All Strategy articles – Page 1039

  • News

    A time for celebration

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    While 1997 certainly broke all industry records for profitability, there were already dark clouds on the horizon as the effects of the Asian currency crisis began to make themselves felt. There will be worse to come this year as economies in the region continue to slow. So while the ...

  • News

    Strong on caution

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Qantas needs to respond quickly to market conditions yet its managing director, James Strong, refuses to be rushed into any major decisions. If he has said it once, he has said it in a dozen ways: 'There's no use charging around the place; you don't just snatch at things ...

  • News

    SIA moves to link with CAL

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Singapore Airlines' latest linkup - with China Airlines - offers few clues as to whether it will join the Star Alliance. The agreement by Singapore Airlines and China Airlines to form a strategic partnership caught many by surprise because it does not follow the pattern of pacts between members ...

  • News

    Brussels has the last word

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Europe's privately owned and publicly quoted airlines must be wondering what they have to do to make a dent in the European Commission's stance on state aid. Their jubilation at the European Court of Justice's annulment of the FFr20 billion (US$3.3 billion) aid package to Air France on 25 June ...

  • News

    Bouillioun still bullish

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Boullioun Aviation Services has strengthened its claim on the number three spot among operating lessors by placing an order worth up to US$2.6 billion for new-generation Boeing 737s. With new financing for its subsidiary, Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise (SALE), Boullioun continues to show its determination to keep growing despite the ...

  • News

    Profits for better and for worse

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Airline profits may be at an all-time high but can the industry keep them there? It's just déjà vu all over again. So a disillusioned sportsman is said to have remarked on seeing his team once again collapse to defeat. There may be more than a few in the airline ...

  • News

    Beware treading the bear market

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    The world economy is in precarious shape.The Asian crisis is expected to cut growth by over one third in 1998. The Japanese economy will contract by at least 1 per cent, prolonging the slump throughout the East Asia region, despite the big expansion package put in place in Tokyo. The ...

  • News

    Will Gangwal get BA back?

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    US Airways' president and chief executive officer, Rakesh Gangwal, is hinting strongly of renewed interest in British Airways as an attractive prospective alliance partner. The US airline has been free to pursue its expansion plans since signing an agreement with its pilots' union last year. According to Gangwal, efforts ...

  • News

    Asia-Pacific

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    As Asia rocks from the effects of the year-old financial crisis, a new demon is lurking on the horizon in the shape of the year 2000 date change. The big question is whether Asian airlines will fix the millennium bug in time. Estimates of the global cost to make ...

  • News

    Europe: few direct answers

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Will Europe's aviation industry be ready for the year 2000? The honest answer is that nobody yet knows. To date, companies have largely been preoccupied with their own internal compliance issues, but the wider debate over how the issue will affect the industry as a whole has only just begun. ...

  • News

    United's answer to Travelocity

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    UAL, the parent company of United Airlines, is somewhat belatedly taking a more aggressive tack in selling its online services. For several months United has been offering tickets on its world wide web site including weekly deeply discounted, Internet-only fares, actions most of its competitors took months ago. More ...

  • News

    US alliances meet silence

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    A Wall Street analyst is predicting that none of the proposed US domestic airline alliances will be approved by the Department of Transportation because of the unfavourable environment in Washington DC and concerns about competition. Candace Browning, an analyst at Merrill Lynch in New York, points out that the ...

  • News

    Pilots fear US alliance

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Concern over job security in light of the proposed alliance with Continental Airlines has emerged as the key issue that could lead Northwest Airlines' pilots to strike from 29 August. The pilots' union says that, contrary to company statements, the dispute is about protecting jobs, not pay. The Air ...

  • News

    Report weakens airport campaign

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    First, the good news. According to an official report, most of the runways in the US national airport system are in good to excellent condition. The bad news is that this may not be good for the airports. It will not be good news if the report, compiled by ...

  • News

    Argentinian airport fray

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Airlines are stepping up their campaign over rising charges in Argentina's recently privatised airport system but some believe this is flying in the face of standard airport practice. Iata led a high level delegation to the Argentinian government and regulators in early August to seek a revision of the ...

  • News

    Air-India fights losses

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    A report has claimed Air-India is fast slipping into a debt trap where its repayment commitments are so high that the airline could be forced to resort to further loans. 'Air India's net worth will turn negative by June 1999 if adequate funds are not infused immediately and the ...

  • News

    Air Afrique in crisis again

    1998-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Air Afrique hopes to overcome its worst crisis yet by privatising and forming a strategic partnership, but critics say the airline's chairman has mismanaged and should resign. The heavily indebted Côte d'Ivoire-based carrier, owned by 11 African states and Air France, has defaulted on payments for four Airbus A310-300s ...

  • News

    Transaero shake-up may lead to merger

    1998-08-26T00:00:00Z

    Alexander Velovich/MOSCOW A battle for control at Russian airline Transaero has seen the airline's founder, Alexander Pleshakov, ousted, with Aeroflot Russian International Airlines majority shareholder Boris Berezovsky now believed to be have taken control through a share trading deal. There is now speculation that the two airlines could be ...

  • News

    Qantas warns on competition

    1998-08-26T00:00:00Z

    Paul Phelan/SYDNEY Qantas has warned that increasingly desperate competition from rivals in the region will make it difficult for the Australian airline to sustain the record profits it has just declared for the 1997/8 financial year. Operating profit was up 13.6% on the previous year at US$282 million, ...

  • News

    Braathens purchases Malmö Aviation

    1998-08-26T00:00:00Z

    Braathens is to purchase Swedish airline Malmö Aviation for around SEK600 million ($74 million). Braathens partner KLM, which has a 30% stake in the Norwegian airline, will also "contribute" a sum believed to be about $20 million. The deal is the latest chapter in the tussle within the region ...