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The head of Delta said that he expected the Omicron coronavirus variant to affect bookings early next year even as passengers return to the skies for holiday travel. Ed Bastian, Delta CE, said Thursday that Omicron had hit bookings in January, largely for international travel. The dip shows up “wherever . . . countries have put up travel restrictions”, he added, including Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, and London’s Heathrow airport. Travellers to the UK must now take a PCR coronavirus test before departure and after arrival. “It’s not going to impact our holidays,” he said. “It will have some impact on our first quarter.” The pandemic has played havoc with the airline industry, as governments have restricted travel to contain the spread of the virus. New variants, first Delta and now Omicron, have sent airline stocks plunging, only to recover as passengers absorb the news and continue to fly. United CE Scott Kirby said two weeks ago that while he did not expect to cut flights to Europe or Africa next month, the number of people flying on transatlantic routes may decrease. Qantas also said on Thursday that bookings for overseas flights had dropped significantly. Chief executive Alan Joyce noted Omicron had hurt “people’s confidence to book international trips in particular, but we haven’t seen large numbers of cancellations”. Since the winter months were traditionally a weak time for travel demand, Delta was “battened down in terms of capacity” for the first quarter, Bastian said. The outlook for spring and summer was “optimistic”, he added. The Atlanta-based company said on Thursday that it expected to fly 90% of the capacity it recorded in 2019 next year and to reach 100% the following year. Delta also revised its Q4 guidance, saying that it expected to post an adjusted pre-tax profit of $200m, instead of a loss. For 2022, the company planned “to deliver meaningful profitability” en route to delivering earnings per share of more than $7 in 2024.<br/>

Even with the pandemic hindering travel for much of the year, Delta’s credit-card customers are still eager to earn airline miles. Spending with the co-branded card has been “very close” to what it should have been during the pandemic, even as overall travel on Delta’s planes plummeted, Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. In November, for instance, spending on the card was 22% higher than it was in the same period before the pandemic. Even with the pandemic hindering travel for much of the year, Delta Air Lines Inc.’s credit-card customers are still eager to earn airline miles. Spending with the co-branded card has been “very close” to what it should have been during the pandemic, even as overall travel on Delta’s planes plummeted, Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. In November, for instance, spending on the card was 22% higher than it was in the same period before the pandemic. “We’ve got a long-term relationship -- our deal runs all the way out probably beyond our tenures, which is great,” Squeri said. “We look at the medium to long term. How do we integrate this into the e-commerce path? How do we put more value on it? How do we go after more small businesses? I think that’s going to be really important to growing this portfolio.” <br/>

Mexican carrier Aeromexico on Thursday said an unnamed third party would make a tender offer valuing its oustanding shares at a fraction of their previous market price as part of its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy. News of the planned tender offer, which would offer 0.01 peso for each outstanding share, sent its shares tumbling nearly 75%. Shares in the company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States last year amid the pandemic, closed at 3.89 pesos on Wednesday. They were trading at 1.84 pesos in early afternoon in Mexico. The offer gives existing shareholders the chance to withdraw from current capital stock prior to the capitalization of debts. Delta, which had controlled a majority of Aeromexico, would not be taking part in the offer, a statement noted, and its stake will be diluted to 20%. Aeromexico gave no further details about the third party. Carlos Hernandez, senior analyst at Masari Casa de Bolsa, said ownership and management changes often spook the market.<br/>

Airbus completed a triple crown of aircraft orders at the expense of rival Boeing (BA.N) on Thursday with a deal to supply 100 narrowbody jets to Air France-KLM subsidiaries in the airline group's largest purchase based on number of jets. The planemaker's third big win in 36 hours - after deals in Singapore and Australia - involves Dutch subsidiary KLM and a pair of low-cost units, all of which have traditionally relied solely on Boeing for widely used medium-haul passenger planes. The contract covers Airbus A320neo and A321neo aircraft and will renew the medium-haul fleets of KLM and Dutch low-cost unit Transavia Netherlands, while also allowing for both the renewal and expansion of the fleet at sister unit Transavia France. The bigger-than-expected order from Europe's second-largest airline group by fleet size came hours after Airbus clinched a deal to supply two tranches of aircraft to Australia's Qantas in a separate defeat for existing supplier Boeing. Air France-KLM said it had also signed a letter of intent to buy four Airbus A350 freighters. Collectively, those orders cap a dramatic week for Airbus after Singapore Airlines threw its weight behind its efforts to break Boeing's grip on the cargo plane market, with its own tentative order for seven A350 freighters.<br/>

Asked on the potential role the French state could have played to push for Air France-KLM’s order of 100 Airbus jets, the carrier’s CEO Ben Smith said that there was no pressure on the company to give an advantage to the French-German conglomerate over its US rival Boeing.“Our choice is solely dictated by the interest of the company”, Smith was cited as saying by French paper Les Echos. The French government is the airline’s main shareholder.<br/>