unaligned

Hawaiian Airlines has given up slots for flights to Tokyo’s Haneda airport from Honolulu and Kona effective 2 April, blaming “current market conditions”. The cancelled flights are four-times-weekly service from Honolulu and thrice-weekly connections from Kona, on Hawaii’s Big Island. “Hawaiian did not take this decision lightly,” the company said in a filing with the US Department of Transportation (DOT) on 26 January. “Having invested significant time and resources into building its Haneda operation, Hawaiian resumed the night-time service in October 2023 and has incrementally increased service throughout the current winter scheduling season.” “However, current market conditions make continued operation of the flight economically unviable,” the airline says in the document. Hawaiian adds that the “difficult operating conditions” are related to the Covid-19 pandemic and associated travel restrictions, and the night flight has historically been the weakest flight in Hawaiian’s Haneda operations. “Asia and Japan specifically have been among the last markets to recover from the precipitous drop in travel demand” after the Covid-19 crisis, the company says. ”While Hawaiian saw improvement throughout the second and third quarters of 2023, the recovery stalled when load factors dropped as waivers of the slot and route usage requirements expired.”<br/>

Flair CEO Stephen Jones says he's effectively suspending the budget airline's expansion plans for at least a year as it contends with plane delivery delays and hefty debts. "This will be a more muted year," he said in an interview, "but we’ll look to get back into growth mode strongly in 2025.” As recently as the fall, the Edmonton-based company aimed to boost its fleet to 26 Boeing 737 Max jetliners in 2024, up from its current roster of 20. On Monday, Jones said the fleet likely won't grow much in the coming year, due partly to hold-ups at Boeing Co. The US plane-making giant has faced scrutiny from regulators over its safety record, most recently after a midflight blowout of a side panel earlier this month that grounded 737 Max 9 jetliners for weeks. Jones said the Max program has had a number of delays on delivery. Aircraft that were slated to arrive in the spring won't be landing at Flair's gates until late fall, "which is not a great time for capacity growth." This is a tough industry," he said. "The development of the financial performance will take some time." Flair Airlines owes the federal government $67.2m in unpaid taxes, court documents show, prompting the Canada Revenue Agency to obtain an order for the seizure and sale of the carrier's property. The sum relates to unpaid import duties on the 20 Boeing jets that make up Flair's fleet, Jones said. However, he said the Federal Court order obtained by the tax agency in November has no impact on the carrier's operations, which have expanded over the past year and ratcheted up competition with rival airlines. The company has agreed to settle the debt with the CRA, he said.<br/>

A US bankruptcy judge on Monday allowed Brazilian airline Gol to borrow the first $350m of its proposed bankruptcy financing, which a company attorney said was "desperately" needed to maintain normal operations. US bankruptcy judge Martin Glenn approved the initial funding at a court hearing in Manhattan, despite voicing some concerns about the high cost of the overall $950m loan. Glenn will consider approving the rest of the loan at a future hearing, and said he needs more insight into the financing costs. "I'm not writing a blank check," Glenn said. The loan has an interest rate that currently exceeds 15%, over $235m in additional fees, and additional attorneys' fees that could be added to that cost later, according to court documents. Gol attorney Andrew Leblanc said the initial funding was "desperately needed" to maintain Gol's operations and preserve relationships with the lessors who own Gol's fleet of 141 Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab aircraft and who could stop maintenance work or seek to reclaim airplanes if they are not paid. Gol's Sao Paulo-traded shares tumbled 33.6% on Monday to 3.93 reais, their lowest closing price since Dec. 22, 2016. The company's shares have fallen by almost 50% since local media first reported earlier this month that the company was considering filing for bankruptcy. It now has a market value of 1.65b reais ($333.21m).<br/>

Ryanair has offered to step in and pick up more Boeing 737 Max aircraft if any US airlines cancel their orders amid deepening manufacturing problems at the plane maker. Europe’s largest airline has emerged as Boeing’s most supportive big customer after the manufacturer was plunged into crisis by a fuselage blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this month. Several US airline bosses vented their frustration at Boeing last week, and United Airlines CE Scott Kirby raised questions over the future of an order for 250 of Boeing’s 737 Max 10, the newest and still uncertified variant of the Max family. On Monday, Ryanair’s CE Michael O’Leary said Kirby’s comments were “not helpful” and backed Boeing’s management. “If United or any other airlines don’t want to take their Max 10 orders, we will be happy to step in,” he said. The airline is reliant on deliveries of the Max family of aircraft to expand over the next decade. It has an order book of 400 new aircraft, made up of 737 Max 8 and the Max 10. Ryanair said it expected to receive 50 Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft before the summer, seven fewer than agreed with Boeing, but in line with previous forecasts. Under its current plans it does not expect to receive the first Max 10 until 2027, but O’Leary said he would talk to Boeing about earlier deliveries if other airlines backed away from the plane.<br/>

Ryanair on Monday trimmed its profit forecast for the year to the end of March after some online travel agents suddenly stopped selling its flights in December, forcing it to cut fares to fill seats as costs per passenger inched up. Ryanair had for years accused the websites of adding illegitimate extra charges and launched a series of court cases against them, but appeared to be taken by surprise when they stopped selling the airline’s tickets. The airline, Europe’s largest by passenger numbers, forecast an after-tax profit of between E1.85b and E1.95b for its financial year to March 31. That is down from its November forecast of E1.85b and E2.05b, but would still beat its previous record of E1.45b in 2018. Ryanair shares were down 2% in early trading. The sudden halt of sales by the online travel agents increased the proportion of empty seats on flights by around 1 percentage point, forcing the airline to stimulate bookings over Christmas and New Year with fares that were “slightly lower than we’d anticipated,” CFO Neil Sorahan said in a pre-recorded presentation. Net profit for the three months to the end of December, Q3 of its financial year, was E15m, significantly lower than the E49m expected by analysts polled by the company. The higher percentage of empty seats, in addition to higher productivity pay agreed with staff, meant full-year ex-fuel unit costs were expected to rise by around E2.5, Sorahan said. The fallout from the travel agents’ move is beginning to “fizzle out,” Sorahan said, with several agents approaching the airline to secure new, more transparent deals.<br/>

Armenian national carrier Fly Arna has suspended flights citing ”operational revisions”. In a brief statement on the airline’s website, the company says its flights “are currently on hold” whilst it undergoes operational revisions. “The carrier is actively working on resuming its services and looks forward to welcoming passengers back onboard soon,” Fly Arna adds. It gives no timeframe for the potential resumption of flights. Fly Arna, a venture between Middle Eastern budget airline Air Arabia and the Armenian National Interests Fund (ANIF), launched flights in July 2022. Since launching flights from Yerevan to Hurghada in Egypt, the Airbus A320 operator has since added routes to Baghdad, Kuwait, Sharm el Sheik, Tbilisi and the Russian cities of Moscow, Novosibirsk, Sochi and St Petersburg.<br/>

Kazakhstan's Air Astana on Monday set the price range for joint stock exchange listings in the UK and its home market, preparing the ground for a float that would boost London's sluggish IPO market. The offering is aiming to drum up $300m, of which $120m will be raised by the company. Bookrunners on the deal said on Monday evening that the books had been covered. Air Astana is aiming for a market valuation of between $770m and $962m through the float, the company said. The listing, first announced earlier in January, will enable Kazakhstan's sovereign wealth fund and British defence giant BAE Systems to reduce their current stakes in the airline. Central Asian airlines such as Air Astana have benefited from the closure of Russian airspace, helping boost passenger numbers and revenues for the region's carriers. "As one of the fast-growing airline groups, we firmly believe that Air Astana represents an attractive investment proposition," said CEO Peter Foster, adding that proceeds of the initial public offering would go towards growth opportunities. The price range for the offering of new and existing shares on the London Stock Exchange and Kazakhstan's AIX and KASE markets has been set between $8.50 to $11.00 per depository receipt and $2.13 to $2.75 per share. The final price will be determined by a bookbuilding process and is expected to be announced around Feb. 9, it added, with trading set to commence in London on Feb. 14 and in Kazakhstan on Feb. 15.<br/>

Middle Eastern carrier Oman Air is restructuring its network, cutting several Asian routes, as part of a broad re-organisation of the airline’s operations. Oman Air disclosed last August that it would undertake changes in order to stem continuing losses and reduce debts. It will axe services to the Pakistani cities of Islamabad and Lahor, as well as the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, and Chittagong in Bangladesh. But it will add a Pakistani connection with services to Sialkot. Oman Air will trim frequency on a number of routes although it will increase capacity to Lucknow and Thiruvananthapuram. The airline also plans to serve Zurich, Trabzon and Male on a seasonal basis. Oman Air says the “strategic changes” to the network are part of the transformation to improve financial performance and “fortify” its market position.<br/>

Fly Baghdad has suspended all flight operations at the orders of the Iraqi government following an investigation into the airline's alleged ties to Iranian militia. The carrier confirmed its bank accounts have been frozen due to recently imposed US sanctions and can therefore not refund passengers. "Fly Baghdad fully complies with the decision issued by His Excellency the Prime Minister to stop all flights starting from this moment and until further notice, until the investigation is completed. We also welcome this investigation as an opportunity to prove the incorrectness of the US Treasury Department's claims against Fly Baghdad and its CEO, Mr. Basherr Al-Shabbani. At present time, we cannot access our bank accounts, so it is not possible for Fly Baghdad to refund cancelled tickets or book tickets for passengers on other airlines," it said. ADS-B data shows the last flight Fly Baghdad operated was a ferry flight from Baghdad to Antalya, during the night of January 25/26 with B737-900ER YI-BAT (msn 35711). Scheduled flights were suspended by the evening of January 25, 2024. The airline confirmed to local media that it has appealed the US government's sanctions and hopes to have them overturned within the two-month wind-down period before all transactions are fully banned.<br/>

The president of Emirates Airline says governments have gone “too far” in terms of mandating the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which could end up costing passengers. Speaking with Australia’s Sky TV, Tim Clark says government mandates that a specific percentage of airlines’ fuel uplift be SAF by a certain date will create problems. “This stick approach, in my view, is not the way to get us across the line with SAF,” says Clark. “Today, the airline community to a man would be using SAF if they could. We’re equally concerned about the environment.” Clark notes that there is insufficient investment going into refining capacity for SAF. Moreover, the cost of feedstocks is high, as well as the opportunity cost involved in creating feedstocks, such as using arable land to produce SAF that could otherwise be used to produce food. Clark estimates that SAF represents just 0.1% of the fuel used in aviation, and that demand for air travel continues to grow, pushing up fuel requirements. He warns of a situation where governments fine airlines for failing to use the mandated percentage of SAF, fine airports for not providing SAF facilities, and fine energy producers for failing to produce it. Ultimately, this cost will be borne by passengers.<br/>

AirAsia will reinstate direct flights from Penang to Kota Kinabalu and Kuching from March 31, according to a statement. It said yesterday that bookings for the daily flights were now open from as low as RM119 one-way all-in for Kuching to Penang and from RM159 for Kota Kinabalu to Penang. The airline said the promotional fares to the capital cities of Sabah and Sarawak were from now until Feb 18 for travel between March 31 and Nov 18. It said that apart from travellers from Penang, the route was convenient to travel for those from the peninsula’s northern states, such as Kedah, Perlis and Perak.<br/>