Ukrainian carrier SkyUp Airlines is aiming to develop US wet-lease and charter services, having secured authorisation to operate in US territory. SkyUp commenced services in 2018 as a budget carrier, using Boeing 737s, but its operations have been badly disrupted by the Ukrainian conflict. In a filing to the US Department of Transportation in April, the carrier stated that the conflict meant it was “no longer able to operate out of its home country”, and that the closure of Ukrainian airspace would prevent civil aircraft services “for the foreseeable future”. The airline has adapted its business and concentrates on conducting charter flights from European cities, and wet-leasing aircraft to such carriers as Smartwings, Corendon Airlines and Tailwind Airlines. Approval from US authorities, its filing stated, would provide SkyUp with “additional opportunities to bolster its current business plan”. The Department of Transportation granted final clearance on 28 August. Four 737-800s from the airline’s fleet – registered UR-SQB, UR-SQC, UR-SQF and UR-SQP – have been authorised to fly in US airspace. SkyUp says it has also obtained US FAA and Transportation Security Administration approval. “An important goal for the international development of the brand has been achieved,” says SkyUp general director Dmytro Seroukhov. While SkyUp requested that its financial data in its filing be kept confidential, the carrier has disclosed its ownership structure. SkyUp is 52%-owned by a Ukrainian company, ACS Ukraine, while a UK firm, Global Travel Holding, holds the other 48%. Ukrainian citizens Yuriy Alba and Oleksandr Alba jointly and equally own Global Travel Holding. They also each own 38% of ACS Ukraine, with the 24% balance held by Global Travel Holding. According to the filing, Yuriy Alba also has a 24% indirect interest in the Maltese-based company SkyUp MT set up to operate commercial air services.<br/>
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Regional airlines continue to be most acutely affected by the USA’s ongoing pilot shortage as SkyWest Airlines remains some 1,200 pilots below its pre-pandemic staffing levels. CE Chip Childs said during the Regional Airline Association’s Leaders Conference in Washington DC that SkyWest currently employs 4,300 pilots, compared with 5,500 pilots in 2019. “We still have a major pilot shortage that is having a huge impact on us as a company, the entire industry and small communities,” he told conference attendees on 26 September. “We are literally 1,200 pilots short.” “There is a lot of narrative that there’s not a shortage,” Childs says, seemingly referring to pilot unions downplaying the lack of qualified flight crews. “But it’s absolutely true… The gap is real, the gap is a challenge and I think we’re to the point now where it’s going to take a very long time to get back to meeting the demand in the regional space.” Childs estimates that SkyWest needs 1,000 more pilots than it had prior to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in order to meet the current demand for regional airline travel. He notes that demand is being boosted by the “de-urbanisation of the United States, where people are moving out of big cities into smaller, mid-sized cities” and the rise of remote- and hybrid-working arrangements. While the pilot shortage remains a major industry challenge, Childs cautions that aircraft maintenance technicians are also in short supply. “We are going to need a lot of heavy maintenance to bring those aircraft back online, when and if we solve the pilot shortage,” he says. SkyWest is the largest regional carrier in the USA, with a fleet of more than 450 regional aircraft currently in service, according to Cirium fleets data. The carrier has about 100 aircraft in storage – all Bombardier CRJ-series regional jets.<br/>
Latvian carrier Air Baltic has recruited financial advisors with a view to examining a potential initial public offering. The Riga-based airline has jointly appointed UK-based STJ Advisors and Baltic firm Superia to review the company and a possible offering process. Air Baltic chief Martin Gauss says a potential stock-exchange listing would be a “significant step” in achieving a “new level” in the airline’s development. He has not indicated a timeline for an IPO, nor the likely scale of the offering. But credit rating agency Fitch, which recently assigned a rating to a planned Air Baltic bond issue of E300m, stated in its assessment on 20 September that it expected the airline to launch an IPO before 2026. It adds that it believes this is intended not only to strengthen its finances but also to “justify” to the European Union the “economic rationale” of pandemic support. “The IPO would be key in allowing the company to grow its fleet while maintaining a sustainable financial structure,” says Fitch. Fitch says Air Baltic has a strong market position in its region, with a “streamlined and efficient” fleet of Airbus A220-300s, and a “solid operator” in wet-leasing alongside its own network services. Air Baltic says the newly-appointed advisors’ role is to review independently, and supervise, the IPO process, supporting stakeholders to ensure the “best possible outcome”. “We are determined to deliver even more excellence and further strengthen Air Baltic as the leading airline and brand of the Baltics,” says Gauss.<br/>
Some pilots have left Vietnam's restructuring Bamboo Airways in the last two months after late payments in salaries, according to two people familiar with the matter. About 30 foreign pilots departed during that time, more than 10% of the airline's total pilot staff in June, according to one of the people, who declined to be identified as the information was not public. A second person said some pilots had recently quit and others were dismissed. Embattled Bamboo, Vietnam's No. 3 airline, said in a statement to Reuters that it has undertaken drastic restructuring and those efforts encompass its route network, fleet and human resources. "Bamboo Airways has reduced a number of pilot personnel recently to serve this goal," the statement said, denying that late payments of salaries were the reason behind the departures. It did not respond to questions about how many pilots have left. Many staff at Bamboo have sometimes had to face delays in salary payments but this had not, until recently, affected foreign pilots who make up a large majority of the airline's pilot staff, the sources said. Messages seen by Reuters from an internal company chat forum that management uses to communicate with foreign pilots show some salary payments have been late. An Aug. 21 message from a company representative in the forum told foreign pilots they would have received on that day 35% of their monthly salary that had been due a week earlier, and they would be informed about the remainder when there was more information.<br/>
Vietjet is planning to launch its own MRO unit taking on third-party base maintenance work in around 2026, as it eyes opportunities from the region’s significant fleet growth. The airline’s group commercial chief Michael Hickey says Vietjet has already leased a hangar “in the region” to perform C-checks on its own aircraft, and hopes to build its facility to handle widebody and narrowbody aircraft types. While Hickey did not disclose where the unit would be based, teh aim is for the MRO business to be operational around 2026, he said at the MRO Asia-Pacific event in Singapore on 26 September. “We have already hired a hangar in the region where we’ve started our own C-checks, so that gives us a period of time… to build up the experience with our staff so that we can hit the ground running and be able to offer third-party services to other [operators],” says Hickey. He points out that there was “enough space” for another MRO operator in the region, noting that fleet expansion plans – including Vietjet’s – among Asian carriers “will push [MRO providers] beyond the point of [current] capacity”. Vietjet, which also has operations in Thailand, has a large aircraft orderbook: it has around 200 Boeing 737 Max aircraft on order, with the first of the new narrowbodies to enter service with Thai Vietjet Air in 2024. Cirium fleets data indicates that Vietjet has 82 in-service aircraft, of which 75 are A320/A320neo-family jets. It also operates seven A330-300s. Thai Vietjet operates 18 A320-family narrowbodies.<br/>