American Airlines Group’s VP overseeing alliances is stepping down, a month after the carrier lost a pending partnership expansion in Latin America to Delta Air Lines. Joe Mohan will move to an advisory role at the carrier after this week, “offering assistance until early next year,” according to a memo. The change comes 2 weeks after American announced a reshuffling of executive duties in which Mohan was to begin reporting to Vasu Raja, who was promoted to senior VP of network strategy at American. An effort by American and Latam to jointly market and operate flights between the US and 6 South American countries foundered in May when Chile’s Supreme Court hobbled the venture on antitrust grounds. <br/>
oneworld
Australia's biggest airlines have suffered a resounding defeat in their campaign for tighter regulation of airports with the Productivity Commission finding the airports are not misusing their market power. In a blow to Qantas and Virgin Australia, the federal govt's advisory body said in a final report on airport regulation released Tuesday that a new independent arbitrator was not necessary. The creation of the body was one of the key demands from the airlines who wanted it to rule on disputes between airports and carriers. The long-running inquiry heard airline claims that Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth airports were using their monopoly positions to demand unfair prices to use their runways and terminals, citing access fees that are among some of the highest in the world. <br/>
LATAM Airlines was continuing to cancel domestic and international flights from Chile Tuesday as civil unrest affected operations from its main hub in the country. The operator's website lists some 299 services that have been cancelled between Oct 20 and 22. The vast majority are flights that touch Santiago International. At around 07:00 local time Tuesday, FlightStats was categorising Santiago International's delay status as "excessive" – its most severe rating. "Given the current situation of demonstrations in Chile and today's curfew that affects the mobility of both passengers and company officials, LATAM Airlines Group has had to cancel 55 additional flights to and from Santiago during the early morning [of Oct 22]," the airline said. <br/>
Finnair posted a 2019 Q3 net profit of E57.6m (US$64.3m), down 18% from E70.2m in the year-ago period, primarily driven by higher fuel costs and adverse exchange rates. During the 3 months ended Sept 30, Finnair carried 4.1m passengers, marking 12% growth. A 9.5% capacity increase was met with 11.6% year-over-year demand growth, pushing the airline’s load factor up 1.7 points to 86.2%. This demand growth caused revenue to rise 8% YOY to E870.3m. However, exchange rate headwinds and higher fuel costs caused operating profits to fall 17.8% YOY to E94.9m. Finnair’s fuel costs for the period were up E27.4m (+16.8% YOY), although half of this additional cost was driven by fuel hedges. Unit revenue (RASK) for the period fell 1.5%, or 2.5% at constant currency, while unit costs (CASK) were up 2%. <br/>