India’s Jet Airways has extended the deadline for initial bids for the bankrupt airline to Aug. 10 from Aug. 3, a statement from the company said on Saturday. Jet, once ranked among the country’s biggest airlines, was forced to ground all flights in April after running out of money and failing to secure funds, crippled by mounting losses as it attempted to compete with low-cost rivals. The bid submission deadline has been extended at the request of some prospective bidders, it said. Jet Airways and its lenders have been searching for new investors since its planes were grounded and staff left unpaid. Lenders to the airline agreed on July 19 to provide interim financing to help it cover legal and other costs as bankruptcy resolution experts seek a buyer. <br/>
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EU competition regulators on Friday ordered France to recover E8.5m in illegal aid granted to Ryanair at Montpellier airport because it gave the Irish low-cost carrier an unfair advantage. Ryanair served the airport in the south of France until April 2019. The EC started an investigation following a complaint from a Ryanair rival. The EU antitrust enforcer said the case centred on about E8.5m paid to the airline and its subsidiary AMS by the Association for the Promotion of Touristic and Economic Flows (APFTE) between 2010 and 2017 for promoting Montpellier and the surrounding area on Ryanair's website. APFTE is funded almost entirely by regional and local public entities which control the use of its budget.<br/>
Icelandair remained loss-making in Q2, as the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max fleet took a $50m toll on the carrier's operating result. EBIT was negative to the tune of $24m in the quarter, widening a $20m reverse in the same period last year. The net loss rose from $26m to $34m. Passenger numbers were up 16%, on capacity lifted 8%, and the load factor improved by 4.7 percentage points to 85%. The effective fuel price was 5% higher than in the same period last year, notes the carrier. It said aviation costs excluding fuel were cut by 5% and other expenses by 17%. It gave a figure of 72% for on-time arrivals in H1, versus 60% in the same period of last year, and said it expects to cut last year's disruption costs, which totalled $45m, by "at least 40%" this year. The H1 figure was reduced by $7m. Across the full year, Icelandair expects the Max suspension to have a $140m impact on operating profit. The airline listed a range of ways in which the grounding has affected revenues and costs. Cited in the revenue category are the reaccommodation and "re-protection" of passengers, lost network connections, lost ancillary revenues and yields, lower net promoter scores (NPS), and "imbalance in the route network".<br/>
Utah-based regional carrier SkyWest Airlines boosted its net income in the 2019 Q2, aided by its ongoing fleet transition initiatives and the divestiture of ExpressJet Airlines in January 2019. The company recorded 2Q net income of $88m, up 13% from $76m in the year-ago quarter. Revenue totaled $744m, down 7.6% from $806m in Q2 2018, and related to the sale of ExpressJet in January. Excluding ExpressJet revenue in Q2 2018, SkyWest’s Q2 2019 revenue increased by $82m, mainly because of the addition of 36 new aircraft since the year-ago quarter. Excluding ExpressJet, the company’s Q2 operating expenses increased $70m, because of the additional aircraft and higher labor costs. Block hours rose 7.7% to 370,800 hours. “The January closing of the ExpressJet sale, combined with these latest fleet announcements, reduces our overall enterprise risk and will help us drive a healthy balance of earnings growth and cash flow generation,” SkyWest president and CEO Chip Childs said. “We remain very focused on sustainable opportunities that position us for long-term success.”<br/>
Singapore-based lessor BOC Aviation will place four Airbus A321neos with locally headquartered LCC Scoot Airlines. The deal was among several recent orders and deliveries announced by lessors. Scoot, a new customer for BOC Aviation, is scheduled to take delivery of the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM-powered aircraft in the second half of 2020. The carrier has 16 A321neos on order, 10 of which will be leased. “Low-cost travel continues to enjoy strong demand, and Scoot’s selection of the A321neo allows it to leverage this growth and further develop its regional network,” BOC Aviation managing director and CEO Robert Martin said. The new aircraft “will inject growth possibilities to our network plans for 2020 and beyond,” Scoot CEO Lee Lik Hsin said. Elsewhere in Asia, GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) has delivered the first of four A320neos to China’s Hongtu Airlines. Hongtu Airlines, operating as Air Travel, announced at the 2018 Farnborough Air Show that it planned to take four of the new-technology narrowbodies from GECAS. The delivery marks the first LEAP-powered A320neo to enter service with the Kunming-based airline, which has more than doubled its fleet in the past year, with nine A320-family aircraft in service.<br/>