All articles by Lewis Harper – Page 30
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NewsAirbus and Boeing delays add to ‘global supply bottleneck’: Lufthansa chief
Aviation is facing a “global supply bottleneck”, in the view of Lufthansa Group chief executive Carsten Spohr, which will constrain capacity going into 2023 and support “sustainable” yields at the European airline group. “The times of overcapacity as we have seen, for example, right before the pandemic, we believe are ...
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NewsLufthansa Group reports Q2 profit despite disruption keeping airlines in red
Lufthansa Group achieved an operating profit of €393 million ($400 million) in the second quarter of this year and is “optimistic” for the full year, even as disruption-related costs kept its airlines unit in the red. The group’s cargo business was a standout performer for the three months to 30 ...
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Airline BusinessUnited Airlines sustainability chief seeks SAF acceleration as e-fuels excite
The shift to sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) needs to accelerate, in the view of United Airlines chief sustainability officer Lauren Riley, as part of an industry transformation that could one day see CO2-as-a-feedstock become the “future of flying”. Speaking to FlightGlobal in mid-July on the sidelines of this year’s Airline ...
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NewsRyanair exceeded pre-Covid passenger numbers by 2 million in July
Ryanair continued to reach new traffic highs in July, as it served 16.8 million passengers – some two million more than it recorded for the same month of 2019 and 0.9 million up on the previous all-time record seen in June this year. The Irish carrier and budget rival Wizz ...
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NewsEmirates restarts Stansted flights as it nears 75% of pre-crisis UK capacity
Emirates has resumed flights to London Stansted airport, bringing to three the number London gateways again served by the Middle Eastern carrier. Long an operator into London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports, Emirates added Stansted flights in mid-2018, only for the route to be dropped in March 2020 when the pandemic ...
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NewsAmsterdam Schiphol airport extends capacity cap to October
Amsterdam Schiphol airport has extended passenger capacity restrictions through to October, as it seeks to overcome the staffing challenges that have disrupted operations at the KLM hub. The extension of the cap comes as the airport acknowledges “virtually all parties at the airport are [still] understaffed” – a situation that ...
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NewsBritish Airways temporarily limits Heathrow short-haul ticket sales
British Airways is limiting sales of tickets for its short-haul flights from London Heathrow Airport for at least one week, citing an earlier request from the hub to restrict new bookings. Heathrow announced in mid-July that it would cap daily departing passenger numbers for the summer peak season at 100,000, ...
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NewsLegal action possible as Air France-KLM vows to fight Schiphol cap
Air France-KLM may take legal action over the Dutch government’s recent decision to permanently cap the number of flights from Amsterdam Schiphol airport. KLM warned in late June of “dramatic consequences” for its hub operations after the government moved to permanently cut the annual flight limit from the airport by ...
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Airline BusinessJetBlue is last Spirit suitor standing but hurdles still ahead
When it was announced in February that Frontier Airlines intended to buy Spirit Airlines, analysts saw plenty of logic in the move. The airlines share similar business models and fleets, they observed, and might be small enough to avoid too many complications when it came to competition oversight. Crucially, Spirit’s ...
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NewsAir France enjoys Paris yield boost from Norwegian long-haul exit
Norwegian’s exit from the long-haul sector is helping to drive “very impressive yields” for Air France at its Paris Charles de Gaulle hub. The Scandinavian carrier announced it would drop its long-haul services in January 2021 – formally scrapping a host of pre-Covid US services from Paris in the process ...
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NewsAir France-KLM records Q2 net profit in ‘very exceptional times’
Air France-KLM recorded a quarterly net profit for the first time since 2019 in the second three months of this year, driven by resurgent revenues and high yields as Covid-related travel restrictions fell away. The result comes despite the “severe operational disruption” being seen in the group’s markets, it says, ...
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NewsAir France-KLM chief expects operational challenges to last ‘many years’
Air France-KLM chief executive Ben Smith sees some of the operational disruption in airline markets as a years-long issue, amid a lack of near-term fixes. Smith was speaking as Air France-KLM revealed it was profitable on a net and operating basis in the second quarter of 2022, driven by a ...
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NewsEthiopian Airlines converts four A350 orders to -1000 variant
Ethiopian Airlines will take four A350-1000 twinjets, having confirmed the conversion of outstanding orders for the -900 variant. The carrier’s chief executive Mesfin Tasew had said during the Farnborough air show on 20 July that Ethiopian was in the “final stage” of negotiations to take the larger version of the ...
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NewsIAG orders 37 more Airbus A320neo-family jets
British Airways and Iberia owner IAG has ordered a further 37 Airbus A320neo-family twinjets, as its single-aisle modernisation effort continues. Announcing the deal on 28 July, IAG says 12 of the A320neo options it took in August 2013 – which covered up to 220 single-aisle jets – have been converted ...
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NewsEtihad claims transformation ‘paying off’ as it swings to first-half profit
Etihad Airways claims that its profitable performance in the first half of 2022 shows that its years-long transformation effort is beginning to produce results. The six-month operating profit of $296 million comes with the Abu Dhabi carrier more than four years into a major restructuring programme, under which it has ...
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NewsBaffled Ryanair vows to appeal EU ruling on €8.4m in ‘illegal’ state aid
Low-cost group Ryanair has vowed to appeal what it describes as a “bizarre” ruling by the European Commission that it benefited from illegal state aid relating to France’s La Rochelle airport between 2003 and 2010. In approving the financial aid provided by the French government to La Rochelle and Beauvais ...
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NewsLufthansa cancels more than 1,000 flights as ground staff strike
Lufthansa has cancelled more than 1,000 flights on and around 27 July in response to a “warning strike” by members of the Verdi trade union over a pay dispute. The action involves around 20,000 ground staff from across the Lufthansa Group’s German units and comes with the mainline carrier already ...
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NewsEasyJet takes £133m disruption hit but says operations now ‘normalised’
EasyJet recorded a loss before tax of £114 million ($137 million) for the three months ending 30 June 2022, as operational disruption had a £133 million cost impact. Providing a fiscal third-quarter trading update on 26 July, the UK-based low-cost carrier lamented capacity caps imposed by London Gatwick and Amsterdam ...
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NewsCondor orders 41 Airbus A320neo-family jets
German leisure carrier Condor has ordered 41 Airbus A320neo-family aircraft as its fleet renewal focus shifts to short- and medium-haul jets. The announcement marks another Airbus order win from the carrier, which is already set to receive its first A330neos from late 2022 as it replaces its previous-generation A330s and ...
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Airline BusinessLack of Farnborough order bonanza reflects airline industry mood
While Qatar Airways was doing its best to change the narrative on the usually quiet fourth day of Farnborough air show on Thursday, it remained the case that the event did not bring the order bonanza some had expected. Notably, all the pre-show discussion about a flurry of Asia-Pacific orders ...