oneworld

The Oneworld airline alliance, led by American Airlines, is moving its headquarters from New York to Fort Worth in December, American said Wednesday. Oneworld, which counts among its members British Airways, Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways, Qantas and Alaska Airlines, will move its operations from Manhattan to the American Airlines headquarters campus in Fort Worth. There are 15 airlines in the alliance after Seattle-based Alaska Airlines joined in 2020, a rare US-based carrier to join the group. Oneworld staff have been located in New York since 2011 after moving from Vancouver, Canada. Eight of the 15 airlines in the Oneworld network fly to DFW International Airport, making it a convenient stopping point for airline executives. “As our industry recovers from COVID-19, alliances and partnerships have continued to deepen,” Oneworld CEO Rob Gurney in a statement. “With our new home in Fort Worth, we anticipate even closer collaboration with American and our member airlines as we work side by side to further grow and strengthen Oneworld.” Oneworld is one of the three major partnerships between international airlines that carriers use to sell tickets across the world and on one itinerary. Fort Worth-based American was one of the founding members of the Oneworld alliance along with British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas and defunct Canadian Airlines International.<br/>

LATAM Airlines detailed a financing plan on Wednesday that the company hopes will finalize its exit from bankruptcy in the first week of November. The company filed for Chapter 11 in 2020 after airline travel plummeted during the pandemic and won court approval that June. The reorganization plan would inject about $8 billion into the airline through a combination of capital increase, issue of convertible bonds and new debt. In a note sent to the market regulator late Tuesday night, LATAM detailed the structure of its exit financing that includes a $500m revolving credit facility and a five-year term loan facility of $1.1b. It also includes $450m in senior secured notes due in 2027 and $700mi in senior secured notes due in 2029 as well as $750m five-year bridge-to-notes and another $750m in seven-year bridge-to-notes. "In the coming weeks we expect to emerge from Chapter 11 with approximately US$2.2bi of liquidity and a debt reduction of approximately 35% compared to the debt we had outstanding before entering into this process,” LATAM's CEO Roberto Alvo said.<br/>

Qantas Airways has surged back to profitability on booming travel demand after most pandemic-era curbs were dismantled, helping to shore up chief executive Alan Joyce’s position and sending the shares rallying the most in almost two years. First-half underlying profit before tax is seen at A$1.2b to A$1.3b - ending a streak of five consecutive half-yearly losses totaling A$7b, the carrier said in a trading update on Thursday. Incidents of scrapped flights, late departures and lost bags are all declining, it added. The airline’s rapid return to profitability and move towards pre-pandemic levels of punctuality take some of the pressure off Mr Joyce, who became the target of an explosion of public anger as Australia’s national airline struggled with the post-Covid-19 resurgence in travel demand. The 56-year-old, who has led the carrier for more than 14 years, has repeatedly rejected calls to resign to take responsibility for this year’s slump in reliability. “This is a remarkable turnaround because of how quickly it has happened,” Joyce said on a call. Asked whether he should bring forward his retirement, Joyce, who previously agreed to stay on at least until the end of 2023, replied: “There is no change to my plans.” Qantas shares gained as much as 11.8 per cent in early Sydney trading, the biggest intraday gain since November 2020. It is just one of five carriers in the 29-member Bloomberg World Airlines Index to be up this year. The surge in travel demand immediately after Covid-19 restrictions eased this year caught Qantas on the hop. After axing more than 8,000 workers to weather the pandemic, the airline found itself hamstrung by labour shortages, illness and a shrunken fleet. On-time performance improved to 69% in September from 67% in August, while cancellations fell to 2.4% last month from 4% in August. To help maintain this improvement, the airline will spend A$200m in the remainder of fiscal 2023 on rostering additional crew, training new staff and paying overtime. “It is clear that maintaining our pre-Covid-19 service levels requires a lot more operational buffer than it used to,” Joyce said in the update. “That means having more crew and more aircraft on standby and adjusting our flying schedule to help make that possible, until we are confident that extra support is no longer needed.”<br/>

The Flight Attendants Association of Australia has said two groups of Qantas cabin crew have filed applications to the Fair Work Commission to take industrial action including strikes and work bans. National secretary Teri O’Toole told The Australian her members were being offered “dramatically cut conditions” that would “significantly cut their fatigue management”. She also suggested the airline had threatened to outsource work, but Qantas said in response it was “not our plan” to do so. The shift extensions planned would mean cabin crew would work for 12 hours instead of 9.45, and up to 14 during disruption. Rest periods would also go down to 10 hours during periods of disruption when no other crew were available. Potential industrial action, if granted, could include reading safety briefs during paid shifts and strikes. “Workers are already exhausted trying to keep up with demand on a skeleton workforce following cuts to crew numbers per flight (from five to four) and an overenthusiastic redundancy scheme to cull workers and cut costs,” said O’Toole. Qantas told the newspaper in response that it has “rigorous fatigue-management processes” in place, and the changes to shift length mirror those at other domestic airlines. “The deal we’re proposing offers pay increases, the opportunity to secure thousands of dollars in incentives and an expansion of overtime payments,” the business said.<br/>