unaligned

With a fateful vote a day away, Spirit Airlines Inc. is standing alone at the altar despite having two suitors that have spent months trying to acquire the low-cost carrier. Spirit’s proposed merger with Frontier Group Holdings Inc. doesn’t have enough support from shareholders, and the acquirer has said it’s not sweetening the terms of the deal any further. Meanwhile, Spirit’s talks with would-be merger partner JetBlue Airways Corp. have yet to produce a breakthrough, people familiar with the discussions said. Spirit shareholders are set to decide on Frontier’s $2.6b cash-and-stock proposal on Wednesday, a vote that has been delayed four times already but is likely to go forward as planned this time, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The agreement, reached in February, was upended by an all-cash JetBlue bid that now exceeds $3.7b. Some investors prefer the higher offer, though Spirit and Frontier have argued JetBlue is more likely to be blocked by antitrust regulators. Spirit is continuing talks with both Frontier and JetBlue, so a deal can’t be ruled out completely. But weeks of negotiations with both would-be partners have yet to produce a resolution. In a plea earlier this month for a further delay in the shareholder vote, Frontier said it was still “very far” from winning sufficient support. Two influential advisory firms, ISS and Glass Lewis, have recommended votes against the Frontier offer. The lag in support for the Frontier deal continues to be the case, according to three people with knowledge of the effort to convince shareholders to back the agreement, though that assessment is based on preliminary figures and may still change ahead of the meeting. Frontier could ask for another delay in the vote, although it already has said it won’t increase the offer now on the table. Spirit’s board reiterated its support for the Frontier agreement as recently as July 13 and was still urging investors to vote for it. Story has more.<br/>

Hawaiian Holdings, the parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, credits more international flying and ongoing strong demand from North American markets for a 68% rise in revenue during the second quarter. The Honolulu-based carrier said on 26 July it generated $692m in revenue for the period ending on 30 June, up from $411m in the same three months last year. “Strong demand in our domestic markets has been joined by an encouraging recovery from our international gateways in the second quarter,” says Hawaiian Airlines chief executive Peter Ingram. “As we move into the summer travel peak, every indication suggests a continuation of these positive trends.” Still, the company lost $36.8m in Q2. That improves on Hawaiian’s $6.2m loss in the same period of 2021, which included the benefit of federal payroll support. Without federal aid and other special items, Hawaiian would have lost $74 million in Q2 2021. In the most-recent quarter, Hawaiian operated 87% of its 2019 capacity. Capacity to North America was 115% of 2019 levels, but only 80% and 31% on intra-Hawaii and international routes, respectively. During the period, the company said it would reinstate flights to Auckland and Tokyo, and increase seasonal flights to Osaka and Seoul. With many countries in Asia-Pacific slowly dismantling Covid-19-related travel restrictions, demand for travel seems set to bounce back quickly, Ingram says. “As in North America, with restrictions incrementally easing, consumers in international markets are showing strong interest in visiting Hawaii,” he adds. The most important overseas market for Hawaiian and the island archipelago’s economy is Japan, which continues to cap numbers of arriving passengers – discouraging flights from overseas. Hawaiian expects those caps to ease toward the end of 2022, or be lifted altogether. When they do, the airline’s executives expect a surge in demand from Japan.<br/>

Canada Jetlines, a start-up leisure carrier based in Vancouver, is set to launch passenger revenue service next month. The airline said on 22 July that its inaugural flight will depart Toronto’s Pearson International airport, bound for the central Canadian city of Winnipeg, on 15 August. “The entire team at Canada Jetlines is excited to offer passengers a convenient route from Toronto to the beautiful city of Winnipeg starting on our inaugural day of August 15th,” says Jetlines chief executive Eddy Doyle. “We greatly look forward to our first flight to Winnipeg and intend to offer more travel options to the residents of Manitoba soon.” The company’s website allows bookings on flights from Toronto, Winnipeg and Moncton, New Brunswick, from 15 August. Jetlines opened booking on 18 July. Its website also lists Niagara Falls as a destination but does not yet allow customers to book flights to there. “We’ve worked incredibly hard to reach this milestone and begin welcoming travellers,” says Duncan Bureau, Jetlines’ chief commercial officer. “We aim to deliver a new leisure airline and travel experience, which will provide exceptional value and incredible service levels – something we believe Canadian travelers are in desperate need of.” The carrier’s fleet consists of one used Airbus A320, formerly operated by Colombian flag carrier Avianca and Turkey’s Pegasus. Jetlines has said it aims to acquire four more aircraft annually. <br/>

Dublin Airport's advice to arrive early for flights should be scrapped as it is creating unnecessary congestion, Aer Lingus has said. The airline's CEO Lynne Embleton said people were turning up early for flights later in the day and competing with passengers who were dropping off luggage for early morning departures. She was speaking at the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) Committee on Transport which met with Dublin Airport stakeholders on Tuesday. The committee discussed recent issues ahead of the bank holiday weekend. Dublin Airport managing director Vincent Harrison said current advice would remain in place. This includes the advice for passengers to arrive two-and-a-half hours before a short-haul flight, three-and-a-half hours before a long-haul flight and an hour earlier if dropping off luggage. The airport also told members of the committee that significant improvements had been made since May, when there were major queues. These include a "far more robust" security screening process and on a "sustainable footing." The committee also heard that Aer Lingus currently has 1,200 "open files" relating to missing baggage. Embleton said in a majority of cases Aer Lingus did not touch the bags. She said most bags went missing when they were being transferred from another airline to Aer Lingus. She added that under-resourcing at airports in terms of ground handlers contributed to the problem.<br/>

EasyJet forecast less turbulence for the rest of the summer after it cut its schedule to tackle delays and last-minute cancellations that cost it GBP133m in the three months to the end of June. CE Johan Lundgren said removing thousands of flights had stabilised day-to-day operations. "This weekend, for example, the first of the UK school summer holidays, we operated more than 3,100 flights across Saturday and Sunday and made zero on-the-day cancellations in the UK," he told reporters on Tuesday. The British low-cost airline said an "unprecedented ramp up" in aviation, coupled with a tight labour market, had resulted in operational challenges and cancellations. EasyJet cut its flights after caps were imposed by London Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol airports, a step taken to reduce misplaced bags, delays and last-minute cancellations. Lundgren said this summer was a "one-off" and the industry had to work together to improve service rather than "pointing fingers". "There is no one across the industry in aviation at all who hasn't felt the pressure and the squeeze, whether that is ground handlers, or airports or air traffic management or airlines," he said. Heathrow, Britain's busiest airport which is not used by easyJet, has capped departing passengers at 100,000 a day for the rest of the summer. "We've seen a significant improvement in both punctuality and baggage performance since the cap came in," CE John Holland-Kaye told Reuters on Tuesday. <br/>

The boss of easyJet has criticised the government’s refusal to permit more visas for EU cabin crew and ground handling staff, arguing that easing restrictions would relieve pressure on aviation after weeks of travel chaos. Despite widespread worker shortages and recruitment difficulties for roles including airport security staff and ground handlers, industry requests to allow in more EU citizens to fill the gaps are “not something that they have responded positively to”, Johan Lundgren said. “We know that there are exemptions being made to allow other groups of workers that are coming in, ballet dancers, circus artists, bakers and so on, but not for aviation staff,” the easyJet chief executive said. “It would help if you could get the visa operation sorted out, of course it would relieve pressure.” However, he said it did not look like ministers planned to change visa rules for the aviation sector. “That is not something that we have seen that they feel inclined to do at this moment in time.” EasyJet said it was challenging to find enough domestic staff to fill vacancies amid chronic worker shortages across the economy, and as unemployment remained steady at 3.8% in June. “The level of people that all of the industry is recruiting from has become smaller, partly also because we don’t have the same amount of EU nationals available,” Lundgren said. “In terms of the government, we will continue to work with them to make sure the sector remains an attractive place to work and to make sure there remains enough people that we can recruit from.”<br/>

Low-cost group Ryanair has vowed to appeal what it describes as a “bizarre” ruling by the European Commission that it benefited from illegal state aid relating to France’s La Rochelle airport between 2003 and 2010. In approving the financial aid provided by the French government to La Rochelle and Beauvais airports between 2001 and 2012, the Commission nevertheless ruled on 26 July that “several airport services contracts and marketing services contracts” between La Rochelle and two airlines – Ryanair and Jet2 – “constituted incompatible state aid”. In the case of UK leisure carrier Jet2, that aid was only valued at E81,000 ($82,000), but for Ryanair it was valued at E8.4m. Expanding on its thinking, the Commission’s ruling says the agreements ”conferred an unjustified economic advantage on Ryanair and Jet2” over their airline peers, adding that an airport operator “guided by the profit motive” would not have created agreements on the same terms. “As these aids are considered incompatible, France must now recover from Ryanair and Jet2 the illegal state aid,” the Commission says. Responding to the ruling, Ryanair alleges that “having waved through over €40 billion in illegal state aid to Europe’s failing legacy airlines over the past two years… EU Commissioner [Margrethe] Vestager has now bizarrely concluded that Ryanair’s successful partnership with La Rochelle airport in France involved €8.4 million of state aid”. The Dublin-based group will appeal the decision “to the EU General Court” and will ”continue to make efforts to explain the dynamics of the liberalised air transport market to the European Commission’s competition services”.<br/>

The aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) didn’t find “any major significant finding or safety violation,” when it carried out spot checks of SpiceJet aircraft after a series of air safety incidents were reported over the last two months, the aviation ministry said in the Parliament on July 25. “A series of spot checks were carried out recently on all operating aircraft of M/s Spicejet from 9th July 2022 to 13th July 2022. A total of 53 spot checks were carried out on 48 aircraft, which did not find any major significant finding or safety violation,” the aviation ministry told Rajya Sabha in a reply to a question. The DGCA asked the airlines to rectify the malfunctions in 10 of its aircraft and now all these aircraft are back in operation, the ministry added. The ministry further informed the Parliament that it had also carried out the regulatory audit of three scheduled airlines, including SpiceJet, as per published Annual Surveillance Programme (ASP) 2022. The ministry also clarified that in the SpiceJet flight that was diverted to Karachi on July 5, the crew did not declare an emergency nor was there any fuel leak in the aircraft.<br/>

Australia’s Regional Express says that it has received preliminary clearance from Australian regulators for its acquisition of National Jet Express. The clearance sets the stage for the Australian operator to obtain the Cobham Aviation Services Australia unit and enter the lucrative fly-in, fly-out market that supports Australia’s resources sector. Rex cites a 26 July letter from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC): “The ACCC has considered the information provided by Rex and Cobham as well as other information it has before it. Based on that information, the ACCC does not intend to conduct a public review of the proposed acquisition pursuant to section 50 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2020.” The case will now go before the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). Rex says that the outcome of the FIRB review is expected in the coming months. Rex announced its plan to acquire NJE in mid-July for about A$48m ($33.2m). National Jet Express provides fly-in, fly-out services in the south and west of the country, and also operates domestic freight flights out of Sydney to various cities. The carrier uses a fleet of eight De Havilland Dash 8-400 turboprops and six Embraer 190 regional jets. Cobham phased out its last BAE Systems Avro RJ aircraft in early June.<br/>