with people’s investments”. <br/>
Federal air-safety regulators are investigating Southwest Airlines for widespread failures to accurately track the combined weight of checked bags loaded into each of its jets, according to govt officials and internal agency documents. The FAA’s yearlong civil probe, the documents show, found systemic and significant mistakes with employee calculations and luggage-loading practices, resulting in potential discrepancies when pilots compute take-off weights. The inaccuracies ranged from a few dozen pounds to more than 1,000 pounds in excess of what the paperwork indicated, sparking disputes between the company and some agency inspectors about potential safety consequences. An FAA spokesman said the agency has ordered “a comprehensive solution to the methods and processes used” by the airline. <br/>
It has been a rough Presidents Day weekend for Southwest Airlines. Since Friday, the carrier experienced more cancellations and delays than any other US airline. About 100 flights were canceled for maintenance reasons, as the airline struggles to keep up with an unusually high number of aircraft taken out of service for maintenance issues. In all, more than 40 planes a day have been out of service – that's more than double the usual average, and about 5% of Southwest's roughly 750-plane fleet. Southwest faces what its own managers call an operational state of emergency, due to an unusually high number of the airline's Boeing 737s being taken out of service for maintenance. The spike in out-of-service planes follows an investigation into mechanics' complaints of undue pressure to put aircraft back in service faster. <br/>
The idea of airline food being so delicious that it should be offered on the ground is laughable to most people, but Air Asia Group’s CE Tony Fernandes is dead serious about opening a fast-food restaurant, likely to be in its home market Malaysia first, that will serve the carrier’s inflight dishes. “Our food is fantastic. We believe in it so much that we’re going to start a fast-food restaurant out of it. It’s called Santan,” he said Friday. The carrier does serve one of, if not the most, extensive on-board menus featuring comfort food that is to regional passengers what pasta is to Italians. Passengers can pre-book meals to enjoy greater savings. The airline said it leveraged data from more than 400m guests carried over the years to create the menu. “Food is a great unifying factor across the region,” said Fernandes. <br/>
The chairman and CE of Norwegian Air have said they will sell at a discount some of their rights to buy more shares as part of the NKr3b fundraising effort announced last month. HBK Holding, which owns 25% of the lossmaking airline and is controlled by chairman Bjorn Halvor Kise and CE Bjorn Kjos, will sell some of those rights for 70% of their theoretical value. Norwegian said buyers had committed to a total investment of NKr500m. The size of the heavily discounted rights issue is more than two-thirds of the airline’s equity value of NKr4.27b (US$496m), highlighting the scale of the problems Norwegian faces as it struggles to stay . The company denied their sale reflected a lack of faith in the airline on Kjos’ and Kise’s parts. <br/>
Thomas Cook has enlisted Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to explore the possible sale of its airline business, a source familiar with the discussions said. The holiday company this month said it was willing to sell its profitable airline business to fund its fightback from losses racked up in 2018. Thomas Cook's airline, which fared much better last year than the tour operator business, consists of Germany's Condor and British, Scandinavian and Spanish divisions. A sale of the airline unit, in whole or in part, would enable the company to invest more in its own hotels, improve its digital sales offering and drive further cost savings. One banker said the enterprise value of the airline would be around GBP500-600m, a little more than the current market value of the whole company. <br/>
Despite recent setbacks, Tunisair remains cautiously optimistic about fleet expansion and passenger growth, as a near double-digit improvement in passenger numbers last year and a new govt restructuring plan set for implementation in 2019 have improved its operating outlook. “The market is recovering and further progress is expected in the coming years. We estimate that in 2019, we will reach a target of 4m passengers,” Tunisair CE Ilyes Mnakbi said. Management sees product diversification, especially through the launch of new routes into Africa, as vital to improving the airline’s overall outlook. “The…main focus in its strategic plan is to multiply flight frequencies from Tunis Carthage, expand the African network, develop long-haul flights by adding more frequencies to Montreal, and [launch] the New York route,” he said. <br/>
Turkmenistan Airlines has brought in Lufthansa Consulting to advise on safety improvements, after EASA suspended the airline’s safety authorisation. Turkmenistan Airlines previously had EASA third-country operator authorisation, allowing it to serve destinations in the EU, but this permission was withdrawn by EASA Feb 4, forcing the carrier to halt European flights with its own fleet. Lufthansa Consulting said it was working with Turkmenistan Airlines to help it meet EASA standards. “The airline recently experienced difficulties in satisfying relevant EASA requirements and is taking matters in this regard very seriously. The operator…has therefore decided to cooperate with the German aviation experts to review the existing situation and develop a corrective action plan,” Lufthansa Consulting said. <br/>