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Alaska Air Group Inc. on Tuesday sold around $2b of debt secured by its frequent flyer program, to refinance borrowings tied to its acquisition of airline Hawaiian Holdings Inc. On Tuesday, Alaska Air subsidiary AS Mileage Plan IP Ltd. sold $1.25b of notes in two parts, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The longer portion of the offering, a seven-year note, yielded 1.7 percentage point above Treasuries after earlier discussions for around 2.125 percentage points, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the details are private. The same unit also sold a $750m loan maturing in seven years on Tuesday, paying 2 percentage points over the Secured Overnight Financing Rate. The airline didn’t respond to a request for comment. The debt saw relatively high demand, allowing the firm to improve the pricing and boost the originally planned size of the total borrowing. Alaska Air said last month that it planned to borrow $1.5b to help refinance Hawaiian Holdings debt after having acquired the company, a purchase that it said closed on Sept. 18. The acquisition was announced in December. Borrowing on a secured basis is cutting Alaska Air’s borrowing costs by allowing it to win investment-grade ratings for the debt even as the parent company carries junk ratings. On Sept. 24, Moody’s Ratings cut the airline’s credit rating to Ba1, the highest junk level, from Baa3, the lowest investment-grade score. <br/>

Alarming footage taken from the cockpit of a British Airways flight over the Middle East captured Iranian-launched missiles soaring nearby — suggesting Iran failed to make sure the airways were clear of international civilian flights before they filled the sky with hundreds of explosives. The clip was filmed by the pilot of the Dubai-bound BA flight Tuesday evening and showed what is clearly a volley of recently fired ballistic missiles rising into the night sky on their way to Israel. All the missiles safely cleared the airliner — but the footage showed just how close Iran came to immediately setting off an international incident by firing rockets into the skies without first making sure they were clear of civilian air traffic from across the world. Airlines scrambled to divert their flights from the skies over the Middle East as the Iranian missiles started flying without warning around 7:30 p.m. local time. Flight trackers from the region soon showed a gaping clearing in the airspace between Iran and Israel that has persisted hours after the barrage ended — with planes flying north and south of the entire Middle East to avoid the possibility of future missile fire.<br/>

Qatar Airways aircraft and crew could fly up to 28 extra services per week from Australia to Doha as part of its proposed deal to acquire 25% of Virgin, Australian Aviation can reveal. The revelation comes just over a year after Transport Minister Catherine King controversially blocked the expansion of Qatar flights into major Australian airports. Qatar had asked the government for an extra 21 flights per week. The deal to take a stake in Virgin effectively circumvents the need to require government approval because the flights would be technically serviced by domestic carrier Virgin Australia, which would be wet-leasing the aircraft and crew from the overseas airline. Under Australia’s bilateral air service agreements with Qatar, Qatari carriers are permitted up to 28 flights per week into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth; as the agreement is reciprocal, Australian carriers such as Virgin are also permitted 28 flights per week from these airports to Doha. Additionally, the agreements allow up to seven extra flights per week to the four major airports “provided such services operate via or beyond to a point in Australia other than Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney”, and unrestricted flights non-stop to airports other than those four. No Australian airlines currently operate flights from Australia to Doha, and any bid to use this capacity would be subject to approval from the International Air Services Commission (IASC); there may also be labour considerations around the use of Qatari crews under a wet-lease deal.<br/>

Chairman of Sri Lanka's National People’s Power (NPP) Economic Council has hosed down media reports that the new government intends walk away from plans to sell a stake in SriLankan Airlines (UL, Colombo International), having decided the carrier is too important to be sold off or divested. Earlier this year, the administration of Ranil Wickremesinghe got as far as calling for expressions of interest in the loss-making airline but abandoned that program after suitable buyers failed to materialise. It then said it would pursue alternative divestment strategies to be disclosed after the September 21, 2024, presidential election. The 2024 Sri Lankan presidential election, held last month, saw the left-leaning politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake become the country's 10th president, defeating Wickremesinghe, who won just 17% of the vote. Dissanayake says he will honour the USD2.9 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail Sri Lanka out of the economic crisis, but he also wants to reduce the impact of austerity measures on the country's poorest citizens. He is also generally opposed to selling state-owned assets.<br/>

The Australian pilots union said on Tuesday that it has rejected a wage proposal from Qantas Airways for its short haul pilots, days after the company's engineers went on a strike to demand a better pay deal. The proposal included a two-year wage freeze, higher minimum guaranteed hours, increased standby pay and guaranteed payments for flying hours that may be lost due to unplanned disruptions or schedule changes during a roster period. "Qantas' insistence on a two-year wage freeze despite being highly profitable while also seeking concessions on key conditions was viewed by pilots as unreasonable," the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) said in a statement. The national carrier posted an annual profit after tax of A$1.25b ($865.8m) for fiscal 2024. Of the 786 short-haul Qantas pilots who voted, 63.4% voted against the deal. The rejection of this proposal comes in the wake of a strike by the airline's engineers last Thursday over demands including a 5% annual pay hike. The pilots' union warned of escalation if the airline ignored the result of the vote.<br/>