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Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings expects a strong recovery this year and is planning to add to about 750 new cockpit and cabin jobs over the next 12 months. In 2021, the airline was one of the few to hire staff, gaining 750 new employees, many of them from Lufthansa Group flight operations who had lost their jobs. “Eurowings is gearing up for a strong travel season with catch-up effects despite the current Omicron wave,” the airline said Monday. The Eurowings workforce shrank from around 3,350 before the coronavirus pandemic to about 2,500 a year ago. However, by the end of September 2021, the airline had the same number of employees as before the pandemic. German rival Condor is also ramping up its flight staff, with plans to hire 150 new flight attendants and 180 new pilots.<br/>

The airline warned of “huge uncertainty” for pricing and yields through to the end of its financial year in March, adding that investors should expect further disruption to air travel. “I wouldn’t rule out one more twist before we’re over the other side of this,” said Neil Sorahan, Ryanair’s CFO. The low-cost airline reported a net loss of €96m, better than the €321m loss in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenues were E1.5b from 31m passengers in its third quarter ending on December 31. The Irish carrier suffered a drop in bookings and cut January flying schedules after European governments reimposed tougher border restrictions at the end of last year in response to the rapid spread of the Omicron strain. Ryanair echoed rivals Wizz Air and easyJet, which last week predicted a resurgence in bookings for summer holidays after a bleak winter. “We have noticed an uptick in bookings in the last couple of weeks as the UK government has removed restrictions,” said Sorahan. “There remains a fair bit of policy uncertainty for the next couple of months as governments hopefully roll off travel restrictions.” Following the “steep declines” in filled seats on flights, Ryanair said passengers were continuing to book at the last minute, and “significant price stimulation at lower prices” would be needed for air travel to recover. Ryanair reaffirmed its expectations that it would fly just under 100m passengers this financial year. It stuck by full-year financial guidance issued in December, which forecast a net loss of E250m to E450m. Ryanair has been expanding aggressively during the Covid-19 crisis, which has bankrupted rivals such as Flybe and Norwegian and pushed the likes of Alitalia and TAP to cut capacity. The Irish airline plans to grow by more than 50% over pre-Covid levels by its 2026 financial year. <br/>

Ryanair could base up to 20 planes in Ukraine over the next few years if Russia does not invade and if airports there offer attractive enough deals, Group CE Michael O'Leary said Monday. Ryanair has repeatedly said it considers Ukraine as potentially a major growth market and O'Leary said that while the airline was monitoring tensions with Russia it had not changed its plans to boost capacity there. "We remain committed to Ukraine. As long as Ukraine is looking westward there are huge ... flows of people travelling to and from Ukraine working in central and eastern Europe," he said. "If it is not invaded by Russia, it is a country where we would expect to open a couple of bases .. some time in the next two or three years subject to agreements on costs," he said. Ryanair's new routes team made their third or fourth visit to Ukraine in January, he said, but Ukrainian authorities were not in a position to discuss new routes and bases "as they were somewhat otherwise distracted." "We hope the situation in Ukraine gets resolved diplomatically. And if it is, it remains a very exciting growth opportunity for us," he said. If the offers are good enough, Ryanair could deploy 15-20 aircraft across up to five airport bases over the next two or three years, O'Leary said. Ryanair is relatively agnostic about where it bases its planes so long as it gets the best prices, he added. "Our growth will always be opportunistic. It's not some Napoleonic invasion of Russia here. Whoever comes up with the best deals will get the next four or five aircraft."<br/>

Ryanair Monday urged Belarus to guarantee that there would be no repeat of the forced landing of one of its flights last May, and said airlines should not fly over Belarus without such a guarantee. The plane was overflying Belarus on its way from Athens to Vilnius when Belarus controllers ordered it to land in Minsk, citing a bomb threat. Once it was on the ground, a Belarusian dissident journalist on board the plane was arrested along with his female companion. Western powers responded with a wave of new sanctions and the United States this month charged four Belarus officials with aircraft piracy. A UN report published on Jan. 17 found that the reported bomb threat had been invented, without identifying the source of the hoax. It said Belarus had withheld crucial information from the UN fact-finding team. Ryanair Group head Michael O’Leary said the airline supported the US action. He welcomed the UN report, though he said it “could have gone further”. “I think it is fundamental to the future of air travel that we do not have a repetition of what in my mind was the first case since the Chicago Convention (1944) of a state sponsored act of international piracy,” O’Leary told an investor call. “There should be no overflight of Belarus unless appropriate guarantees are obtained that this won’t recur.”<br/>

Airlines that aren’t currently hedging their fuel bills are set to lose a “shedload” of money as a result of high oil prices, the head of Ryanair Holdings said Monday. Brent crude is trading near $91 a barrel as surging global consumption pushes prices to a seven-year high. That’s problematic for fuel-consuming industries like airlines, where oil can make up their single biggest cost. Airlines typically use oil swaps and options to cap, or hedge, their fuel bills when crude prices surge. But many carriers lost billions of dollars in the oil market when the pandemic brought flying to a near-halt globally. There was little to no fuel demand to offset loss-making derivatives positions, and as a result some have either stopped hedging or scaled back their volumes. “We have seen some spectacular deviations by some of our so-called competitors, arguing that they now will be unhedged because they’ve never made money hedging,” CEO Michael O’Leary said on a call with analysts. “Well they’re about to lose a shedload of money by not hedging, particularly with spot prices up to $91 a barrel.” For its part, Ryanair said it is 100% hedged for the current quarter and 80% into Easter, which is in mid-April, and the peak summer season. CFO Neil Sorahan, said that this should offer it a competitive advantage over rivals. “We don’t always win on hedging, but hedging gives you cost certainty,” O’Leary said on the call. It takes a “spectacular leap of mismanagement” not to be hedged in the current oil price environment, he added. <br/>

Philippine Airlines on Monday named Stanley Ng, a pilot and son-in-law of the company's billionaire owner Lucio Tan, as its acting president and chief operating officer. The 42-year-old replaces Gilbert Santa Maria who is stepping down just two and a half years into the job. The outsourcing veteran steered the carrier during the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in the US, which was completed in December. Ng is the first pilot to assume the Philippine Airlines presidency since the early 1960s. He started in the company's ground staff in 2003, began flying in 2008 and was the airline's senior vice president for operations until his new appointment. He is the husband of Tan's daughter Lilybeth. Ng is taking over a leaner airline after the bankruptcy process that saw $2 billion of its liabilities forgiven, 25% of its fleet cut and roughly a third of its workforce slashed. But Ng inherits the daunting mission of reviving the Philippines' flag carrier, which had been struggling with losses even before the pandemic. April Lee-Tan, head of research at COL Financial, said Philippine Airlines could benefit when countries start to reopen their borders. The Philippines, for instance, is set to welcome fully vaccinated foreign tourists starting Feb. 10. But soaring fuel costs will be a headwind for the carrier. "We do have high oil prices as another challenge," Lee-Tan said.<br/>