South African Airways could have to suspend some flights and delay salary payments if the government can’t come up with a plan soon to provide the 2b rand ($139m) it promised the airline last month, a trade union official said on Wednesday. State-owned SAA entered a form of bankruptcy protection last month in an effort to rescue the company and 10,000 related jobs. At the time it was promised 2b rand from the government and 2b rand from lenders. But unions briefed by the specialists appointed to turn around the carrier were told on Wednesday that the government had not yet been able to provide its portion of the funds and that the 2b rand from lenders had been exhausted, National Transport Movement president Mashudu Raphetha told Reuters. Unions were told SAA’s business rescue practitioners needed clarity from government on the 2b rand of promised funding by the end of Jan. 19, Raphetha said. Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana, the business rescue practitioners, said in a statement: “We remain hopeful that a mechanism can be found to unlock the liquidity constraints. Government continues to indicate its support for the business rescue process and together we are considering various scenarios to keep the entity operational. ... The liquidation of SAA is not one such current scenario.” <br/>
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Air Canada unveiled its first Airbus A220-300 to reporters at the company’s headquarters in Montreal on Wednesday. The 137-seat narrowbody is the first of 45 A220-300s the carrier expects to receive through 2022. Manufactured by Airbus Canada (previously Bombardier) at its facility in Mirabel, Quebec, the former Bombardier CS300 is a major component of Air Canada’s fleet modernisation plan, which will see the carrier retire its fleet of Embraer E190s in favour of the newer, more fuel-efficient A220. “The A220 represents the transformation Air Canada has undergone and the innovative culture we’ve developed,” Air Canada president and CEO Calin Rovinescu said. “Over the past 10 years, we’ve undertaken a renewal of our entire mainline fleet, spending more than $12 billion. It began by accumulating state-of-the-art widebody aircraft. The arrival of the A220 represents the next phase of narrow-body renewal for our fleet.” Air Canada became the first North American airline to place a firm order for the former C Series when it finalized a letter of intent for 45 CS300s in June 2016, with options for 30 more, at a list price of $3.89b. Air Canada’s A220 will officially enter into commercial service Thursday, when it will make its maiden commercial flight between Montreal and Calgary.<br/>
Ethiopian Airlines will start constructing a new $5b airport later this year, its CEO was quoted as saying on Wednesday, as the rapidly-expanding carrier outgrows capacity at its current base in Addis Ababa. The airport, which will cover an area of 35 square km, will be built in Bishoftu, a town 39 km south east of the capital, and have the capacity to handle 100m passengers a year, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency quoted Tewolde Gebremariam as saying. “Bole Airport is not going to accommodate us; we have a beautiful expansion project. The airport looks very beautiful and very large but with the way that we are growing, in about three or four years we are going to be full,” Tewolde said. Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa has a passenger capacity of about 19m passengers annually. Tewolde noted that the price tag of the new airport was higher than the $4 billion cost of building the still-to-be-completed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile, with the projected passenger numbers topping those at Dubai’s international airport He did not give details of how the construction would be funded, nor who would build the new airport.<br/>
EgyptAir will operate direct flights from Cairo to Dublin, Ireland, starting from July 2020, the company announced Monday. “As part of the Civil Aviation Authority's plan to expand the network and reach every point in the world from Cairo International Airport, we are pleased to operate four weekly flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Sundays and Fridays between Cairo and Dublin,” said Head of the company Ahmed Adel. "The company will use the newly-bought Airbus A320neo which will join the airlines’ fleet February 2020," he added.<br/>