Ryanair CE Michael O’Leary said this is the most optimistic time he has seen in air travel since taking charge of the airline in the mid-1990s as passengers return to the skies following a series of COVID-19 lockdowns. “This is the most optimistic time I’ve seen in air travel for the last 25 years. Everybody’s been locked down for two years. Tourism is getting back, hotels are filling up again, beaches are filling up again. Everyone’s getting moving again,” O’Leary told a Eurocontrol event. Eddie Wilson, the head of Ryanair DAC, the largest airline in the group, added that the looming recession in Europe is of a different variety this time due to the build up savings during the pandemic and relatively full employment in the economies Ryanair operates in.<br/>
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Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers, Ryanair , is in talks with authorities in Egypt and Libya about operating flights to the countries for the first time, CE Michael O'Leary said on Tuesday. Ryanair's only flights outside of Europe currently are to and from Morocco, Israel and Jordan. Its Hungary-based rival Wizz, which flies to Egypt and Morocco, has also been expanding aggressively into the Middle East, flying 36 routes from Abu Dhabi on its Wizz Air Abu Dhabi joint venture. "We're talking to the Egyptians, the Libyans," O'Leary told a Eurocontrol event, without giving any more details. O'Leary added that Ryanair would be the first airline to return to Ukraine when it is safe to do so. Ryanair was one of the largest foreign airlines in Ukraine before it suspended all of its flights following Russia's invasion in February.<br/>
Ryanair will be lucky to receive 40 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft by the end of June from the 51 due for delivery, CE Michael O'Leary said on Tuesday, potentially impacting the airline's planned growth for 2023. "We're contracted to get 51 aircraft from Boeing before the end of April. We will be lucky to get 40 aircraft by the end of June next year and that's critical to our continued growth," O'Leary told a Eurocontrol event. Ryanair plans to grow from a record 168m passengers this financial year to 185m next. O'Leary said earlier this month that he was concerned Boeing might fall 5-10 aircraft short, knocking 1 or 2m from that target.<br/>
British airline easyJet said early bookings for next spring and summer were looking positive, and it was seeing strong demand for peak holiday weeks this winter with customers accepting higher ticket prices despite the tougher economy. The outlook could give investors confidence that holiday bookings can hold up despite the growing pressure on household budgets from high inflation, energy prices and rising mortgage rates. As the economic outlook in Europe has darkened, analysts have warned that bookings could plunge. Historically demand for flights has tended to track economic growth and easyJet’s biggest market, Britain, is already in recession. But easyJet said that for the six months from April 2023, the period when the airline tends to make the bulk of its profit, early bookings looked positive with Easter ticket yields higher than in 2022, although it cautioned that visibility remained low. For the current winter period, the airline said Christmas ticket yields were up about 18% amid strong demand for travel. “EasyJet does well in tough times,” CE Johan Lundgren said Tuesday. “Consumers will protect their holidays but look for value.” The airline warned however that the whole industry would be facing higher costs, from fuel prices, the stronger US dollar and as a result of wage inflation. Lundgren said that the current circumstances would benefit low cost airlines like easyJet while legacy carriers, airlines like Air France and British Airways, which tend to have higher cost bases, would struggle. Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline and a low cost competitor, said earlier this month that November and December bookings were strong and it expected robust traffic and average fare growth over the next 18-months at least.<br/>
Norse Atlantic Airways is to open transatlantic services to New York JFK from Paris Charles de Gaulle next year. The airline states that the operation – which will be daily – will commence on 26 March. Norse Atlantic uses a fleet of Boeing 787s for its services. The airline’s route network already includes connections to JFK from Oslo, London and Berlin. ChE Bjorn Tore Larsen says the point-to-point service between France and the USA will benefit tourism and business. “Not only are we directly investing in the countries that we operate, by employing local staff, but also supporting job creation across the wider tourism and service industry,” he adds. Several airlines already offer Paris-New York flights, including Air France, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, La Compagnie and French Bee. Norse Atlantic has configured its aircraft with a two-class cabin. The carrier also operates transatlantic flights to Fort Lauderdale, as well as seasonal services to Los Angeles and Orlando. It has been operating for less than six months, having begun flights with the Oslo-New York route in mid-June.<br/>
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Israeli airlines Israir and Arkia for allegedly violating Israeli consumer protection laws by withholding fees it was supposed to refund to passengers. According to the lawsuit, filed by attorneys Nitzan Gadot and Rotem Sagi, passengers assigned to Terminal 1 at Ben Gurion Airport are required to pay a lower departure fee than those assigned to Terminal 3, since there are more services and amenities offered at the latter. The fee, paid by any passenger leaving the country via Ben Gurion Airport, is $30.36 at Terminal 1 and $13.99 at Terminal 1. The fee is paid directly to the airlines, which then pass it on to the Airports Authority. According to the lawsuit, issues arise when passengers are asked to depart from a different terminal than the one they were originally assigned, and are not given the $16.37 difference. Airlines sometimes switch a passenger’s departing terminal due to flights being canceled or in an effort to manage passenger congestion.<br/>
Malaysia's Capital A will combine its AirAsia budget airline business with long-haul offshoot AirAsia X as part of a corporate restructuring designed to shed its status as a financially-distressed firm, CEO Tony Fernandes said. Capital A, headed by Fernandes, will retain the digital, logistics and aviation services businesses, while AirAsia X will be renamed AirAsia Aviation and be led by long-time executive Bo Lingam under the plan. Capital A hopes submit to Bursa Malaysia Securities for approval in February. Capital A, which racked up losses during the pandemic, was in January classified as a 'Practice Note 17', or PN17, company by the Malaysian bourse, a tag given to financially distressed firms. PN17 companies may be de-listed if they fail to regularise their finances within a set time frame. AirAsia X is also classified as PN17, but in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Fernandes said under the restructuring plan, both listed companies would emerge from that status by July 2023. Capital A investors will receive an in-specie distribution in the former AirAsia X, giving them exposure to a pure airline business with multiple brands. "From what looked like a very sick airline, we've saved it," he said of AirAsia, which grounded most of its fleet during the pandemic. "We are refloating it and listing it as an independent listed vehicle." The AirAsia Aviation business would raise capital, possibly in tandem with a dual listing in the United States or elsewhere in Asia, Fernandes said, and pursue growth opportunities like setting up new airlines in places such as Vietnam and Cambodia.<br/>