Frontier Group, which operates budget carrier Frontier Airlines, priced its US IPO at the bottom of a marketed range, according to people familiar with the matter. The company’s shares sold for $19 apiece, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn’t public yet. The company and its shareholders sold 30 million shares in all, one of the people said. The company and the investors had each offered 15 million share for $19 to $21 each. At $19 a share, Frontier will have a market value of about $4b based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings. William Franke, Frontier’s 83-year-old chairman and biggest shareholder, planned to sell 14.2m of the shares, filings with the US SEC show.<br/>
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US commuter airline Cape Air has firmed orders for 10 additional Tecnam P2012 Travellers, part of its ongoing plan to replace Cessna 402Cs with the new Italian aircraft. Cape Air is the nine-passenger P2012’s launch customer and has said it intends to purchase at least 100 of the Lycoming TEO-540-C1A-powered aircraft. The airline received its first P2012 in 2019 and placed the type in service in February 2020. Cape Air now has 20 P2012s in its fleet. Tecnam will produce Cape Air’s next 10 P2012s this year, it says on 30 March. Additionally, Cape Air has secured options to acquire 10 P2012s from Tecnam’s 2022 production plan, and 10 produced in 2023, the manufacturer says. The deliveries are part of Cape Air’s “final target of [acquiring] 100 aircraft to replace its legacy aircraft fleet”, Tecnam says.<br/>
Romanian operator Blue Air has started taking delivery of Boeing 737 Max jets, with the first of a batch introduced from US lessor Air Lease. Blue Air unveiled an order for six 737 Max 8s during the Paris air show in 2017 and, at the time, stated that it would take another 12 737s – six Max 8s and six -800s – from the lessor. The agreement included options which would have potential taken the total number of aircraft acquired to 20. But Air Lease says the initial Max 8 (YR-MXA) newly transferred to Blue Air is one of 10 destined for the carrier. The remaining nine aircraft, powered by CFM International Leap-1B engines, will be delivered from April this year and through 2022.<br/>
French leisure carrier Corsair has taken delivery of its first Airbus A330-900 on lease from Avolon, becoming the first operator to receive the higher-weight version of the widebody. The airline is adding five A330neos as part of a strategy first unveiled in 2019 to become an all-A330 operator. Corsair already operates five A330s and is replacing its Boeing 747s with the new Airbus widebody. Corsair will deploy the Rolls-Royce Trent 7000-powered A330neo in a three-class, 352-seat configuration. The Corsair aircraft is the first A330neo to feature an increased maximum take-off weight of 251t, after Airbus in October secured certification from the European airworthiness authority for the higher-weight A330-900. Airbus says this will allow Corsair to fly long-haul destinations up to 13,400 km or benefit from more payload on board. The airline has previously said it expects two more A330neos to join the fleet in May and June, with the fourth due for delivery in December and a fifth in June 2022.<br/>
Indonesian authorities have recovered the cockpit-voice recorder of a Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 that crashed on 9 January in the Java Sea. Indonesian officials disclosed the finding in a pier-side briefing. The recorder was placed in a container and will be sent for analysis. The finding of the CVR comes nearly three months after the aircraft’s flight-data recorder was recovered, days after the crash. February’s preliminary report into the disaster indicates that investigators are focusing on the aircraft’s autothrottle system, with early analysis revealing a thrust-lever asymmetry during the flight. The report also disclosed that the aircraft’s autothrottle was unserviceable on two occasions shortly before the ill-fated flight SJ182 crashed in the Java Sea, minutes after taking off from Jakarta bound for Pontianak on the island of Borneo. The crash killed 62 passengers and crew. <br/>
SpiceJet has signed an MoU with US investment firm Avenue Capital for the financing of 50 aircraft, including via sale-and-leasebacks. The agreement is for a “strategic alliance in respect of the financing, acquisition and sale and lease‐back of 50 new planes to be ordered by the airline”, SpiceJet says Wednesday. It adds: “The MoU sets out the next steps and conditions upon which Avenue, as part of the strategic alliance with SpiceJet, will assist with placing of SpiceJet’s new aircraft portfolio including sale and lease‐back of and also assumption of ownership of potentially up to 50 of these aircraft.” The Indian low-cost carrier did not state which aircraft types Avenue Capital would finance. SpiceJet has 142 Boeing 737 Max on order delivering between this month and January 2029, Cirium fleets data show. Of these, 110 are the 737 Max 8, 20 the 737 Max 10, while the rest are an unspecified variant.<br/>
Vietnamese carrier Bamboo Airways has secured slots to operate flights to London Heathrow airport. Bamboo confirmed a report from Vietnamese publication VnExpress that it secured rights to operate six weekly flights. It adds that it intends to fly thrice weekly from Ho Chi Minh City and thrice weekly from Hanoi. While it did not specify a date when flights will commence, it says it could operate the London flights “as early as May, under the permission of the Vietnamese government and favourable market conditions”. The flights will be operated by Boeing 787-9s, of which it has three in operation with another 10 on order. Bamboo will be the second Vietnamese carrier to fly into London Heathrow, following flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, which operated flights to London from Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. These flights have been temporarily suspended due to travel restrictions imposed in light of the global coronavirus outbreak. <br/>
Australia’s Alliance Airlines will on 10 April launch commercial service with its recently acquired Embraer E190 fleet, out of Adelaide and Darwin. The regional operator, which previously operated an all-Fokker fleet, received regulatory approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority on 31 March and received a revised Air Operators Certificate. It stated: “This follows an intense six-month programme of aircraft and spare parts acquisition, maintenance, training and regulatory and compliance checks.” Alliance disclosed in August that it was acquiring 14 E190s from Azorra Aviation and in December signed for another 16 E190s from Jetran, both US-based lessors. “The full 30 aircraft are to be utilised for expansionary purposes,” the operator reiterates in today’s disclosure. Alliance said that 18 of the E190s have been paid for and delivered. Of these, five were delivered to Australia, three are currently overseas undergoing base maintenance, and 10 in storage pending base maintenance.<br/>