Electric aviation and regional air travel company Surf Air Mobility said on Thursday it expects the company's shares to start trading on July 11, setting the stage for the first major direct listing in the United States in months. Surf Air's shares are expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "SRFM", it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Contrary to an initial public offering, shares are not sold in advance in a direct listing. Shareholders are allowed to sell shares directly to the public and net any proceeds from the sale. The stock price at debut is determined by orders coming into the stock exchange. Advocates of direct listing argue it is a better way to price new stock rather than an IPO. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global and workplace communication software Slack Technologies went public through direct listings. Slack was later bought by Salesforce. Surf Air had initially signed a $1.42b deal with a blank-check company to go public, but that deal was terminated last year as interest in the special purpose acquisition company market waned.<br/>
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Following its recent agreement for a wide-body order of 39 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, Riyadh Air has signed a deal with GE Aerospace for 90 GEnx-1B engines to power its new fleet. The order also includes spare engines and a TrueChoice services agreement. A key initiative of Saudi wealth fund PIF, the Riyadh Air was unveiled to the world in March, and this marks the first engine partnership with GE Aerospace for its new fleet of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners. The disruptive new airline from Saudi Arabia will fly to more than 100 destinations, and reach 100m visitors, by 2030 making Riyadh City a hub for global travel and encouraging visits to the Kingdom for business and leisure. The first deliveries are scheduled for early 2025 as Riyadh Air aims to operate one of the newest and most sustainable airline fleets in the world. The GEnx engine family has nearly 50m flight hours since entry into service in 2011 and is the fastest-selling, high-thrust engine in GE history with nearly 3,000 engines in service and on backlog, including spares. GEnx’s revenue-sharing participants are IHI Corporation of Japan, GKN Aerospace Engine Systems of the UK, MTU of Germany, TechSpace Aero (Safran) of Belgium, Safran Aircraft Engines of France and Samsung Techwin of Korea.<br/>
flydubai today celebrated its inaugural service to Olbia, becoming the first UAE carrier to operate direct flights from Dubai. This marks the start of the carrier’s three-times weekly service to Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (OLB) as part of its seasonal operations, growing its network in Italy to five points including Catania, Milan-Bergamo, Naples and Pisa. The inaugural flight landed at Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (OLB) to a water cannon salute and warm welcome by airport officials led by Silvio Pippobello, the Chief Executive Officer of Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport. CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith said: "flydubai is committed to opening up underserved destinations and we are excited to offer our customers more options for travel during the summer with the launch of flights to Olbia in Sardinia." "Since 2018, when we first started operations to the region, Italy has been a popular destination for customers from the UAE and GCC and we look forward to offering more options for travel as flydubai enters another record-breaking summer," he stated.<br/>
Jeju Air said Thursday it has started services on the Incheon-Oita route as it moves to absorb rapidly recovering air travel demand amid a nationwide move to return to pre-pandemic normalcy. Jeju Air, Korea's biggest low-cost carrier, will start providing three flights a week Tuesday, becoming the only Korean carrier to serve the Oita route, the company said. The budget carrier also plans to start offering services on the Incheon-Hiroshima route July 13. In the January-March period, Jeju Air shifted to a net profit of 48.19b won ($36m) from a net loss of 64.91b won a year earlier on increased flights to Southeast Asian countries. It swung to a record quarterly high operating profit of 70.73b won in the first quarter from an operating loss of 77.87b won a year ago. Sales more than quintupled to another record quarterly high of 422.29b won from 80.79b won during the same period. Jeju Air operated the same fleet of 37 B787-800 aircraft in the first quarter, down from 40 B787-800s a year earlier. This year, it aims to turn around after posting net losses for four consecutive years through 2022. <br/>
It’s been nearly a year since the billionaire known as Madam Thao had four Airbus A321s grounded on the tarmac in Vietnam. And all this time, the airliners have sat, stranded, in one of the odder international incidents since Vietnam went from communism to a form of capitalism. The story stretches from the People’s Court of Hanoi to the elegant Mayfair area of London, and from there up to spired Oxford, where Madam Thao – formally, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao — planned to have her name etched into college history, along with medieval namesakes like Balliol and Merton. At the center of it all is a dispute between Thao’s young airline, VietJet Aviation JSC, and a London buyout fund that specializes in leasing aircraft, including those four A321s. From its tony Mayfair address, FitzWalter Capital Ltd., co-founded by former Macquarie Group Ltd. mastermind Ben Brazil and backed by UK and Australian pension funds, says VietJet has fallen behind on rent for the four planes and breached their contract. It sued the budget airline — popularly known as “Bikini Airlines” for previous promotional stunts involving models in two-piece swimsuits posing as cabin crew – and demanded payment and return of the jets. It’s seeking $191m. VietJet’s response: Bring it on. In its defense filed with the High Court of Justice in London, the 12-year-old airline, font of Thao’s self-made fortune, has acknowledged it missed some bills after Covid-19 upended air travel. But it added that the original lessors FitzWalter took over the planes from had at some point agreed to soften the terms of its lease. Besides, the London investment firm hasn’t suffered any real economic damage. The squabble has reached the highest court in Vietnam and become a hot topic in aviation industry circles. <br/>