Lufthansa Group carrier Eurowings has secured an air operator’s certificate and operating licence for a new Maltese arm. The Maltese division – known as Eurowings Europe Limited – will take over a number of aircraft and crew members from the current German Eurowings operation by April next year. Eurowings set up the new carrier in May. It will commence flights on 3 November. The new carrier will maintain bases in Salzburg, Prague, Stockholm, Pristina and Palma de Mallorca, and crews transferring to the division will continue to be employed at their previous bases. Eurowings Europe managing director Stefan Beveridge says the new operation will support pan-European expansion. “Our move to Malta will help us reduce complexity for our staff based at the various bases in Europe,” he states. “Malta’s economic and regulatory framework will enable us to enter new markets as an attractive value airline and to compete successfully in our highly-competitive environment.” Eurowings Europe will join a “long list” of companies that have “decided that Malta is the ideal place for their principal place of business”, says Malta civil aviation directorate chief Charles Pace.<br/>
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Ryanair's bookings for the autumn mid-term and Christmas holidays are ahead of pre-COVID levels and it sees average fares rising by more than expected for the financial year to end-March, CE Michael O'Leary said on Thursday. O'Leary told Reuters that as long as there was no adverse news flow on COVID or Ukraine, underlying air fares "will rise by a mid to high single digit figure for the full year" versus its most recent forecast for 3-4% growth. "At the moment they (bookings) are surprisingly strong, we thought they would begin to ease off but actually forward bookings into the mid-term and into Christmas are stronger in terms of volume and pricing than they were pre-COVID," O'Leary said. O'Leary said the demand appeared to be supported by savings built up during the pandemic and that Ryanair does expect that customers' disposable income will get hit by increases in interest rates and the cost of living further into the northern hemisphere winter. "But so far everything seems to indicate that people are switching to the lowest cost airline and in all markets that's Ryanair," he said. Low cost rival easyJet said earlier on Thursday that demand for the coming months was holding up despite pressure on household budgets, while British Airways-owner IAG also said its Q3 results were better than expected. Ryanair, which unlike many airlines kept its pilots and crew up-to-date with their flying hours during the pandemic to take advantage of the swift rebound, flew a record 16.9m passengers in August and close to that again in September.<br/>
Ryanair announced a 40% cut to its winter 2022 schedule to and from Berlin airport on Thursday based on pre-pandemic levels, blaming the decision on what it said were unjustified increases in charges for using the German capital's airport. The Irish budget airline will operate 19 fewer routes and 230 fewer weekly flights in and out of Berlin airport than it did in the winter of 2019, the company said in a statement. "Higher airport costs in Berlin makes it more attractive for us to switch aircraft to lower cost alternatives elsewhere in regional Germany and Europe," CEO Michael O'Leary told reporters in Berlin. Airports in Berlin and Frankfurt "continue to impose excessive airport charges even while their traffic collapses", O'Leary said, calling on the German government and the country's major airports to lower airport charges and federal tax. Ryanair already quit Frankfurt airport, Germany's busiest, back in late March citing high airport fees. O'Leary also blasted a E9b state bailout for Germany's Lufthansa during the pandemic, which has since been repaid, calling the national airline a "subsidy junkie" and saying the move had slowed the German market's post-COVID recovery.<br/>