general

The cost of renting the newest aircraft has surpassed pre-pandemic levels as airlines struggle to balance demand for travel with persistent shortages and manufacturing delays. More than half of the world’s commercial aircraft are owned by leasing companies, which have been able to increase their rates significantly for the most in-demand Airbus and Boeing single-aisle aircraft that are used for short and medium-haul flights. Monthly lease rates for the Airbus A321neo have risen from lows of around $340,000 at the height of the pandemic in 2020 to as much as $420,000, marginally higher than before Covid-19 brought the industry to a standstill, according to aviation data group Ishka. Rates for Boeing’s newest single-aisle jet, the 737 Max 8, have also risen above pre-pandemic levels to around $360,000-$370,000 a month. “Air traffic is up and the manufacturers just can’t deliver fast enough,” said Eddy Pieniazek, head of analytics at Ishka. “Whatever can fly in the narrow-body market at the moment is flying.” Demand is also growing for the more expensive widebody aircraft that are typically used for long-haul travel, which did not recover as quickly coming out of the pandemic.  Pieniazek said leasing rates could climb further, noting there was “scope for a little bit more on the narrow-body front” but that much would depend on what airlines could afford at a time when other costs, notably fuel and labour, were also on the rise.  Leasing companies also have costs to balance, especially of debt at a time of rising interest rates. <br/>

Latin American airlines are concerned they may be left behind in the race to secure enough sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to help achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Speaking at the annual ALTA AGM and Airline Leaders Forum in Cancun, Mexico on 23 October, Chile’s LATAM Airlines group chief executive Roberto Alvo said that while the industry is motivated to meet the ambitious target the industry has set for itself, the reality on the ground is that SAF won’t be available in large quantities for quite some time yet. “The question is not yes or no to SAF, its yes and yes, but how,” he says during a CEO panel discussion. In Latin America, “we don’t have a single drop of SAF. All production is pre-sold to Europe and the US”. “And the projects have long lead times,” he adds. “It’s going to be at least a decade until they are reality. Even if we start a project today, there won’t be any project [completed] for the rest of the decade.” LATAM Airlines is the only carrier in the region that has made a firm commitment to use 5% SAF by the year 2030, pending availability. And airlines are increasingly concerned about where they will get the fuel to make that happen. Earlier in the day, IATA DG Willie Walsh told participants of the Forum that the path Latin America takes to decarbonisation is likely a very different one from that which will be taken in other regions. “As an industry we are committed to reaching net-zero by 2050,” he says. “We are not going to get there at the same pace. There will be leaders, there will be followers.”<br/>

While Latin American airlines focus on managing numerous economic and regulatory challenges across the continent, some have started to look again at a country that has been out of the picture for much of the last decade as a possible target of expansion: Venezuela. “We are definitely looking at that,” Estuardo Ortiz, chief executive of Chilean ultra-low-cost carrier JetSmart said on 23 October on the sidelines of the ALTA AGM and Airline Leaders Forum, in Cancun, Mexico. JetSmart, which is in the process of gaining certification to establish a subsidiary in neighbouring Colombia – its fourth AOC on the continent – plans to begin flying domestic routes in that country that could also be interesting for the large Venezuelan community residing there. “We’ll be flying to a city in Colombia that is very close to Venezuela,” he says. “The reality of the matter, the driver of this is the VFR market – visiting family and relatives.” Connectivity outside of the country has been curtailed in recent years due to an ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis that has resulted in hyperinflation, the lack of basic necessities and high poverty and crime rates. As a result, millions of Venezuelans have left the country. The diaspora across the continent now numbers between 8 and 10m, says LATAM Airlines Group CE Roberto Alvo. 5m of those are in Colombia alone, Ortiz adds. “People migrate, they have family members, they want to visit them,” Alvo says. LATAM operates flights from Bogota and Lima to the Venezuelan capital Caracas, he adds. Travel to the country has “been lacking” and LATAM will look to increase operations to the country to “give the opportunity to the Venezuelans to go back and visit their families”. Aeromexico, meanwhile, has Venezuela on its long-term radar, but will be busy expanding in a more lucrative market in the foreseeable future. “The main expansion in the next year, year-and-a-half will be to the US,” Aeromexico CE Andres Conesa says. “But certainly after that, maybe.” Panama-based Copa Airlines continues to fly to the country, with five destinations in Venezuela reachable from its “hub of the Americas” headquarters at Tocumen International airport in Panama City - Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia, Barquisimeto and Barcelona. “Copa never stopped operating flights even with the recent political and currency crisis in Venezuela,” says Pedro Heilbron, Copa’s CE. “But we have adapted our capacity to have more or less flights depending on the situiation. There were times we had to reduce capacity, and times we could add capacity.” <br/>

The war between Israel and Hamas is deterring travel across portions of the Middle East, according to the head of Virgin Atlantic Airways, suggesting that the impact on airlines may extend beyond the specific flight restrictions recently put in place. “The major impact has been, of course, that people are not flying into Israel and they’re not flying also to the area — into Jordan, into Egypt, into other locations,” Shai Weiss, the British carrier’s CEO, said Monday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. While the impact on Virgin Atlantic has been limited, the situation remains “unpredictable.” The warning underscores the uncertainty for the air travel market after the outbreak of fighting led carriers to suspend service to Tel Aviv earlier this month. United Airlines Holdings Inc. last week cited the war as it forecast quarterly profit well below Wall Street’s expectations. Delta is closely watching cities in Europe, particularly Paris, for any potential impact to demand as the situation in Israel continues to develop, CEO Ed Bastian said in a separate interview. The carrier has not seen any drop off in travel demand in other nearby countries, he said. “You could expect if they persist in the state of war, that Europe to the US is very much a channel that you could see more people flock to,” Weiss said in a later interview. “It’s always the same case — a sense of safety, familiarity and just confidence.” Adding to the strain on carriers, Weiss said the price of jet fuel “has gone up quite considerably” since the war began. The CEO also said the economic recovery is trending about a year behind that of the US. Bastian, speaking in the television interview, said he expects a “good landing” for the US.<br/>

Asia-Pacific countries have entered agreements to improve the management of flights in the region, which could see aircraft operating more direct, faster routes and help reduce emissions. The air navigation service providers of China, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the USA entered an agreement for a TBO (Trajectory Based Operations) Pathfinder project, which will demonstrate TBO in the region within four years, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. IATA and ICAO also signed the agreement. “Under TBO, ANSPs work together to plan and optimise an aircraft’s entire flight trajectory across [Flight Information Regions], from take-off to touchdown, and share information, such as on weather, airspace closures, and other traffic constraints,” says CAAS. “This will allow ANSPs to manage air traffic strategically ahead of time, rather than make reactive course corrections as and when information becomes available.” The TBO Pathfinder initiative builds on a TBO demonstration flight earlier this year involving the Boeing 787-10 ecoDemonstrator Explorer aircraft. This project saw four ANSPs facilitate the world’s first multi-regional, trajectory-based operations. CAAS, along with its Japan, Thailand, and USA counterparts were behind the project in cooperation with Boeing. In addition to the TBO Pathfinder project, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), and IATA have entered an agreement on the Southeast Asia-Oceana implementation of the Free Route Operations (FRTO) project. Within a year, the parties will identify and validate the use of FRTO between defined city pairs. “In a traditionally structured [air traffic management] system, aircraft follow a network of predefined routes akin to highways in the sky,” says CAAS. <br/>

The amount of drugs smuggled into South Korea through the country's main gateway has increased since international travel resumed after the pandemic, an opposition lawmaker said Tuesday. The amount of narcotics smuggled into South Korea through Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, rose from 129,362 grams in 2020 to 538,241 grams in 2022, Rep. Maeng Sung-kyu of the main opposition Democratic Party said, citing data from the Korea Customs Service. From January to July this year, 311,187 grams of narcotics worth 24b won ($17.8m) came in through the country's main gateway, he said. South Korea lifted its mandatory PCR testing on inbound travelers on Oct. 1, 2022, effectively lifting all pandemic restrictions against international travelers to the country.<br/>

Noise from the new western Sydney airport won’t force the acquisition of nearby properties, but dozens will be eligible for free home insulation to dull sound. About 90 properties will be eligible for free insulation to dull the noise of 480 weekly flights out of western Sydney airport under a preliminary plan. The federal government on Tuesday released the draft environmental impact statement for Sydney’s second international airport, outlining how its planned flight trajectories will force planes using Sydney’s existing Kingsford Smith airport to tweak their paths over the city. The draft also included mitigation measures for sound. It says between 7,000 and 12,000 residents will experience five or more aircraft noises a day as loud as a washing machine once the airport reaches capacity. That level of noise is enough to interrupt indoor conversations if windows are open. Depending on the direction of travel, up to 84,500 people could be exposed to two events as loud as a conversation each night. But the report estimates that only 91 homes and other premises fall in the zone eligible to receive free insulation to abate noise. Insulation measures include installing thicker windows, sealing gaps, improving roof insulation and solidifying external doors. No properties will have to be acquired for being inside a noisier zone adjacent to the airport, although nearby residents can apply for consideration. While the number of those eligible appears low, the draft report says as few as five properties would have been eligible if the criteria used for Sydney airport was applied.<br/>

he last passengers to experience a transatlantic crossing in barely three hours boarded British Airways BA2 from New York JFK early in the morning of 24 October 2003. As the Concorde approached London later that day, it was joined by two other supersonic jets, which flew low over the capital before landing at Heathrow airport. The Anglo-French aircraft was grounded by a combination of high oil prices, low demand and concerns about safety following the 2000 crash in Paris in which 113 people died. The airline says: “British Airways withdrew Concorde, bringing to a close the world’s only supersonic passenger service.” Since then various companies have worked on possible new-generation high-speed aircraft, but one is well ahead of the field: Boom Supersonic, based in Denver. The Colorado company says its plane, known as Overture, will fly at Mach 1.7, which is one-sixth slower than Concorde but still twice the speed of conventional subsonic aircraft. At a cruising altitude of 60,000 feet, Mach 1.7 equates to a ground speed of around 1,050mph – slower than Concorde, but around twice as fast as current short-haul aircraft, which fly at around Mach 0.85. The range, says Boom, will be 4,888 miles (4,250 nautical miles). That is only about one-sixth more than Concorde’s maximum. Boom Supersonic says potentially there are more than 600 “profitable routes” for the Overture. Journeys from US east coast cities such as Boston, New York, Washington DC and Miami to London, Paris, Dublin, Lisbon and other European hubs are likely to comprise the key market.<br/>