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Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has launched seasonal, thrice weekly flights to Bangkok, Thailand from Copenhagen, Denmark. The inaugural flight took off on Monday, almost 75 years after SAS' first flight between the two cities. SAS operated its first flight between Copenhagen and Bangkok in 1949, opening a new air route between Scandinavia and Thailand. The route, which at the time “only” took 36 hours, had stops in Zürich, Rome, Damascus, Karachi, and Calcutta along the way. SAS continued to fly to Thailand for the next 64 years, up until 2013. Today, flights between the two cities take approximately 10 hours and 30 minutes, with no stopovers. Bangkok, Thailand. Both legs of the Copenhagen (CPH) - Bangkok (BKK) route will be operated as overnight flights enabling seamless connections to and from Scandinavia as well as other European destinations via CPH airport. SAS will operate flight SK973 every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, departing CPH at 23:35 and arriving in Bangkok at 17:10 the following day. The return leg, flight SK974, will leave Bangkok every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 23:50, arriving in CPH at 06:40 the following day. SAS will operate the Bangkok route with Airbus A350 configured with 300 seats across three classes – SAS Business, SAS Plus and SAS Go.<br/>

Japan's two biggest airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, have seen strong rebounds from COVID-related setbacks in the first six months of their current financial years. Net profit for ANA in the April-September period improved 4.8 times over the same period last year to 93.2b yen ($618.6m), recovering to 2019 pre-COVID levels. Net profit for domestic rival JAL was 61.6b yen, returning to profit from a loss of 2.1b yen a year earlier. ANA recorded a 27% revenue rise of 1t yen, while JAL posted a 33% increase of 820.9b yen. Passenger revenue for JAL's full service flights was 589.4b yen, rebounding to levels last seen in 2019. ANA's was 681.5b yen, recovering to 96% of the 2019 level. One main reason for the strong results of Japan's two main airlines is the increase in the unit price of flights. Yield -- passenger revenue divided by passenger kilometers traveled -- increased 48% from four years ago on ANA's international flights and 51% on JAL's. "The supply-demand balance is tightening as the supply of international flights is lower than usual, with also high demand for flights to third countries via Japan. This has naturally led to higher passenger rates," said Kimihiro Nakahori, CFO of ANA Holdings, during a news conference on Tuesday. Whereas passenger volume on domestic flights has already recovered to approximately 90% of pre-pandemic levels, international flights are still hovering at 70% despite the soaring demand for inbound tourism. "Japanese people are still reluctant to travel abroad partly due to the persistent yen weakness," said Yuji Saito, JAL's CFO. There was a relatively high number of passengers on flights to Hawaii, South Korea and other destinations during Japan's Obon holiday in August. But overall outbound demand has been sluggish at around 50% of the 2019 level.<br/>

ANA Holdings Inc. said it will need to inspect Pratt & Whitney engines on 33 of its Airbus SE narrowbody jets from January, resulting in a reduction of international and domestic flights and an ¥8b ($53m) hit to revenue. Airlines globally have been impacted by required checks on Pratt’s geared turbofan engines, and ANA said it would seek compensation from the company, a unit of RTX Corp. The engines are on 11 A320neo planes and 22 A321neos. “Inspection and replacement procedures are set well in advance to ensure safety,” the Japanese carrier said in a statement Tuesday. “There is no impact on the safety of our operations.” The issues stem from contaminated metal powder entering the manufacturing process and potentially affecting internal engine parts made between 2015 and 2021. Checks of each engine take 250 to 300 days, ANA said, citing Pratt. They will be removed for checking before replacement deadlines specified by the manufacturer, ANA said. Because of the issue, the airline will operate 30 fewer daily flights from Jan. 10 to the end of March, a reduction of 3.6%, it said. ANA also said Tuesday its Q2 operating profit was ¥85.95b, which easily beat analysts’ average estimate of ¥61.91b. <br/>

Asiana Airlines, South Korea's second-largest air carrier, said Tuesday its board will reconvene later this week to vote on whether to sell its cargo business, as Korean Air Co. seeks to win antitrust approval from European Union regulators for the takeover of its smaller rival. The meeting will be held Thursday, Asiana said in a regulatory filing, without specifying the time or place. The gathering comes three days after the board failed to reach a conclusion amid disagreements over the sell-off, the validity of votes to be cast by several outside board members and other issues. If the board votes to sell the cargo business, it would give Korean Air, the larger of the two full-service carriers, a better chance at winning a nod from the EC, the EU's executive body, for its takeover of the smaller rival. EU antitrust regulators have raised concerns that Korean Air's acquisition of Asiana may restrict competition in the markets for passenger and cargo air transport services between the EU and South Korea. A rejection, on the contrary, could potentially dampen the prospects of the merger deal, which has been pursued for the past three years. <br/>

The CEs of Air India and Akasa Air have privately exchanged barbs over the poaching of pilots, with the latter accusing its bigger rival of rule violations, provoking a reply that collusion to curb job switching can breach competition law. The exchange, detailed in a Sept. 21 letter seen by Reuters, spotlights growing competition in India's aviation market, as a strong rebound in air travel after the pandemic, coupled with a flurry of orders for new aircraft, lead to a shortage of pilots. The rare verbal and written confrontations between the airlines' CEs were detailed in the letter, sent by Campbell Wilson of Air India, which is owned by the Tata Group conglomerate, to Vinay Dube of low-cost airline Akasa. It followed a telephone call between them and a missive Dube had sent expressing his concerns to the Tata Group. The Sept. 21 letter shows Air India pushed back after Akasa accused it of contravening government policies that mandate a notice period of six to 12 months for pilots, rules that Indian pilots' groups are challenging in court. Wilson told his counterpart the government rules were "not currently enforceable", adding that Akasa itself had "previously engaged in the same actions" by poaching pilots from Tata Group's budget carrier, Air India Express, and other airlines. "It was a little surprising to us that Akasa now found the practice objectionable," Wilson wrote in the letter, which Reuters is reporting for the first time.<br/>

Air India will launch non-stop flights between Melbourne and Mumbai next month. The service, which complements Air India’s existing daily Melbourne-Delhi route, will initially operate three times per week using 787-8 Dreamliners starting 15 December, with the potential to add capacity based on demand. Around 433,000 Indian residents flew in and out of Melbourne last financial year, more than any other Australian city. According to Jim Parashos, the airport’s chief of aviation, the terminals have seen record numbers of Indian visitors in recent months. “Melbourne is home to Australia’s largest Indian population and shares significant cultural ties, which makes it the obvious gateway for travellers from the subcontinent wanting to explore Victoria and beyond,” he said. “Our data shows that as India’s financial capital, Mumbai is currently Melbourne’s largest international market without non-stop flights, so we expect this service to be very popular in both directions.” Parashos also highlighted the open-skies agreement between Australia and India, in a possible reference to the ongoing stoush over Qatar Airways being blocked from operating more than 28 flights per week to Australia’s four major airports in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. “Australia and India have an open skies air services agreement which has provided Air India the certainty they need to efficiently announce, put on sale and launch these new flights without the uncertainty associated with bilateral agreements,” he said.<br/>

Singapore Airlines will resume flights to four cities in China from Nov 26, while budget carrier Scoot will relaunch its Singapore-Changsha route. All five routes had been halted in 2023. SIA will roll out services between Singapore and four destinations – Chongqing, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Xiamen – which had been suspended for regulatory reasons. The flag carrier’s thrice-weekly return flights to Chongqing will begin on Nov 26, along with a new daily return service to Shenzhen. A daily return flight to Xiamen will also start on Dec 3. SIA will fly four round trips to Chengdu a week between Dec 3 and Dec 31. This will be upped to a daily service between Jan 1 and 29, 2024, before being reduced to thrice-weekly return flights from Jan 31, as the airline monitors demand. These four routes were previously operated by the now-defunct SilkAir, which merged with SIA in 2021. They will operate on SIA’s 154-seat Boeing 737-8 MAX jets.<br/>