Icelandic airline Play jumped 44% in its stock debut on the Icelandic First North exchange on Friday. Founded by former executives from collapsed airline WOW, Play is the Nordic region’s latest newcomer betting on cheap planes and pent-up travel demand as COVID-19 restrictions are eased. Shares in the Icelandic budget carrier, which priced its initial public offering at 18 Icelandic crowns ($0.15) per share, rose to 26 crowns per share in early trading. Play said demand for the shares offered had been eight times supply. “Our staff has worked wonders and we are well prepared to maximise the opportunities post-COVID. I think we can be allowed a little optimism now that we can start rebuilding Iceland’s aviation and tourism sectors,” CEO Birgir Jonsson said.<br/>
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For years Michael O’Leary has been the undisputed king of the European skies. The Irish executive has grown Ryanair from a low-cost upstart into the region’s dominant airline by offering cheap fares through an ultra-efficient business model that rivals have been unable to match. But when the aviation industry emerges from the rubble of the pandemic, O’Leary will have competition. Hungarian carrier Wizz Air has an equally low-cost business and is set on continuing a period of breakneck expansion and moving further into western Europe. Even while the rest of their industry crumbles, O’Leary and Wizz Air chief executive József Váradi have spent the past year touting the opportunities emerging. Both airlines are taking on new aircraft, scooping up take off and landing slots and opening new bases, while rivals with weaker balance sheets such as Alitalia and Norwegian Air Shuttle retrench or collapse. Neither is immune to the immediate impact of the pandemic, and both companies have bled hundreds of millions of euros over the past year. But their shares have recovered from heavy losses and are close to all-time highs, a sign that investors agree that low-cost is the future of European aviation. Story has more.<br/>
None of the three occupants of an Aerolineas Andinas Aliansa Douglas DC-3 has survived after the aircraft came down shortly after departing Villavicencio. The airline’s operational safety director, Diego Mauricio Arias Grajales, has confirmed the loss of two pilots and a technician in the 8 July crash. Civil defence organisation Defensa Civil Colombiana says search personnel have located the aircraft near the village of Santa Lucia in the vicinity of Restrepo, a town some 5nm north-east of Villavicencio’s La Vanguardia airport. Video footage had emerged showing showing aft fuselage debris in an area of trees, with characteristic black-and-white stripes matching those on the aircraft, and a vertical fin bearing its registration, HK-2820. The wreckage video also indicated extensive forward fuselage damage. Aliansa had acknowledged that the images corresponded with the missing aircraft but had been awaiting positive identification from official search parties. Civil aeronautical authority Aerocivil says difficult weather conditions in the area obstructed search personnel attempting to reach the site.<br/>