TACV Cabo Verde Airlines, Cape Verde's loss-making national airline, plans to cut nearly a quarter of its staff and review routes as part of a restructuring plan to reduce debt and attract foreign investors. TACV has been running at a loss for years, relying on government loans as it struggles to keep costs down and ticket sales up, despite being a key mode of transport in one of Africa's fastest growing tourist destinations. Last month a plane operated by TACV was grounded in the Netherlands after AerCap, an aircraft leasing company, issued a "ground notice" in relation to a debt repayment. The reason for the grounding was not clear and AerCap was not available for comment. "We have some potential… with our strategic location to attract investors if we restructure the company and bring costs to appropriate levels," TACV chief executive Joao Pereira Silva said. "It is clear that we have to reduce the amount of staff to make the company more profitable." The restructuring, which began in October and is expected to be completed by December, will involve cutting up to 120 of its 510 staff members, Silva said.<br/>
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FastJet will start closing routes after burning through cash in its efforts to become the first pan-African discount airline, predicting 2016 earnings will fall “materially” below analyst estimates. The share price almost halved in the biggest decline since the company was founded in 2012. The impact of challenging market conditions and currency fluctuations has proved “a lot more prolonged” than forecast in December, FastJet said Monday. It plans to respond by paring capacity and making unspecified network cuts to better match demand. FastJet CEO Ed Winter has said he’s seeking a successor amid pressure to leave from shareholder Stelios Haji-Ioannou as the cash situation worsens. While the company said it can meet operational needs, with $20m available at the end of February, the board may consider raising further funds this year to provide “additional headroom.” Shares of FastJet fell 30.75 pence, or 46%, to 36.50 pence, the most since the company was founded in a reverse takeover involving miner Lonrho’s Fly540 airline arm, before trading 35% lower at 11:49 a.m. Stelios, the EasyJet founder who goes by his first name and owns 13% of FastJet, said that the African carrier is suffering from “a bloated cost base created by Ed Winter and his staff.” The entrepreneur said the CEO should now go and leave Chairman Colin Child, who joined in October and was previously finance director of De La Rue Plc, to begin making cuts.<br/>
JetBlue Airways is taking applications for 24 slots in a new program to train novice pilots to fly passenger jets. The airline said on Monday that the program, the first of its kind at a large UnitedStates airline, will cost about $125,000 for entrants and take four years to complete. CAE, a maker of flight simulators, will provide the training. Graduates could wind up flying 100-seat passenger jets. Warren Christie, JetBlue’s senior vice president for safety and training, said the program would not replace the airline’s traditional pipelines for pilots, many of whom come from smaller airlines. JetBlue hired more than 300 pilots last year. Applicants will be judged with tests measuring hand-eye coordination, multitasking, critical thinking and other skills. There also will be a “personality assessment” but no psychological screening. JetBlue expects the first group of six prospects to begin training in late summer in Orlando.<br/>
Vijay Mallya, the Indian liquor tycoon who started Kingfisher Airlines, said he’s in talks with lenders to pay the carrier’s dues and slammed the media for what he described as a “near-hysterical campaign” against him. Kingfisher Airlines was one of India’s leading carriers from 2005 until it stopped flying in 2012 as debt and losses mounted. The airline owes about 70b rupees ($1.04b) to lenders, SBICAP Trustee, leader of a 17-bank consortium, said in a notice on its website last month. Efforts are being made to reach a one-time settlement with lenders, and any deal will also cover future payments to them, Mallya said in an e-mailed statement to media Sunday night. Lenders have a total of 24.94b rupees of cash and securities available to them that they can put toward the dues. The Enforcement Directorate, a Finance Ministry agency that examines violations of rules relating to foreign transactions, is investigating Kingfisher Airlines and will question Mallya soon, the Press Trust of India on Monday reported. “Personally, I am not a borrower or a judgment defaulter,” Mallya, the tycoon behind India’s best-selling beer, said. Mallya has been called a “willful defaulter” in Indian media reports and accused of causing “continuous pain and agony” to employees for not paying their salaries. “I have neither the intention nor any reason to abscond,” Mallya said. “I feel that the time has come to clarify my position in order to avoid this relentless attack on my reputation.”<br/>