The head of Virgin Atlantic said he expected flights on its important transatlantic routes to be 60% to 70% full in the weeks running up to Christmas, and he did not expect COVID to force those borders to close again. Shai Weiss told the Airlines UK conference that the airline still did not have great visibility on bookings more than three to six months out, but he expected the UK to US route to drive the recovery as large parts of Asia remained highly restricted. "We will be trading all the way up to Christmas, probably with a 60 to 70% load factor, which is a material improvement," he said. <br/>
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Executives from EasyJet and Wizz Air have called on the UK government to allow fully vaccinated travellers to enter the country without being required to undertake a Covid-19 test. EasyJet CCO Sophie Dekkers said the UK’s current Covid-19 testing policies are a “real shame” that weigh on demand. She compares demand in the UK to that in Europe – where vaccinated travellers can travel without testing – noting the “much stronger” recovery in the latter. Wizz Air UK managing director Marion Geoffroy calls on the government to take a “risk-based approach” and “revisit vaccinated traveller status”. “The whole point in vaccination was to avoid this,” Geoffroy says of day-two Covid-19 testing for travellers to the UK. UK aviation minister Robert Courts said the government would undertake a review of travel restrictions early in the new year.<br/>
Britain’s competition regulator is examining whether British Airways owner IAG’s planned E500m purchase of Spain’s Air Europa would harm competition in the UK, the watchdog said on Monday. IAG had announced its plans to buy Air Europa for E1b in 2019, but the price was cut in half this year after the airline industry was sent into a tailspin by the COVID-19 pandemic. The British company has already offered concessions to address EU antitrust concerns over the deal, a filing showed last month, though details were not provided. The EC opened an in-depth investigation in June, voicing concerns that the proposed transaction would reduce competition on Spanish domestic routes and on international routes to and from Spain. The deal, which involves Iberia buying Air Europa on behalf of IAG, had sparked opposition from the Unite union over jobs and from rival carriers.<br/>
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary rekindled a war of words with the discount carrier’s full-service rivals, saying the single biggest step people can take to cut carbon emissions is to stop flying with BA, Lufthansa and their peers. “Everyone who switches to Ryanair from one of Europe’s legacy airlines, the old tax-exempt, polluting BA, Lufthansa, Air France, is reducing their environmental footprint by about 50% on intra-EU air travel,” O’Leary said at the Eurocontrol aviation sustainability summit in Brussels on Monday. O’Leary also lambasted the IATA, whose membership excludes most low-cost airlines, saying that the virtues of the fuel-efficient planes used by most discounters is “a message you won’t hear” from the trade group. “We know our position here is to sit behind IATA and be lectured.” IATA DG Willie Walsh, the former head of BA parent IAG SA, dismissed O’Leary’s comments, recalling in a retort laced with an expletive that the Ryanair CEO had once said airline industry leaders were prone to hyperbole. The dust-up marks a return to the heated exchanges that flared in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic grounded flights. Back then, Ryanair argued that the long-haul services and premiums cabins offered by the likes of Lufthansa were hugely inefficient compared with its own new, densely packed planes. Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr hit back by saying bargain-basement fares were “economically, ecologically and politically irresponsible,” stoking demand for needless travel and making the industry an easy target for climate campaigners.<br/>
Malaysian budget airline AirAsia Group reported a wider quarterly net loss on Monday, as pandemic restrictions on travel in two of three of its operating markets weighed on revenue, while it logged a foreign exchange loss. It said enhanced lockdowns and travel restrictions in Malaysia and Indonesia impacted its aviation revenue, although its Philippines unit had a strong quarter. The group said in bourse filings it recorded a net loss of 887m ringgit ($212m) for the July-September quarter, 4.1% more compared with a loss of 851.8m ringgit a year earlier. Revenue for the period dropped 37% to 295.9 million ringgit. However, its logistics business Teleport tripled its revenue, contributing 53% to the group total revenue. AirAsia's income statement filed to the stock exchange showed that a foreign exchange loss of 216.9m ringgit further dragged its financial performance during the period. The group said investments in technology, talent and network for its digital businesses and in Teleport also added to its losses.<br/>
Bamboo Airways is working on a plan to list on the Unlisted Public Company Market on the Hanoi Stock Exchange from Q1 2022 while also preparing for an IPO in the US in 2022, its deputy CE Nguyễn Khắc Hải confirmed in a statement posted on its website on the evening of November 19. The expected listing price for the ticker code BAV "will not be lower" than VND60,000 dong (USD2.64), he said. The statement follows reports in April that the airline's billionaire chairman and owner, Trịnh Văn Quyết, had been considering an IPO in the US in Q3 of this year in an effort to raise up to US$200m. UPCoM is a mezzanine exchange that encourages unlisted firms to list with the option of later transferring onto the main market. According to the business intelligence firm Oxford Business Group, investors using it are protected by a legal and regulatory framework and the exchange has high standards of transparency and data accessibility. According to Nguyễn, the airline is "rushing to prepare and complete in parallel a dossier to offer BAV shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 2022." He reiterated the target of raising US$200m through the issuance of 5-7% of shares in New York, "thereby increasing its market capitalisation to US$4b."<br/>