star

Boeing 777 jetliners with the type of Pratt & Whitney engine that broke apart over Denver on Saturday could remain parked for an extended period -- possibly months -- while the engine-maker completes rigorous inspections demanded by US air-safety regulators. It will take eight hours to inspect each one of the 44 engine fan blades on each jet with high-tech, elaborate checks needed to spot potential imperfections that could cause them to break apart in flight, FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said Wednesday. “We’re going to undertake that campaign on the entire fleet, and then as the blades are inspected then the airplanes will begin to be returned to service,” Dickson said. With 22 fan blades on each engine, that translates to 352 work-hours per plane or 44 eight-hour shifts. Depending on the capacity at Pratt & Whitney’s facility performing the inspections, it could take months to complete the required checks on the roughly 125 older 777 twin-aisle planes affected by the order. United is the largest operator of the affected 777s, with roughly 50 in its fleet, half of which are in storage. The extensive nature of the inspection work could alter United’s views about whether to retire the jets. The newest of those was delivered in May 1998 and has been parked at a storage center in Roswell, New Mexico, since March. It’s also unclear how costs associated with the inspections would be handled between United and Pratt & Whitney, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp. A United spokesman said the carrier had no immediate comment on the issue. A Pratt & Whitney representative declined to comment.<br/>

A United plane with a Pratt & Whitney engine that failed on Saturday had flown fewer than half the flights allowed by US regulators between fan blade inspections, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. The Boeing 777 plane had flown nearly 3,000 cycles, equivalent to one take-off and landing, which compares to the checks every 6,500 cycles mandated after a separate United engine incident in 2018, said the sources. They sought anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. United declined to comment. Pratt, the maker of the PW4000 engines, advised airlines on Monday to step up checks to every 1,000 cycles, in a bulletin seen by Reuters. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<br/>

Before coming under scrutiny because of a mid-air engine explosion, United’s aging fleet of Boeing 777s had already garnered plenty of criticism in credit markets. The aircraft that showered debris over a Denver suburb this past weekend was among assets that investors had been reluctant to accept as collateral last year when the airline sought to borrow billions of dollars to ride out the pandemic, according to flight records and debt documents reviewed by Bloomberg. United’s first attempt to sell debt backed by some of its oldest planes -- including the 26-year-old 777-200 with the engine mishap, and dozens more like it -- collapsed in May after investors demanded interest as high as 11% to compensate for the risk. A second effort to pledge the same aircraft for a new debt sale a few months later, along with engines and other spare parts that United had scraped together, was more successful. CreditSights analyst Roger King described the deal at the time, however, as a “kitchen sink” offering because of the poor quality of the underlying assets.<br/>

Air New Zealand Thursday posted am H1 pretax loss of NZ$185m ($136.97m) and forecast a significant loss for 2021 due to a sharp fall in travel associated with the coronavirus pandemic. The airline has benefited from a recovery in domestic travel due to New Zealand’s near-eradication of COVID-19. However, its international border remains closed and a two-way travel bubble with neighbouring Australia is yet to be approved. New Zealand’s flag carrier said its domestic capacity was running at around 76% of pre-pandemic levels, helped by robust local tourism and return of business demand during the first half. “The airline remains optimistic about the future, and, after making both short and long-term changes to the business to lower the cost base, is well positioned for recovery when demand returns,” CE Greg Foran said. Air NZ did not provide an earnings guidance range for 2021, citing uncertainty around the lifting of travel curbs, but said it will make a “significant loss” despite strong domestic and cargo performance. It expects to burn around NZ$45m to NZ$55m of cash for the remaining five months of fiscal 2021, lower than the average of about NZ$79m a month from September 2020 to January 2021. <br/>

South Africa resisted adding yet more billions of rand to its ongoing bailout of the country’s bankrupt national airline, sticking to the idea that a private partner can be brought in to salvage the carrier. Administrators for South African Airways have asked for 3.5b rand ($239m) more in state funding than was allocated in October, according to the country’s Budget Review presented on Wednesday. A further 5.3b rand is being sought from outside entities, according to the document. Yet no further cash was put aside for the carrier by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni. Any reports that more funding will be provided are “speculative,” he told reporters in an online briefing after presenting the plan to lawmakers in Cape Town. The government’s repeated bailouts of SAA have long been controversial, given the country’s economic difficulties and precarious finances. The issue has become even more emotive given travel curbs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which have seen the airline’s fleet grounded since March 2020 and showing little sign of an imminent return to the skies.<br/>

Lufthansa on Wednesday rejected charter airline Condor’s accusations that it was abusing its market position in cancelling an agreement between the two companies late last year, months after the larger German carrier received a bailout. Lufthansa was granted a E9b government bailout that came with conditions to preserve competition including the transfer to rivals of some take-off and landing slots at German airports. Condor has complained that its larger rival abused its market dominance when it cancelled an agreement that allowed Condor passengers to use Lufthansa feeder flights as part of their journeys to holiday destinations. Earlier this month, Condor asked the European Court of Justice to stop Lufthansa from cancelling the agreement. Lufthansa on Wednesday said the approval of the state aid and its conditions were in line with European Union law. It said Condor’s complaints to the German cartel office regarding Lufthansa were unjustified. “Condor should also simply face the competition and prove its own future viability,” said Michael Niggemann, a Lufthansa board member.<br/>