Airbahn, a start-up passenger airline headquartered in Los Angeles suburb Irvine, published photos of its first aircraft, an Airbus A320, on social media on 24 November. “Airbahn is a private airline launching very soon,” the company says on its Twitter profile. “It will be based at Irvine, California and plans to operate within and between destinations in [the] western USA.” According to its website, Airbahn is hiring flight-operations and back-office roles based in Irvine and Ontario (both in the Los Angeles metropolitan area), and in San Jose, Oakland and Sacramento. The carrier’s website provides little other information. Media outlets reported last week that Airbahn is preparing to begin passenger flights in March 2022. The company filed an application with the Department of Transportation (DOT) for a certificate of operation as a domestic and international airline on 12 October 2018. The DOT approved the application in October 2020, granting it a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. That gave Airbahn a green light to carry passengers, mail and cargo. Airlines also need FAA certificates to begin revenue flights. <br/>
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Latam Airlines Group’s reorganization plan wrongly favors top shareholders over creditors and will fail to win court approval, an official committee of unsecured creditors told the judge overseeing the Chilean air carrier’s bankruptcy. “The plan is a very rich deal for the inside shareholders,” Allan S. Brilliant, an attorney for the committee, said during a court hearing Tuesday. The proposal came out of mediation talks overseen by a former bankruptcy judge and is based on a deal with groups that control at least 51% of the company’s stock, according to court records. Under the reorganization plan, Latam would sell $800m in stock to existing shareholders, and take on around $2.75b of new debt made up of bonds or loans and a credit facility. Ultimately, the deal allows a group of creditors -- led by Sixth Street Partners, Sculptor Capital and SVPGlobal -- to take control of the company. Supporters argue the deal with shareholders was necessary, in part because it will prevent a fight over potential conflicts between Chilean securities law and the US bankruptcy code. The plan “avoids years of cross-border litigation,” said Richard Mason, who represents shareholders. After creditors get a chance to vote on the proposal, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James L. Garrity will decide whether to approve the plan and allow Latam to exit court oversight. At least two groups of noteholders have said they haven’t yet decided whether to back the reorganization. Latam will continue talking with creditors, including the noteholders, while it moves toward final court approval, company attorney Lisa M. Schweitzer told Garrity.<br/>
EasyJet warned flight bookings had been hit by the return of travel restrictions as the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus variant threatened to upset the industry’s fragile recovery. The airline’s shares fell close to their lowest level in more than a year on Tuesday as the UK reintroduced expensive PCR testing for all international arrivals and along with other European countries restricted travel from southern Africa following the detection of the new Omicron strain. The company said there had been “some softening of trading” for the rest of 2021, although the impact from the Omicron variant had been less severe than when travel curbs were introduced earlier in the pandemic with shares recovering slightly by early afternoon to 492.4p, 2% down. Tim Clark, the CE of Gulf carrier Emirates, said the variant could lead to “significant traumas” for airlines, one of the starkest warnings yet over its possible impact on the industry. “December is a very important month for the air travel business. If that is lost, or the winter is lost to a lot of carriers, there will be significant traumas in the business,” he said. EasyJet said it was too early to tell if the industry’s recovery had been blown off course, but it slightly pared back its flight schedules for the rest of this year. The airline planned to fly 65% of 2019’s capacity in the current quarter — down from the 70% forecast in a trading update in October. EasyJet has been notably more cautious in its scheduling than low-cost rivals Ryanair and Wizz Air, and expected its planes to be 80% full over the rest of this year.<br/>
Iran on Tuesday defended its measures taken after its downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet in 2020 following fresh criticism by Kiev. On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 crashed shortly after take-off from Iran's capital Tehran killing all 176 people on board, most of them Iranians and Canadians, including dual nationals. The Islamic republic admitted three days later that its forces mistakenly shot down the Kiev-bound Boeing 737-800 plane, after firing two missiles. "All aspects of the incident have been adequately addressed in three sessions of talks and in contacts between the two countries," Iran's foreign ministry said. "However, Iran is still ready to continue communications with Ukraine." Kiev on November 22 criticised Iran for what it said was its lack of cooperation, and calling on Tehran "to comply with its obligations under international law and provide the information" it requested. Ukraine said its "requests for international legal assistance from the Iranian authorities have not been fully satisfied, and the documents and information requested have not been provided by Tehran".<br/>
A major hit to the peak December travel season because of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus would cause "significant traumas" in the global aviation business, Emirates airline President Tim Clark said on Tuesday. Clark said Emirates was working on the basis the newly discovered variant could be dealt with effectively by vaccines, but acknowledged the next few weeks would prove critical for the industry as scientists assess the risks. "I would say probably by the end of December, we'll have a much clearer position," Clark said. "But in that time, December is a very important month for the air travel business," he added. "If that is lost, or the winter is lost to a lot of carriers, there will be significant traumas in the business, certainly the aviation business and the periphery." The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday that the heavily mutated Omicron coronavirus variant is likely to spread internationally and poses a very high risk of infection surges that could have "severe consequences" in some places. Omicron was first reported on Nov. 24 in southern Africa, where infections have risen steeply. It has since spread to more than a dozen countries, many of which have imposed travel restrictions to try to seal themselves off. Japan on Monday joined Israel in saying it would close its borders completely to foreigners. "It's likely to arrest, inhibit, but not stall the uptick in demand that we've all had the benefit of in the last month or two," Clark said. He noted, however, that it could also "go the other way", with more draconian measures in response to a greater threat from the variant. Clark said the airline's decision to close down flights out of South Africa and a handful of surrounding countries was difficult, given strong demand for the December period. However, he said bookings generally remained strong despite the reintroduction of measures in some European markets such as track and trace, quarantine and PCR testing.<br/>
The Dubai government is considering an initial public offering of Emirates airline, the flagship carrier’s President Tim Clark said on Monday, as authorities work to boost activity on the local stock market. The emirate’s government is planning to list 10 state-backed companies on its stock exchange and set up a 2b dirham ($545m) market maker fund to encourage trading activity. “Yes, there has been talk about it. Yes, there has been, perhaps a little bit more flesh on the whole subject than there has been in the past,” Clark said when asked if a listing was a possibility. “I’m waiting instructions as to how this is going to affect the Emirates Group. What the government of Dubai decides to do...is up to them, I would basically do as I am bid.” Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum said earlier this month that it was possible to list the carrier or its subsidiaries. Governments have pumped billions of dollars into airlines during the coronavirus pandemic and state-owned Emirates has received around $3.8b in equity injections from Dubai, including $2b disclosed last year.<br/>
El Al’s technological investment division Cockpit Innovation is showing off an artificial intelligence tool intended to increase turnaround efficiency at airports. It will present the system – developed by one of its portfolio firms, IntellAct – at the World Aviation Festival event in London, which opens on 1 December. The cloud-based tool uses video cameras to monitor the turnaround process in real time from the moment the aircraft arrives at the gate, automatically detecting the presence of various ground-service vehicles including catering trucks, airbridges, container trains, and loaders. It times the process and alerts the relevant stakeholders if the performance is slower than expected, or if it detects safety violations, says IntellAct. “It is machine-learning with no human intervention,” says Cockpit Innovation general manager Oz Eliav. “The computer learns how each player looks and can identify it. “By comparing what happened at each stage of the turnaround process with what should happen, it is easy to find out what, if anything, went wrong.” Cockpit Innovation, which has Boeing among its shareholders, invested in IntellAct and has been involved in a pilot project with El Al at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport.<br/>
The parent company of low-cost carrier Indonesia AirAsia narrowed its nine-month operating loss, despite reporting a significant plunge in revenue. For the nine months to 30 September, AirAsia Indonesia was Rp1.47t in the red at the operating level. This compares to the Rp2t operating loss it posted a year ago. Revenue for the period plummeted 65% year on year to Rp487b, as the carrier halted all operations during Indonesia’s worst wave of coronavirus infections in the middle of the year. The collapse in passenger revenue was offset by a slight uptick in cargo, as well as charter, revenue for the nine-month period. The reduction in flying activity also meant a decline in expenses — AirAsia Indonesia reported a 43% drop in costs to Rp1.96t. Fuel, flight services as well as maintenance-related costs all registered significant decreases year on year. AirAsia Indonesia ended the nine-month period with around Rp24b in cash and cash equivalents, compared to Rp18.7b at the start of the year. The company’s liabilities exceeded its assets by just over Rp6t as of 30 September. To mitigate the “adverse impact” that the coronavirus pandemic has had on its operations, AirAsia Indonesia has listed several measures it is taking. These include keeping a tight lid on costs, optimising aircraft capacity, as well as negotiating with key vendors for payment deferrals. “Moreover, the group has obtained the financial support letter from AirAsia Group Berhad stating that they will continue to provide sufficient financial support for the operations,” it adds.<br/>