The Ukraine crisis has hit air traffic just as the sector was emerging from the pandemic and passenger bookings were recovering, the chairman of Alitalia successor ITA Airways said on Tuesday. ITA Chairman Alfredo Altavilla, speaking at a presentation at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, said the invasion of Ukraine “is a risk and uncertainty factor that we didn’t want.” But ITA, which started flying in October, will not modify the business plan it approved in January, CE Fabio Lazzerini said. Altavilla said the new Italian carrier had recorded a “nice increase” in bookings from March and April before the Ukraine crisis emerged last week. Lazzerini said that the closure of Russian airspace to European carriers made routes to Asia longer and more expensive, but also said ITA would only start to fly to Asia in June, when he hoped the Ukraine crisis would be over. For the new summer season, ITA will fly to 64 destinations, of which seven are overseas. The carrier is also launching new long-haul flights for Rome-Miami and Rome-Boston in March and will start a new Milan-New York route in April, it said. The Italian government, which is owns ITA Airways, last month announced the intention to partly privatise the airline. <br/>
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Garuda Indonesia is negotiating the terms its aircraft deals with manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, with cancellation of the orders among the options, its chief executive officer said Tuesday. The step was taken based on consideration of the airline's short-term demand, CEO Irfan Setiaputra said. Garuda's earnings have been hard hit by the pandemic, which forced the company to launch a major restructuring seeking to slash its debt to $3.7b from $9.8b. "Hopefully we can get a win-win solution," Irfan said of the negotiations with the manufacturers. Garuda is undergoing debt restructuring proceedings, known locally as PKPU, after a vendor petitioned a Jakarta court over unpaid liabilities. Garuda has proposed converting part of its debt to equity, offering a debt haircut and a new coupon debt. With Airbus, Garuda has outstanding orders for nine A330-900 jets and four A330-800s. Garuda has previously said it would cancel the remaining orders of Boeing 737 Max 8 following fatal crashes of the aircraft in Ethiopia and Indonesia. Garuda ordered 50 of the aircraft in 2014, valued $4.9b at that time, and had only received one unit, in 2017.<br/>