unaligned

Transat felt the headwinds of stiff competition, engine recalls and the threat of a union strike last quarter, which together conspired to drain more money from the struggling tour operator. Transat nearly doubled its losses to $54.4m in the three months ended April 30 compared with the same period a year earlier. More cash departed its coffers despite a 12% year-over-year boost in revenue, fuelled by an increase in passengers. “It is clear that this year is a challenging one for Transat,” CE Annick Guérard said on a conference call with analysts Thursday. “Canadians continue to feel the negative impacts of high inflation and high interest rates on their budget. We even see some postponing their spending,” she said. “The demand is there, but it’s not at a growth rate that is as strong as last year.” The losses stemmed partly from lower per-passenger revenue, as Transat’s seat capacity grew more than its ridership. They also resulted from “intensified competition” on routes to sun destinations and the drawn-out possibility of a work stoppage, the Montreal-based company said.<br/>

Air Transat plans to complete the roll out of its joint venture with Porter Airlines next year, says CE Annick Guerard. The implementation is occurring in phases with the first, which includes coordinating Canadian and European flights and routes, starting 5 June. The initial phase also includes sales of both airlines’ flights through either partners’ distribution channels. The second phase will come this fall and integrate Air Transat and Porter flights to the US, Guerard said during the airline’s quarterly results call on 6 June. The third phase is due in 2025 and will cover the airlines’ operations to the Caribbean and Latin America. “By the end of 2025, we should have pretty much everything in line, adding as well some alignment on loyalty,” Guerard adds. Air Transat and Porter hope the joint venture will boost their respective businesses, as well as their positions in the fiercely competitive Canadian market. Since the pandemic, Canada has evolved from a market dominated by two major airlines — Air Canada and WestJet — to one with several new ultra low-cost entrants and a rapidly growing Porter. Both partners lag Canadian market leaders Air Canada and WestJet in market share. In addition, Air Transat operates almost no domestic flights and Porter lacks any international feed from Europe or the Caribbean to its domestic-focused network. The first phase of the joint venture is to cover roughly 45% of Air Transat’s system capacity, measured in available seat miles, Cirium schedule data for the first half of the year shows. For Porter, which only serves Canada and the US, the first phase will cover more than 75% of capacity.<br/>

Ryanair on Thursday lost a court battle against an E10b Spanish solvency scheme for pandemic-hit companies approved by EU competition enforcers four years ago, one of a number of lawsuits the company has launched against rivals benefiting from state aid. The European Commission gave the green light to the scheme in 2020, saying it was compatible with EU rules. During the pandemic, it cleared billions of euros in state aid to COVID-hit airlines across the bloc as well as companies in other sectors. Ryanair had challenged the Spanish scheme at a lower tribunal but lost in 2021, prompting the company to appeal to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Europe's highest. CJEU judges dismissed Ryanair's arguments. "The Court upholds the (European) Commission's decision authorising the solvency support fund for strategic Spanish undertakings," the Court ruled. "The exceptional nature and the particular weight of the objectives pursued by that aid scheme permit the inference that a fair balance was struck between its beneficial effects and its adverse effects on the internal market, with the result that it is in the common interest of the European Union."<br/>

Thousands of travellers have been affected after Ryanair was forced to scrap almost 100 flights due to the latest strike by French air traffic control (ATC) staff today. The low-cost airline branded the situation “inexplicable”, blaming the European Commission for failing to “protect EU passengers’ freedom of movement” during the ongoing industrial action, which coincides with the commemoration of the D-Day landings. Ryanair is the only airline that flies from the UK to Paris Beauvais Airport, which is actually more than 40 miles outside of the French capital and served by budget carriers. Affected flights from the UK today include those from Leeds, Birmingham and Edinburgh, plus a flight departing Beauvais and heading to Leeds. Describing the situation as “unfair”, Ryanair is calling for France and all EU states to protect flights during air traffic control strikes. “It is inexplicable that Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission have failed to take action to protect EU passengers’ Freedom of Movement during these repeated French ATC strikes,” a Ryanair spokesperson said. “As a result, we have been forced to cancel almost 100 flight to/from Paris Beauvais Airport [today], unfairly disrupting thousands of EU passengers’ travel plans at short notice. EU passengers are sick and tired of suffering unnecessary cancellations during ATC strikes. The EU Commission must now act upon ‘Ryanair’s Protect Passengers – Keep EU Skies Open’ petition of more than 2.1m EU passengers’ signatures which Ryanair delivered directly to the EU Commission offices in May, September and January last. There is no excuse for EU passengers to bear the burden of national ATC strikes that are completely unrelated to them and its time that Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission do something about it.”<br/>

European budget carrier Wizz Air is in the process of selecting an engine manufacturer for 177 of the narrowbody Airbus jets it has on order, the airline's CEO told Reuters on Thursday. The company, which operates an all-Airbus fleet, has two options - its current supplier Pratt & Whitney, whose engines are facing issues worldwide forcing airlines to ground planes, and competitor CFM, a joint venture between General Electric and France's Safran. "We are right now in the process of tendering it (the engine order)," CEO Jozsef Varadi said during an interview on the sidelines of the CAPA India aviation summit in New Delhi. Choosing the next engine provider will depend on the acquisition cost, durability of the engine, operating cost and how the airline can financially get the cost guaranteed for aftermarket activities, Varadi said. Wizz Air is among airlines that have been forced to ground a large number of planes due to a powder metal issue with the Pratt & Whitney's geared turbofan (GTF) engine. As of May 17, about 47 of Wizz Air's fleet of more than 200 Airbus jets are on the ground, and Varadi said he expects 30 more groundings by summer next year. Wizz Air has 330 aircraft on order, about half of which are confirmed to have the GTF engines from Pratt & Whitney. The tender is for the remaining 177 planes, Varadi said. Varadi said he expects all ordered planes to be delivered by the end of the decade, by which point the airline will have a fleet of around 500 jets.<br/>

Lebanon’s national carrier is no stranger to operating in a conflict zone. Back in 2006, an Israeli air strike destroyed the runways of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, severely curtailing the carrier’s operations. Since October’s attack by Hamas on Israel and the widening conflict that’s followed, Middle East Airlines has seen its business shrink dramatically, and the airline has been forced to move a large portion of its aircraft out of the country to prevent any damage to its most valuable physical assets. “It’s a really difficult task to manage, it’s not easy to work when you don’t have clarity,” MEA Chairman Mohamad El-Hout said in an interview in Dubai at this year’s annual general meting of the IATA industry group. “The priority is no longer financial results or growth. Of course there is no growth.” The Hamas-Israel war has spread into a regional conflict amid clashes between Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and the Israeli army along the border. That, in turn, has weighed on travel demand to Beirut, previously a thriving tourism hot spot and the airline’s main hub. These days, MEA passengers are mostly made up of Lebanese expatriates returning home for holidays, El-Hout said. Many international carriers have suspended operations to Israel and are navigating around the wider region as an extra precaution. Some are beginning to return, including Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., which announced at the IATA gathering that it will serve Tel Aviv again from Sept. 5. MEA still has six of its aircraft parked in Jordan, Turkey, and Cyprus, half the number that were previously out of position. As a result of the displacements, the almost 80 year-old carrier has been recalibrating routes to accommodate lower demand and the smaller operating fleet. Passenger numbers are down 20% since October, the chairman said.<br/>

Saudia Group is in talks with Airbus and Boeing over ordering wide-body jets to increase its capacity as planemakers face constraints in production slots of narrow-body aircraft, a spokesperson for the group told Reuters. The state-owned group, which owns Saudia Airlines and budget carrier Flyadeal, last month ordered 105 narrow-body Airbus planes but had a requirement for 180, said Saudia Group General Manager, Communications and Media Affairs, Abdullah Alshahrani. Air travel is surging post pandemic and demand for planes is outstripping production as supply chains struggle to ramp up at the same pace. Airbus in January said it is sold out until the end of the decade for single-aisle jets. A lack of production slots at Airbus, especially for the A320, forced the group to look at wide-body jets, Alshahrani said in an interview on Thursday on the sidelines of the CAPA India aviation conference in New Delhi. Alshahrani said the group had been "lucky" to get the 105-plane order with Airbus but needed more, adding that Saudia is looking at the Boeing 787 and Airbus A330. The number of wide-body jets, which will serve both Saudia Airlines and Flyadeal, is under discussion but Saudia Group will place an order this year, he added. Flyadeal's CEO told Reuters earlier this week that it is studying a possible order for between 10 and 20 wide-body jets.<br/>

IndiGo chief Pieter Elbers has pushed back on calling the airline a “traditional” low-cost operator, noting that it already has undertaken a series of initiatives that other low-cost carriers would not usually take. Speaking at the CAPA India Aviation Summit in Delhi, Elbers said IndiGo was a “unique” carrier that was “building on the development of India as a country”. “We have a co-branded credit card – is that what a traditional LCC does? We have eight [airline] partners, having just signed Japan Airlines – is that what a traditional LCC does?” says Elbers. He adds: “I think we left the station of being [labelled] a ‘typical LCC’ if there is a such a thing. We left that station already. I don’t think we need to be labelled in one way or the other…IndiGo is a unique airline and we develop in a way that it should be developed.” Elbers’s comments come as the airline announced a flurry of fleet and product investments, including rolling out a business-class product by the end of year, as well as placing orders for 30 Airbus A350s. The airline is also due to take delivery of its first A321XLR in 2025, an aircraft Elbers says “brings a new dynamic” to its fleet and network strategy. <br/>