unaligned

Shares of London-listed fuels technology firm Velocys rose by more than 40% on Wednesday after it announced two deals related to the supply of aviation fuel. The company said its subsidiary, Velocys Renewables, had entered into an agreement with Southwest Airlines. The deal relates to a planned biorefinery in Mississippi, with Southwest set to buy an expected 219m gallons of sustainable aviation fuel at a fixed price across a period of 15 years. “After blending, this will enable approximately 575 million gallons of net zero SAF,” Velocys said. The Bayou Fuels biorefinery is slated to start commercial delivery of fuel “as early as 2026.” In addition to the deal with Southwest, Velocys Renewables signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Consolidated Airlines Group. Again, the deal is connected to the Bayou Fuels project. According to Velocys, it “covers the purchase by IAG’s constituent airlines, which includes British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia amongst others, of an expected 73m gallons of SAF, in aggregate, at a fixed price.” The purchase contract is due to last for 10 years from 2026. Post blending, the equivalent of 192m gallons of net zero SAF will be generated.<br/>

Frontier Airlines says it is in a “strong financial position” to get to pre-coronavirus levels by early 2022 despite the coronavirus’ Delta variant that ate into the carrier’s revenues in Q3 2021. The Denver-based ultra-low-cost carrier reported a $23m profit for the quarter that ended on 30 September. Adjusted to take away financial aid the airline received from the government and other items, the carrier posted a $24m loss for the quarter. Revenue for the third three months of this year came in at $630m, up from $245m in 2020, but still lower than the $669 the carrier earned in the three months that ended on 30 September two years ago. “This quarter reflected another step in our path to recovery, with the business remaining resilient in managing the dynamic nature of the pandemic,” says Frontier’s CE Barry Biffle. “Despite the impact of the Delta variant on bookings during the quarter, we increased our capacity, departures and level of ancillary revenue per passenger as compared to the comparable pre-Covid quarter.” But the airline’s executives expect the coronavirus’ more-transmissible Delta variant to be “transient”. The airline is seeing strong bookings for the busy end-of-year holiday travel season, which begins later this month with the Thanksgiving long weekend - often the busiest travel weekend of the year. The company’s capacity guidance for the fourth quarter of the year is 2-4% above that of the same quarter in 2019, with a net income of 10-20% lower than in the pre-pandemic Q4 2019. “We believe that from a demand and revenue environment, we should be back to 2019 levels by the time we get back to spring,” Biffle adds.<br/>

Wideroe AS, the Norwegian regional airline known for flying to fjords in the high north, plans to use small electric-powered aircraft to take passengers on zero-emission flights by 2026. The company reached a deal to collaborate with Embraer SA’s air-taxi unit, Eve Urban Air Mobility Solutions Inc., it said Wednesday, trumpeting the arrangement during the COP26 climate summit. Wideroe is also fast approaching the need to replace its fleet of De Havilland Canada Dash 8 turboprops for its Norwegian short-haul network, it said. The carrier intends to start bringing in aircraft powered by battery, fuel cells or hydrogen for that purpose by 2030, it said. With Embraer, Wideroe plans to examine new opportunities for passenger travel, including vertical take-off operations in Scandinavia. “We have established Wideroe Zero because we need the freedom to think afresh,” Andreas Kollbye Aks, CEO of the newly established Wideroe Zero, said in the statement. “There are established ways of doing things in every existing airline. Running a zero-emissions fleet is going to be completely different.”<br/>

The boss of Hungarian budget airline Wizz Air attacked the sustainability credentials of traditional airlines like Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, saying business class flying was bad for the environment. The carbon emissions of airlines has been thrown into the spotlight since travel restarted after the pandemic and as worries over climate change grow. Wizz Air's CE Jozsef Varadi told the CAPA industry conference online that there was no place for business class on short-haul flights. "Why do we have to fly business class, especially on short haul? A business passenger occupies a lot more space therefore the environmental footprint of your passenger is much greater," he said on Wednesday. The comments came as world leaders gathered on Wednesday at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, where a number of announcements related to the greening of transportation were expected. They also opened a new front in the battle between newer low-cost carriers and older more traditional airlines over tackling the environmental burden. Legacy airline leaders including Lufthansa's boss Carsten Spohr have criticised low-cost carriers for offering what they describe as unrealistically low fares to stimulate travel at the expense of the environment. Budget airlines like Wizz only offer one class of flying, while full-service airlines like Lufthansa offer different classes with more space for those willing to pay more. Varadi said sustainability meant change in future: "I think that will require some of the airlines to fundamentally rethink how they are doing business and their business approach."<br/>

Emirates has pared back its losses as demand for travel rebounds with the Gulf airline’s revenues surging 86%. The government-owned carrier was hit with a half-year loss of $1.6b in its 2021-2022 financial year compared with a loss of $3.8b in the previous period. The Dubai-based airline carried 6.1m passengers between April and the end of September this year, a 319% increase on the same period in 2020-2021. “We saw operations and demand pick up as countries started to ease travel restrictions,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the airline’s chair and CE. “This momentum accelerated over the summer and continues to grow steadily into the winter season and beyond.” The airline’s home base of Dubai is also recovering after last year’s recession as tourism and business activity picks up. The city, which has a symbiotic relationship with its flagship carrier, is hosting the delayed Expo 2020 world fair and has witnessed an influx of tourists and residents thanks to its successful handling of the pandemic, implementing restrictions to curb infections while keeping the economy as open as possible. The airline said it had been restarting services or increasing frequency to destinations as travel restrictions were lifted. In July, it launched services to Miami, a new destination. By the end of the period, Emirates was serving 139 airports, using all its Boeing 777s and about a third of its A380 superjumbos. The group, which includes cargo and ground handling, reported a loss of $1.6b with revenues up 81% as countries progressed with vaccination programmes.<br/>

Air Arabia, the Middle East and North Africa’s first and largest low-cost carrier, has announced strong financial results for the third quarter of this year ending September 30, 2021, despite the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the performance of the aviation industry. Air Arabia registered a strong net profit of AED209m for the three months ending September 30, 2021, an increase of 575% compared to the same period last year, which was heavily impacted by the pandemic restrictions on air travel. The company’s turnover for Q3 2021 increased by 174% to AED804m, compared to AED294m in the corresponding period of last year, the airline said. Air Arabia served over 1.9m passengers in Q3 from its five hubs in the UAE, Morocco and Egypt, an increase of 190% compared to the number of passengers carried in the same quarter last year. The average seat load factor – or passengers carried as a percentage of available seats – for the same quarter stood at an average of 70%.<br/>

Belarus’s state airline has strongly denied it is involved in any trafficking of vulnerable people to the border with the EU in the face of sanctions expected to target airlines and officials involved in the illegal movement of people. Belavia was responding to the suggestion that it was somehow implicated in the crisis on the Belarus-Poland border amid accusations that the authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko is ferrying people to the EU border in retaliation for the bloc’s sanctions against his regime. Belavia said it could not refuse passengers with the correct documentation and did not operate in any of the countries where many of the people originated. “Belavia does not operate, and during the calendar year 2021 has not operated, scheduled or charter services to any of the following countries, which Belavia understands to be those countries which are the subject of allegations regarding migrant trafficking: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan and Syria,” it said. The airline went on: “Based on sales analysis, Belavia has blocked reservation and ticketing abilities for certain travel agencies considered at risk [of making] ticket sales to citizens from high-risk countries.” The statement came after the world’s leading regional aircraft leasing company said it was monitoring the crisis “very carefully”. Sources close to Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC), which is based in Ireland, said it would “adhere to all restrictions introduced” by government or regulatory authorities and was liaising with its customers “to ensure the highest level of compliance with regulations”.<br/>