A planned five-day strike by Ryanair’s Spanish pilots will go ahead this month after mediated talks were unsuccessful, a spokesman for the Spanish pilots union SEPLA said Tuesday. SEPLA has called on around 900 pilots to walk out on Sept. 19, 20, 22, 27 and 29. Some of those dates coincide with planned strikes already announced by the Irish airline’s cabin crew in Spain. The first two days of the cabin crew strike this week forced Ryanair to cancel fewer than one percent of its daily schedule of flights to and from Spain. It also avoided any cancellations during recent strikes in Portugal and Britain.<br/>
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Norwegian Air, Europe's third-largest low-cost carrier, is seeking a lifeline from bondholders as it grapples with a cash crunch. It has asked for two more years to repay its largest outstanding bonds, worth $380m, and is putting up its lucrative landing slots at London's second busiest airport as collateral. "They are managing the crisis as best they can but they are on the verge of a cliff edge," Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska said. Norwegian Air has grown rapidly. In 2012, as it prepared to take on the big players in the transatlantic market, it placed an order for 222 aircraft, the biggest in European aviation history. But this aggressive expansion left it with high levels of debt, which means it has little room to move if things go wrong.<br/>And plenty has gone wrong. Norwegian Air had to halt flights between Ireland and North America starting on September 15 because of the grounding of all 18 of its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The airline's stock has plunged by 65% this year. And in July, CEO and founder Bjoern Kjos, the company's largest shareholder, stepped down. It is still looking for a permanent replacement. Payment delays from credit card companies reduced its working capital by some $439m in Q2 2019, compared to the same period last year, Norwegian Air said Monday. That wiped out $353m it raised by issuing new shares in March, as well as the proceeds from the recent sale of a stake in a Norwegian bank. "The difficulty is that the long-haul business model doesn't really work in our view. There isn't really long haul, low cost, only long haul, low price," Roeska said. If bondholders agreed to Norwegian Air's debt restructuring it would "extend the lifeline a little bit," he said.<br/>
Israeli carrier El Al will own half the Boeing 787s in its fleet, having reversed plans for a sale-and-leaseback deal. The airline says a planned sale-and-leaseback of two 787-8s with a foreign lessor has been amended, and that one of the two will instead be owned when it is delivered in Q4. El Al, which is taking 16 787s, had originally revealed the leaseback deal in September 2016. It stresses that it will still be receiving the aircraft, and that the change will mean eight 787s – comprising four delivered 787-9s and the four 787-8s yet to arrive – will all be owned. El Al's other eight 787s, all the -9 variant, will be leased. Seven of these have already been delivered to the carrier. One more 787-9 is due for delivery in the current quarter. Two 787-8s will arrive in Q4, according to the airline's fleet plan, with the final pair of 787-8s scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2020.<br/>
The parent company of Indonesia AirAsia posted an operating loss of Rp37.9b ($2.7m) in Q2 as the budget carrier scaled up its operations. Revenue at AirAsia Indonesia for the quarter ended 30 June jumped 63% to Rp3t. ASKs and RPKs both rose 58%, its overall seat load factor inched one point upwards to 82%. This was attributed to the launch of its new hub at Lombok, and frequency increases on the Jakarta-Denpasar and Jakarta-Surabaya routes during the quarter. Expenses were up 29% to Rp3.03t, led by higher fuel and leasing costs. The company was also able to narrow its quarterly net loss by 81% to Rp82.5b, as it benefitted from a Rp27.2b gain on a remeasurement of employee benefits liabilities. Its fleet size grew from 15 to 25 aircraft, as it took over eight jets from its long-haul sister carrier Indonesia AirAsia X which ceased scheduled flights in January. The carrier also received two other jets from AirAsia Group.<br/>
Juneyao Airlines posted an operating profit of CNY691m ($96.2m) in H1, down 13.6% from the previous corresponding period. Revenue for the six months ended 30 June grew 16.3% to CNY8.06b, while expenses increased 20% to CNY7.58b. These were attributed mainly to network expansion, the airline notes. ASKs for the half year grew 16%, with RPKs increasing 15.5%. This led load factors to dip 0.4 percentage points to 85.4%. Attributable net profit dipped 6.3% to CNY579m. As of 30 June, the Star Alliance connecting partner had 72 aircraft made up of 68 Airbus A320 family aircraft and four Boeing 787s. Its low-cost unit 9 Air had 18 Boeing 737s. Looking ahead, Juneyao has flagged geopolitical tensions, fuel prices, as well as currency fluctuations as potential risks to its bottomline. Still, the airline says it will continue to improve its cost efficiency.<br/>