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Monday, May 14th, 2018
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LATEST NEWS
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The immediate repercussions of President Trumps decision to pull out of the nuclear accord with Iran will see export licenses for Boeing and Airbus revoked according to Steve Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury secretary. While based in Toulouse, France, Airbus is directly affected as over ten percent of its planes’ parts are manufactured in the U.S. by companies including United Technologies Corp., Rockwell Collins Inc. and General Electric Co., thus making the sale of any of its planes to Iran subject to U.S. export restrictions. In total, the potential combined sales from the manufacturing duopoly were estimated at US$40 billion.
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The consequences for both plane manufacturers will be different as they adopted different approaches to selling planes to Teheran.
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In a conservative move, Boeing never closed its transaction with Iran Air, and downplayed the historic deal’s prospects after Trump took office. More recently, Boeing had discretely approached other customers for some of the 777-300ER jetliners that had been intended for Iran Air in 2018. Back on April 25 Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg told investors: “We have no Iranian deliveries that are scheduled or a part of the skyline this year, so those have been deferred in line with the U.S. government processes,” adding: “If those orders do come to fruition, if we do ultimately deliver airplanes, those represent opportunities for us.”
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Airbus were more aggressive, recording the sales in its order backlog and delivered three jets, while its ATR venture shipped eight turboprops. Airbus has 95 undelivered planes intended for Iran Air in its backlog, including 16 crucial orders for the A350 wide-body jet whose program has been dogged with order cancelations, and 28 for its A330neo. Another 12 smaller turboprops manufactured by ATR were also due to be delivered to Iran’s national flag carrier.
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An Airbus spokesman said jobs would not be affected. “Our backlog stands at more than 7,100 aircraft, this translates into some nine years of production at current rates. We’re carefully analyzing the announcement and will be evaluating next steps consistent with our internal policies and in full compliance with sanctions and export control regulations. This will take some time.”
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Spirit Airlines has signed an agreement with Thales to install Wi-Fi on all of its planes by summer 2019, giving even more options to Guests to enhance their inflight experience.
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Spirit Airlines Wi-Fi technology partner, Thales Group, a global technology leader for decisive moments in aerospace, defense and security, and transportation markets, is bringing the high-end Ka-band HTS (High Throughput Satellite) system onboard the aircraft. The technology will bring Spirit Guests high-speed web browsing and streaming experiences similar to what they would find at home. In 2021, the state-of-the-art technology will get even better, with the launch of SES-17, a new satellite operated by SES and built by Thales Alenia Space, which will increase speeds and coverage to an unprecedented level in the industry. Spirit Wi-Fi is projected to provide service coverage immediately for 97% of Spirit’s routes upon entry into service.
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Mexican Low-Cost Carrier Viva Aerobus has selected AMOS to replace its legacy system. The software evaluation took place in the context of Viva Aerobus’ strategy to become customer-centric plus offering competitive prices in the Mexican market.
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This initiative also included the modernization of the airline’s IT systems and the Mexican carrier decided in favour of AMOS as the functional depth as well as Swiss-AS’ implementation concept was convincing. The evaluation team understood that AMOS can support them to further reduce cost in aircraft maintenance and many examples from the AMOS Community have shown that AMOS is the right choice when it comes to extensive fleet growth.
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Swiss-AS sees itself as long-term partner and with the many low-cost airlines among our customers, we have proven that we understand the philosophy of budget carriers.
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JetBlue has reached an agreement in principle with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) regarding JetBlue’s pilots. The agreement is subject to a ratification process which includes final documentation, review, and consideration by the ALPA Master Executive Council before being distributed to JetBlue pilots for final ratification.
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Jeff Martin, JetBlue’s Executive Vice President Operations, issued the following statement on the news: "We are pleased that we have reached an agreement in principle with ALPA. I want to thank both negotiating committees for their hard work in coming to this agreement.”
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SAS has reported that the number of passengers increased by 5.6% to 2.5 million in April 2018. Scheduled traffic decreased 2.2% while capacity increased 1.9% year over year. The load factor decreased by 3.0 points versus last year to 72.7%.
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The Fraport Group saw revenue and earnings figures increase significantly during the first quarter of business year 2018 (ending March 31). Supported by strong passenger growth at Frankfurt Airport (FRA) and most of the airports in Fraport’s international portfolio, Group revenue advanced by 15.0% to €681.7m. Major revenue contributions came from Fraport Greece (€44.3m) and Fraport Brasil (€30.8m) – following the startup of Fraport’s operations at Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA) on January 2. At FRA, higher income from airport charges, security services and parking contributed to the Group’s revenue growth.
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Fraport AG’s executive board chairman, Dr. Stefan Schulte, said: “The upward trend from the previous year has continued unabated, both at our international Group companies and at Frankfurt Airport. At our Frankfurt home base, we are working at full speed to meet future growth which is being spurred mainly by the positive development of network airlines. Therefore, we are pushing forward with the construction of our new Terminal 3 and will be realizing Pier G earlier than scheduled. At the same time, we are continuing to invest in the infrastructure and processes of our two existing terminals.”
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Group EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) increased by 27.2% to €174.7m, with the Group companies in Fortaleza and Porto Alegre contributing €9.2m. Despite higher depreciation and amortization in the amount of €10.2m – mainly in connection with Fraport Greece – Group EBIT reached €82.3m (up 49.4%). The negative financial result continued to decline noticeably, from minus €29.2m to minus €56.1m. This was largely attributable to higher interest expenses both at Fraport Greece (up €18.2m) and the Group companies in Fortaleza and Porto Alegre (up €3.1m). Correspondingly, Group EBT expanded only slightly by 1.2% to €26.2m. The Group result (net profit) rose by 4.3% to €19.6m, stimulated by slightly lower taxes on income.
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Operating cash flow noticeably slipped by 36.1% to €80.5m in the first three months of 2018, attributable to reporting date-related changes in working capital. With minus €66.9m, free cash flow clearly fell into negative territory, as a result of higher investments at FRA and the Group companies in Fortaleza and Porto Alegre, as well as Fraport Greece (Q1 2017: €54.0m).
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Jumping by 10.0% to 14.4 million passengers, traffic at Frankfurt Airport continued to gain momentum during the first quarter of 2018. Most of the Fraport Group’s international airports also reported significant and partly double-digit growth rates. In particular, Antalya Airport (AYT) in Turkey continued to rebound strongly compared to the first quarter of 2017. Only the Greek regional airports registered a slight decline in accumulated passenger numbers (down 2.1%), due mainly to the runway closure at high-traffic Thessaloniki Airport (SKG) for renovation and extension works.
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In April 2018, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group welcomed around 12.2 million passengers. This shows an increase of 9.1% compared to the previous year’s month, although last year's German Easter holidays fell in April. Traffic for April 2018 increased 6.0%, while capacity was up 7.4% over the previous year. The load factor decreased by 1.1 points compared to April 2017, to 81.2%.
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Singapore Technologies Engineering has achieved higher year-on-year revenue and net profit for its first quarter 2018 (1Q2018). Group revenue was 9% higher at SG$1.65bn compared to $1.51bn in the same period last year, and its profit Attributable to Shareholders (net profit) improved 18% to SG$117.7m from SG$99.9m a year ago.
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At the business sector level, the Aerospace sector posted revenue of SG$599m, up 9% from SG$548m the year before. Its net profit was 6% higher at SG$59.2m compared to SG$56.1m a year ago.
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Commercial sales and defence sales in the first quarter constituted 63% or SG$1.0bn, and 37% or SG$0.6bn respectively of the Group’s revenue. Cash and cash equivalents including funds under management remained healthy at SG$1.6bn as at March 31, 2018.
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The Aerospace sector announced SG$510m worth of new orders for services ranging from airframe heavy maintenance support, cabin interior reconfiguration to contracts for EcoPower® engine wash services.
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Willis Lease Finance has reported a pre-tax profit of US$9.6m in the first quarter of 2018. The Company achieved record quarterly lease rent revenue of US$39.6m in the period driven by 86% average utilization of a portfolio that grew 9.2% to US$1.466bn at quarter-end compared to $1.343 billion at December 31, 2017.
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Aggregate lease rent and maintenance reserve revenues were US$55.1m for the first quarter 2018. Diluted weighted average earnings per common share was US$1.00 for the three months ended March 31, 2018.
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“We have continued to maintain strong lease engine utilization while growing the portfolio with the purchase of modern new engines.” said Charles F. Willis, Chairman and CEO. “We plan to maintain strong utilization while growing not only the lease engine portfolio but also our surplus material, asset management and consultancy businesses.”
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GE Aviation and ARINCDirect have agreed to engage in a collaborative arrangement to provide flight operations quality assurance (FOQA) services based on GE’s C-FOQA Centerline™ service.
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GE and ARINCDirect will collaborate to build data integrations between C-FOQA Centerline and ARINCDirect’s existing services, enabling FOQA data to be made available during the flight planning process. In addition, GE Aviation and ARINCDirect anticipate that over a ten-year service period, GE will assist ARINCDirect in the development of additional flight analytics services for their customers.
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During the first phase of the agreement this summer, ARINCDirect and GE will work together with a group of their joint customers to develop the means to deliver C-FOQA Centerline to ARINCDirect customers through their existing ARINCDirect Flight Planning Portal.
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The goal of this phase is to enable ARINCDirect customers to access C-FOQA Centerline safety analysis reports and tool through the same web portal and on the same mobile and desktop devices that they already use for all their other ARINCDirect services. GE and ARINCDirect will work collaboratively with their joint customers to create new elements for the C-FOQA Centerline tailored specifically for ARINCDirect and designed to be delivered through the ARINCDirect portal.
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Once the phase one development is completed, ARINCDirect will offer C-FOQA Centerline along with ARINCDirect enhancements, directly to all their customers. Business jet operators would be able to acquire C-FOQA Centerline service as part of the flight planning and other services directly from ARINCDirect.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
June 5, 2018 – Jury’s Inn Hotel, Prague
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