Spirit Airlines said Tuesday its quarterly profit rose more than 400% on the back of a one-time credit benefit from the US tax code overhaul. The airline said on an adjusted basis it earned 73 cents per share, beating analyst consensus estimates of 71 cents per share. Q4 net income was US$250.34m, including a one-time non-cash tax credit of $199.3m, Spirit said. Net income in the year-ago period was $48.5m. Q4 operating costs fell 4.4% on lower salaries and wages for employees and a decrease in aircraft rent. A new pilot contract, which includes an average pay increase of 43% for the carrier's 1,800 pilots, will significantly hike costs if ratified later this month. Sharply higher fuel costs also weigh on the bottom line. Spirit's fuel cost per gallon rose 20.1% and its gallons consumed increased 15.5%. <br/>
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Southwest Airlines charged to the front of the pack in the January on-time arrivals derby, according to data released Tuesday by OAG. Southwest finished a month in the dead of winter with 80.9% of flights arriving on time, besting perennial frontrunner Delta Air Lines, which came in second with 80.4% of flights arriving on time. Southwest's victory over Delta no doubt will surprise many observers who closely monitor the 4 largest domestic carriers' on-time arrival performance. But Southwest did it after lagging in on-time performance for much of 2017 — an issue the carrier attributed to more crowded planes and bad weather, among other things. Southwest's January numbers certainly suggest the carrier may have found a way to handle these issues. <br/>
Ryanair customers have been warned they could face major travel disruption during the Easter getaway amid a row with unions. The budget airline’s boss, Michael O’Leary, said he would refuse to give in to “laughable” demands being made by pilots. And the airline warned customers they could face even more disruption in the coming weeks and months, saying: “As we finalise union discussions along similar lines to that agreed in the UK, we expect some localised disruptions and adverse PR so investors should be prepared for the same." Ryanair has pledged to increase pilot pay by 20% and beef up its cabin crews, a move that will see staff costs rise by an additional E45m this year. The airline also agreed to recognise the Balpa trade union representing pilots. <br/>
Ryanair is legally allowed to call itself ‘Europe’s No.1 airline’ despite complaints about widespread cancellations last year. TV and radio ads in September and October included voice-overs saying ‘Discover why more and more people are choosing Europe’s number one airline,’ and ‘Discover why we’re Europe’s number one airline’. The Advertising Standards Authority received complaints claiming the ads were misleading in light of the thousands of flights Ryanair cancelled last year. Ryanair said the ‘number one’ claim was a statement of fact, however, supported by a third-party statistical report – and therefore it wasn’t misleading. Their claim, the airline said, was based on the most recent IATA World Air Transport Statistics 2017 report for air travel in 2016. <br/>
AerCap Holdings is willing to work with Hainan Airlines Holding given its viable business model even as its parent HNA Group comes under intense pressure to repay mounting debts. “We’re working very closely with the Hainan group of course at the moment,” AerCap CE Aengus Kelly said Tuesday. “The issue around Hainan Airlines is not the airlines themselves -- they are viable business models -- so we’re willing to work with those airlines because we know there’s a viable business.” Debt-burdened HNA Group’s flagship unit Hainan Airlines, as well as Yunnan Lucky Air, are both customers of Aercap. After spending tens of billions of dollars on acquisitions, HNA has told creditors it will seek to sell about US$16b in assets in the first half of this year to repay debt and stave off a liquidity crunch. <br/>
Pakistan International Airlines president and CE, Musharraf Rasool Cyan has vowed to take the national airline to new heights. He said that PIA is on the paths of recovery, and results of the last quarter of 2017 are showing the upward trends. “Our aim is to cut down the losses and to improve customer service to bring back PIA amongst the competitive carriers of the world,” he added. He stated that after assuming the charge of the carrier he decided to revamp its services and in order to achieve this he first initiated the rationalisation of PIA air routes and the positive results are being witnessed. Cyan also said that he was confident that the airline will soon be one of the best carrier in the aviation industry <br/>
WestJet Airlines plans to increase capacity in the Q1 and full year of 2018 as it expands domestically, internationally and with its ultralow-cost carrier taking flight later this year. Passenger-carrying capacity will grow by 4.5% in Q1 and between 6.5% and 8.5% this year over all, WestJet executives said as they released 2017 Q4 and full-year financial results. "Our capacity increases by some analysts might be seen to be aggressive, [but] they pale in comparison to other carriers in this market who are throwing even more capacity at margins that are half of ours," WestJet CE Gregg Saretsky said. CFO Harry Taylor promised an assault on costs to make up for forecasts that the price of jet fuel will rise between 13% and 16% this year. <br/>
WestJet’s CE said the airline hopes to recruit pilots from its mainline and Encore services to fly planes for its new ultra low-cost carrier Swoop, but that it will hire externally if necessary — a move that the company’s new pilots union said it is against. More than 1,400 WestJet pilots joined the Air Line Pilots Association, after 62% of the 97% of eligible pilots voted in May to unionise. Saretsky said under WestJet’s existing contract with pilots, which is in place until a new agreement is ratified, there is a provision that will allow those interested in flying for Swoop to take a leave of absence and do so. Those pilots would still be able to return to WestJet or WestJet Encore after flying Swoop planes, he said. However, the chairman of the WestJet unit of ALPA said the company has “not properly engaged” with the union when it comes to Swoop. <br/>
AirBaltic CE Martin Gauss said there is a now a sufficient supply of Pratt & Whitney PW1500G spare engines as the airline continues to have to replace engines on wing earlier than planned. AirBaltic, launch customer of the Bombardier CS300, took delivery of the eighth aircraft late last week. It has an order for 12 more aircraft, which will be delivered between now and the end of 2019 and is looking at buying more. However, entry into service has been less than smooth because of reliability issues affecting the engine, forcing it to replace the engines early. The problems were initially compounded by the lack of spare engines as Pratt struggled to ramp up production fast enough. At least that problem as now been addressed, although Gauss still expects the replacements to continue for some time. <br/>
A former Alaska Airlines pilot has agreed to plead guilty to flying a commercial jetliner while under the influence of alcohol under an agreement that calls for him to serve a year in prison, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. David Hans Arntson was found by random breathalyser tests June 20, 2014, to have a blood alcohol level of 0.134% and 0.142% following an Alaska Airlines flight, said a US attorney for the Central District of Los Angeles. The federal limit for pilots is 0.04%. On the day that Arntson tested positive, he had flown an Alaska Airlines flight from San Diego International Airport to Portland, Oregon, and another from Portland to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, prosecutors said. The airline removed Arntson from his duties as a pilot following the test. <br/>