Southwest edged past expectations for Q4 profit Thursday, helped by a small increase in unit revenue per seat driven by higher overall passenger numbers. The carrier said it expects Q1 unit revenue, which compares ticket sales with flight capacity, to increase in the 1-2% range, compared to last year. In Q4 ended Dec. 31 the measure rose 1.9%. Average passenger fares, however, were down 2.7% and shares of Southwest dipped in premarket trading after a torrid Wednesday for airline stocks driven by growing fears of a price war in the sector. The airline said net income rose to $1.89b, or $3.18 per share, from $522m, or $0.84 per share, a year earlier. That was largely driven by a $1.4b benefit due to tax reform legislation. Operating revenue, however, also rose 3.9% to $5.27b. <br/>
unaligned
CE Gary Kelly says Southwest wasn't even thinking about Paine Field near Seattle a couple years ago. Now it's the third airline to announce plans to serve the airport in the northern suburbs. Kelly said Thursday that Southwest wants to increase its presence in the Seattle area but can't grow any more at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport 45 miles away. So the carrier is planning to start five daily departures at Paine Field this fall. It hasn't announced destinations. Some local residents oppose resuming airline service at the airport, which was built in the 1930s and is used by the military, Boeing and small private planes. Alaska Airlines plans 13 daily departures and United plans six after a new terminal with two gates opens in September.<br/>
Emirates is increasing the number of flights on some US routes it had reduced last May after US government travel restrictions weakened demand. Flights to Florida cities Fort Lauderdale and Orlando from its Dubai hub will each return to a daily services from March 25 having been cut back to five-a-week last year. Emirates said the increase reflects the “steady rebound in customer demand.” The Middle East’s largest airline is also adding a new daily direct Boeing 777 service to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey from June 1 but dropping one of its four daily Airbus A380 flights to nearby New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport from March 25. Emirates already operates a daily flight to Newark via Athens, Greece from Dubai, and one of its remaining three daily New York flights is operated via Milan, Italy from Dubai. Emirates reduced frequencies to five US cities last year, blaming a drop in demand caused by attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to ban citizens of some Muslim countries from entering the US, and restrictions on carrying large electronic items onboard flights to the US. The restrictions predominately affected Middle East carriers, including Emirates. The airline also reduced the number of flights it operated to Boston, Los Angeles, and Seattle.<br/>
Ticket sale volumes and pricing at Norwegian Air have been far better than a year ago in the past few months, acting CFO Tore Oestby said. The rapidly expanding airline, which offers transatlantic flights as well as European short haul, has seen an improvement in trading, likely due in part to problems experienced by rival Ryanair, and the collapse of Monarch and Air Berlin, Oestby said. “We saw a pretty weak 2016 and start of 2017 ... But since then we have seen the market gradually strengthen. Both in long haul and short haul,” Oestby said. “Through H2 2017 and the beginning on 2018 (it) is far better than a year ago - both on volume and pricing,” he said. “We are quite confident about 2018. The market looks pretty good.” Norwegian’s shares fell sharply last year reflecting investor worries over the airline’s costs, high debts and rapid expansion into long-haul flights. But the stock has rebounded this year following its strong passenger traffic figures. Oestby said that recent cancellations of some of Norwegian’s transatlantic routes was just part of the normal churn of a low-cost carrier.<br/>
JetBlue is modernising interiors on its older Airbus airplanes, adding new seats with adjustable headrests, in-seat power, better televisions and LED lighting. Many of its aircraft have barely been updated in a decade or more. When all 130 Airbus A320s get the new product — the first plane is in the shop now — JetBlue will have shrunk passenger legroom too. Customers should have about 32 inches of pitch, a decrease from 34 inches, though JetBlue says that, fleetwide, it will retain the most average legroom among US airlines. The modernized interiors will roughly match what’s already flying on the airline’s newer and larger Airbus A321s. JetBlue’s updated all-coach A320s will have 162 seats, up from 150. That is still not so shabby, considering Frontier Airlines fits 180 coach seats in the same plane. The retrofit plan is considerably behind schedule, a result of issues with the planes’ toilets and in-flight entertainment system. JetBlue first delighted Wall Street in 2014 with its densification plans, promising to add 15 seats to the A320s — both to modernize the planes, and increase revenue per seat. The airline amended it plan in early 2016, after it calculated 15 extra seats would cause too much of a space crunch for its crews. When it changed plans in January 2016, JetBlue called for retrofits to begin in early 2017, with completion by 2019. It’s not likely to hit that completion date anymore.<br/>