unaligned

Kuwait Airways plans to spend about $2.5b on 28 new aircraft due to be delivered by 2026, Kuwait Airways Chairman Yousef A. M. J. Alsaqer said. The planes will be financed with bank debt, the airline’s own capital and through the sale and re-leasing of the carrier’s planes, Alsaqer said, declining to disclose how much it will borrow. “So far we don’t have an agreement with a particular bank or a certain funding body, but everything is planned,” Alsaqer said, adding that Kuwait Airways has already paid installments for the purchase of the aircraft. He was speaking to reporters on Saturday evening at an event at Kuwait International Airport to mark the arrival of the first new Airbus A320neo jet owned by the company. The plane is the first of 28 the airline will receive by 2026, including 15 of the A320neo jets at $60m each, eight A330-800 aircraft at $100m each and five A350-900 planes, each priced between $130m and $150m, Alsaqer said.<br/>

AirAsia Group scaled back plans to order the Airbus A330neo wide-body passenger jet by nearly two thirds on Friday, switching its focus instead to a long-range new version of the popular A321 series. The long-haul arm of Asia’s largest budget airline group, AirAsia X, had left its fleet expansion in suspense since initially unveiling plans to order 34 more of the 250-300-seat A330neo jets, on top of 66 already on order. The deal was later thrown into doubt as AirAsia reviewed its needs and on Friday the group said it was confirming 12 of the 34 extra A330neo planes while adopting 30 of the smaller, long-range A321XLRs. The move came days after AirAsia X reported its biggest quarterly loss since 2015 and said it expected the operational environment to remain challenging. Late Friday, AirAsiaX said in a stock exchange filing that CFO Wong Mee Yen had resigned to “pursue personal interests,” giving no further detail. She had served in the post since December 2017. Airbus said the latest jet deal would have been worth more than $5 billion at catalogue prices, which it no longer publishes. After typical discounts, the deal would be worth about half this, aircraft traders say. AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said the recently launched A321XLR, which seats up to 240 passengers and can fly for up to 9 hours without refuelling, would allow the group to open longer niche routes without the risk of trying to fill the A330neo. “There are many routes from Malaysia, Thailand and some other countries that we really want to fly that (take) more than four hours, so don’t fit the AirAsia model but have too (few passengers) for the A330,” he said, citing destinations in India, China, Russia and Turkey. “We can use this smaller plane to develop new routes and then transfer it to the bigger aircraft.”<br/>

Mexican airline Interjet is in “technical bankruptcy” and at risk of collapse, according to its finance chief, following an order to start paying off nearly $30m in back taxes. Interjet beat back an attempt by authorities to seize control of its bank accounts in an effort to collect nearly 550m pesos ($27m) in unpaid taxes dating to 2013. But a judge this month ordered the closely held carrier to deposit 10% of its monthly revenue as a guarantee until the debt is paid. The tax collector is putting Interjet “in a serious predicament of economic viability, preventing it from continuing its normal operations,” Chief Financial Officer Raul Lopez said in a July court filing opposing the seizure attempt. “The company’s results from 2013 to 2018 clearly show accumulated losses that can be interpreted as the airline’s technical bankruptcy.” That’s a phrase that in Mexico is typically used to describe a situation where liabilities outweigh assets, but Interjet hasn’t filed for protection from creditors. Still, Lopez’s 77-page filing, which hasn’t been released publicly, describes how weak investor appetite and a fleet of balky Russian jetliners have pushed the airline into financial distress. Interjet -- owned by the family of former Mexican President Miguel Aleman Valdes and operating since 2005 in the space between low-cost and full-service carriers -- also has been forced to ground planes as it grapples with labour strife. Interjet said it was clarifying the exact amount of the tax bill since some amounts may be erroneous. In a separate statement posted later on Twitter, the company categorically denied it’s in technical bankruptcy. “This situation in no way affects passengers or the company’s operations,”’ Interjet said.<br/>

Uganda Airlines has taken to the skies once more after almost two decades out of action, but flies into a crowded aviation market in Africa where carriers have the weakest finances and emptiest planes of any region in the world. The state carrier launched commercial flights on Wednesday, its first since it was liquidated in 2001, aiming to take a slice of the East African aviation business that is dominated by Ethiopian Airlines, the continent’s success story. Uganda is the latest African government to pour money into national flag carriers; Tanzania and Senegal are also resurrecting their airlines, while the likes of Rwanda, Ivory Coast and Togo are expanding theirs. But such efforts have been hampered by high business costs as well as protectionism, which has impeded a continental open-skies agreement - something industry experts say is vital for the success of African carriers in a tough market. The African market is forecast to grow almost 5% a year over the next two decades in terms of passengers, faster than mature markets, according to the IATA. However, this is from a low base and most state-owned flag carriers in the region are losing money. While the global aviation industry is on track to make a profit of $28b, African airlines are projected to make combined losses of $100m this year, IATA said in June. Uganda Airlines, like some of its rivals, aims to attract more domestic travellers to help it buck the gloomy continental trend. Around 2m passengers per year travel through Entebbe, Uganda’s main airport. Around 70% are Ugandans, said the carrier’s CEO Ephraim Bagenda. “All those currently travel on foreign airlines,” he said. “We want part of that cake.”<br/>

Ryanair has appointed Eddie Wilson, the man in charge of the low-cost airline’s union negotiations over the past two years, as CE of its main airline business following an overhaul of the company’s structure. Wilson, a 22-year veteran of Ryanair, will become CE of the budget airline from September 1. He will report directly to Michael O’Leary who earlier this year took on a new role of group chief executive overseeing all of its brands. In his current job as chief people officer, Wilson has played a key role in the ongoing negotiations with unions since Ryanair agreed to recognise them in late 2017 after a rostering failure and staff shortage led to thousands of flight cancellations. But talks have progressed fitfully, and the airline has been hit with intermittent strike action over the past year over pay and conditions. Some UK-based pilots are due to go on strike for three days next week, from September 2, while members of its Spanish cabin crew union are holding 10 days of walkouts throughout September. However, Ryanair said it expected its schedule to operate largely as normal in the UK. It comes after a 48-hour strike by members of the British Airline Pilots Association’ last week which resulted in minimal disruption. In a memo to staff on Friday, O’Leary said that Wilson had “made a huge contribution” to Ryanair’s success since he joined the low-cost carrier in 1997. Over this period, Ryanair has grown from carrying 3m passengers a year to more than 150m.<br/>