The chairperson of Pegasus Airlines has warned the Turkish low-cost carrier’s financial performance is “not sustainable” because soaring costs are outstripping rising revenues. However, Mehmet Nane says Pegasus will continue to expand its fleet to reflect Turkey’s growing travel and tourism market and will invite Airbus and Boeing to compete for its next order for deliveries beyond 2029. Speaking at an Aviation Club UK luncheon in London on 13 June, Nane, the airline’s former CE and a recent IATA chair, said the problem of tight margins, a result of aircraft delivery delays and inflation-driven wage and other cost hikes, was one facing the entire sector. “We are losing money,” he says. “We have seen a 5% erosion in gross margin in three years. This is not sustainable.” Pegasus posted a full-year operating profit of E489m ($530m) for 2023, down around E100m on the previous year, despite revenues climbing 9% to E2.67b. The airline, which has its main base at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport, has Airbus single-aisle deliveries scheduled until 2029. Those aircraft will take its total fleet to around 130, from 105 today, taking into account retirements.<br/>
unaligned
The gulf between the sides in the Aer Lingus pilots’ pay row looked wider than ever on Monday, leaving the carrier facing its first strike since 2002 in coming weeks after union members overwhelmingly backed industrial action. Sources were not optimistic that a strike could be averted, as attitudes appeared to be hardening on both sides. Just six of the 668 pilots who voted in a ballot that ran for three days opposed industrial action. Pilots are seeking pay increases of 23.88%, which the airline maintains amounts to 27% and would boost some long-haul captains’ pay to more than E347,000 in total from E287,000 currently. However, the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) says those calculations apply to just a handful of members, while it points out that newly recruited pilots start at E42,000 and cadets at E35,000. Pilots recently rejected a Labour Court deal recommendation that they accept 9.25% in pay hikes, to which Aer Lingus agreed, while in January they turned down 8.5% tabled by an internal company tribunal. Ialpa president Capt Mark Tighe argues that pilots want their earnings to reflect the 19% cost-of-living increase since 2019, and to match counterparts in British Airways, who he says received a 24% boost, and Lufthansa, which increased pay by 27%. s<br/>
A passenger plane landed safely at a New Zealand airport on Monday after a fire shut down one of its engines, the nation’s fire service said. The Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 jet bound for Melbourne, Australia, with 67 passengers and six crew members on board landed in the New Zealand city of Invercargill after the fire forced a diversion. The incident may have resulted from “a possible bird strike,” the airline’s COO, Stuart Aggs, said in an emailed statement. Flames were seen shortly after the plane took off from Queenstown Airport. No further information about what happened at the time of the incident was known, said Catherine Nind, an airport spokesperson. “At this time, we are not aware of any physical injuries to guests or crew,” Aggs said. Passengers will be accommodated in Invercargill overnight and new flights would be arranged, he said. Queenstown, with a population of 53,000, is popular tourist destination on New Zealand’s South Island, famous for skiing, adventure tourism and alpine vistas. The rate of birds striking planes at New Zealand’s airports is about four in every 10,000 aircraft movements, the country’s aviation regulator says on its website. The consequences vary in severity depending on where the aircraft is hit, the size of the birds and the pilot’s reaction, the Civil Aviation Authority says.<br/>
Russian investigators are probing an approach accident during which an Utair Antonov An-26-100 came down short of Utrenny airport. The aircraft was severely damaged during the event. It had been operating a charter service from Sabetta to Utrenny, which lie on opposite sides of a Kara Sea channel in northern Russia. According to the Ural transport prosecutor’s office, the aircraft made a “hard landing” some 2km from the destination airport, at around 15:40 on 14 June. The office says a number of occupants on flight 9706 suffered injuries, without elaborating. It identifies the aircraft as RA-26662, which was originally delivered to Aeroflot in 1979. Images from the prosecutor’s office show the twin-engined aircraft’s fuselage fractured, with its forward section, including the cockpit, dislocated. Meteorological conditions at the time of the accident have not been disclosed, but the aircraft came to rest against a deep snow bank. Utrenny airport has a single 1,550m runway.<br/>
Top management members at Habib Group, the parent company of defunct Regent Airways’ parent HG Aviation, have been ordered by a court in Bangladesh to repay loans to two banks worth BDT3.5b (US$29.8m), the Daily Star reported. The loans must be paid within two months to One Bank, which is owed BDT2.1b (US$17.9m) while BDT1.4b (US$11.9m) is owed to Dhaka Bank. One Bank filed three cases against HG Aviation, Siams Superior and Legacy Fashion, all members of the Habib Group. Meanwhile, Dhaka Bank filed a case against a fourth group member, Habib Steels. All of the companies are in liquidation. However, there are assets linked to the loans as the directors received the loans on a personal guarantee, the Business Standard reported and added that seven directors of the group have been either in the United States or in the United Kingdom for a long time. The repayment order lists chairman Yakub Ali, managing director Yashin Ali, and directors Amina Mahbub, Anjuman Ara Begum, Salma Sultana, Tanvir Habib, Salman Habib, and Mashroof Habib as the responsible persons. Regent Airways failed to relaunch after the pandemic and was liquidated last year over an unpaid aircraft lease. Additionally, the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) said in September 2023 that the airline owed it BDT4b (US$36.7m) in unpaid fees and accrued interest.<br/>