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SAS won backing from a US court to secure fresh capital from investors as the Scandinavian airline seeks to emerge from its bankruptcy filing. Stockholm-based SAS filed for Chapter 11 in July amid headwinds from the Covid-19 pandemic, high fuel prices and a pilot strike. The company has given potential equity investors a deadline of about 13 weeks to present final bids, according to a statement late on Monday. The airline struggled last year to get the backing of its largest shareholders for the financial restructuring. While Denmark said it’s open to adding to its holding, Sweden’s government flagged it will accept a conversion of debt it is owed into equity, but won’t participate in a new capital raise. The two governments have a 21.8% stake each in SAS. “Even though the capital injection plan now is on track — and that’s definitely good news for SAS’ survival — we still see an imminent risk that the existing shares will be worthless, or at best, almost worthless,” Jacob Pedersen, head of equity research at Sydbank, said in a note. The stock closed at 0.3 Swedish kronor (2.9 US cents) per share on Monday. In April, Danish newspaper Berlingske reported that SAS would probably delist its shares since Apollo Global Management Inc. was planning to take a 70% stake in the airline. The Danish state would take the remaining 30%. Apollo provided the company with a $700m debtor-in-possession term loan as part of Chapter 11. SAS said it plans to complete bankruptcy proceedings in the US toward the end of this year. As part of that process the carrier needs to raise at least 9.5b Swedish kronor in new equity and convert or cut its debt pile of about 20b kronor.<br/>

Greek carrier Aegean Airlines cut its losses to below pre-pandemic levels for the first three months of 2023, with revenue nearly double last year's figure. Aegean narrowed its pre-tax loss to E18.6m in the traditionally seasonally weak Q1, an improvement on the roughly E48m it lost in the same quarters of both 2022 and 2019. The airline did, however, report positive Q1 EBITDA of E19.3m. Aegean CE Dimitris Gerogiannis says: "We are very pleased with Q1 performance, in the seasonally weakest period of the year, as a result of robust demand but also improved Aegean’s competitiveness in the post-pandemic market.” Notably, Aegean's revenue of E229m was 90% greater than in Q1 2022, and around a third higher than in the same period of 2019. Aegean flew 2.58m passenger in Q1, broadly on a par with 2019 but 72% more than Q1 last year. It saw particularly strong growth on international routes, as markets were impacted by the Omicron variant of Covid-19 during Q1 2022. Aegean doubled its number of international passengers carried year-on-year, to just over 1.5m in Q1. "Once again, we supported the extension of the tourism season in our country with our investment in the capacity offered in Athens and Thessaloniki in Q1 2023, an investment which resulted [in] significant traffic growth,” he says. ”We continue to see strong demand and positive indications for the summer period, which, as always, shapes full-year’s results.” Aegean expects to close 2023 with full-year capacity of 18m available seats, an increase of 2m seats from 2022 and more than in 2019, before the pandemic.<br/>

Singapore Airlines reported record annual profit for the year ended March and said forward sales are healthy across all cabin classes, led by bookings to China, Japan and South Korea. Net income for the group, which includes budget arm Scoot, totaled S$2.16b ($1.62b) as people embraced flying again after Covid. It posted a loss of S$962m the previous year. Revenue was S$17.78b, up from S$7.6b. The airline said it could ramp up operations at short notice when demand for air travel surged after Singapore fully reopened its borders in April 2022 and restrictions eased globally. “Demand for air travel remains robust in the first quarter,” it said in a statement to the stock exchange Tuesday. Singapore Airlines and Scoot carried 26.5m passengers in the year, six times higher than the 12 months through March 2022, with passenger capacity rising to 79% of pre-Covid levels in March. On Monday, the airline said it flew 1.75m passengers in April, up 53% from the same month last year. In a note of caution Tuesday, the carrier said some clouds potentially hang over the outlook. “Geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties, as well as high cost inflation, could pose challenges for the airline industry in the months ahead. Even though fuel prices have moderated in recent months, they remain at elevated levels,” it said. It also expects competition to increase, while cargo demand is likely to remain soft in the near term, with inflation and weak economic conditions impacting consumer demand and trade.<br/>

None of the Airbus A320neo planes in the Singapore Airlines group with Pratt & Whitney engines are currently grounded over a lack of engines, Leslie Thng, CEO of Scoot, the airline's low-cost subsidiary, said on Wednesday. Go Airlines (India) Ltd filed for bankruptcy protection this month, blaming "faulty" Pratt & Whitney engines for the grounding of about half its 54 Airbus A320neos. Pratt, part of Raytheon Technologies says the claims are without evidence and divert attention from the airline's financial woes. <br/>

Thai Airways International has disposed of 19 aircraft, is entering into purchase and sale contracts for a further six, and is putting up for sale another 12 aircraft, as the airline's restructuring process continues apace. In notes accompanying the May 12 release of its Q1 financial results, Thai Airways International disclosed that since entering into the business rehabilitation process, a transitional court-supervised bankruptcy period similar to Chapter 11 that provides the airline with protection from creditors, it has sold ten B747-400s and nine A340s including both the A340-500 and A340-600 variants. The airline says these aircraft are still to be delivered to the buyers. In addition, Thai Airways says it is in the process of entering into purchase and sale contracts for six B777-300s. All six aircraft are currently stored at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport. Finally, Thai Airways has announced that it wants to sell six B777-200s and six A380-800s. All except HS-TJD are parked at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi. HS-TJD is parked at Bangkok Don Mueang. After deliberating on whether to return some of their A380-800s to service, Thai Airways elected not to and is now attempting to re-market the planes. The entire six-strong fleet is available for sale. <br/>