Virgin Atlantic has called for a guarantee to prevent passenger charges rising on the back of an expanded Heathrow as the airport kicks off a 10-week consultation on its plans. The airline’s CE Craig Kreeger has suggested there should be a "passenger cost guarantee" to ensure airport charges do not rise significantly from their current levels. “Our passengers already pay the highest airport charges in the world – they should not be asked to pay even more to fund expansion,” he said. “To protect passengers, we’re calling upon Heathrow to introduce a passenger cost guarantee, setting out the total budget for delivering the expansion programme, committing that passenger charges will not increase in real terms, and guaranteeing to cover the costs of any overspend.” <br/>
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Norwegian has disclosed plans to end its transatlantic service between Edinburgh and Hartford later this year, citing the Scottish govt's failure to reduce air taxes. The airline notes that when it began operating the route in June 2017 there was the "prospect" that Scotland's govt would cut air passenger duty this year. In Oct 2017, however, Scotland's finance secretary Derek Mackay told parliament that securing EU approval for continuing to exempt Highlands and Islands airports from air tax would delay the whole process of reducing APD. Norwegian says its Edinburgh-Hartford route will close March 25. The carrier is also reducing the frequencies of its services from the Scottish capital to Boston and New York, and redeploying capacity to other markets. <br/>
Ryanair has contacted the Austrian administrators of bankrupt Airberlin subsidiary NIKI, expressing interest in participating in the insolvency process and potential purchase of remaining NIKI assets, the carrier's head of communications said. Ryanair was one of the earlier bidders for NIKI. However, the LCC later stepped back from the bidding process. Ryanair renewed interest in NIKI following the Jan 12 ruling by a Korneuburg Austrian court that the NIKI insolvency proceedings and asset sale should restart from scratch, casting further doubt on the IAG acquisition of NIKI, which was based on insolvency proceedings taking place in Germany. A Berlin regional court ruled last week that bankruptcy proceedings should be conducted in Austria rather than in Germany. <br/>
Settling a legal dispute, airline Niki's German and Austrian administrators agreed to cooperate to resolve the insolvent carrier's future swiftly and guarantee legal certainty for its buyer. New offers can be made for Niki until Friday and a decision will follow within days, German administrator Lucas Floether and his Austrian counterpart Ulla Reisch said Tuesday. "The signatures of both administrators will guarantee the buyer legal security for the closing of the sales contract," Floether and Reisch said. After hurried talks to ensure Niki retained valuable runway slots, IAG agreed with the German administrator to buy the business for E20m and make it part of low-cost unit Vueling. The deal was put at risk last week after a German and an Austrian court independently ruled that Niki's insolvency proceedings had to move to Austria. <br/>