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Friday, February 8th, 2019
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Thomas Cook now looks to join the growing list of carriers who are struggling to balance the books. Following on from the sale of flybe, Ryanair’s profits warning, Norwegian’s rights issue and WOW Air’s search for investment to remain afloat, the company has confirmed that it is looking to create greater financial flexibility and increased resources so that it can grow its own-brand hotel portfolio and digitise sales channels, and is thus considering disposing of its airline.
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Operating a fleet of 103 aircraft, last Year Thomas Cook carried over 20 million passengers and generated £3.5 billion in revenue, with underlying operating profits growing 37% year-on-year to £129 million. In the first financial quarter for 2018-2019 the carrier reported a 1% rise in first quarter revenue to £1.65 billion while underlying operating losses increased by £14 million to £60
million. However, it is experiencing weaker demand for Spain and has reported a drop in winter holiday demand in the Nordic region, though still-strong demand for Turkey and North African destinations.
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Commenting on the current situation. Thomas Cook CEO, Boss Peter Fankhauser said: "As
expected, the knock-on effect from the prolonged summer heatwave and high prices in the Canaries have impacted customer demand for winter sun.
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"Where summer 2018 bookings started very strongly, bookings for summer 2019 reflect some consumer uncertainty, particularly in the UK, and our decision to reduce capacity, which will both mitigate risk in our tour operator business and help our airline to consolidate the strong growth achieved last year.
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"We are today announcing a strategic review of our group airline. We are at an early stage in this review process which will consider all options to enhance value to shareholders and intensify our strategic focus. We will provide an update on this process in due course." (£1.00 = US$1.30 at time of publication.)
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Danny Di Perna is appointed President, Bombardier Transportation. He will replace Laurent Troger who has informed the company of his intention to resign and pursue opportunities outside the company. Di Perna, who joined Bombardier in 2018 and most recently led Bombardier’s Aerostructures and Engineering Services (BAES) segment, brings more than 30 years of industrial experience to this new role.
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Canada Jetlines has chosen Vancouver International Airport (YVR) to be its home airport and primary base of operations when it begins flight operations targeted for later this year. Jetlines has filed and received confirmation from YVR that all airport slots needed to operate their initial network using their first two Airbus A320 aircraft will be available.
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Jetlines selected YVR as their future base for operations due to it being the second busiest airport in Canada, serving more than 25.9 million passengers in 2018. It is also the busiest airport in British Columbia and the airport with the largest catchment area. The airport has more than 2.5 million people living less than 30 minutes drive from it. As well as it being the closest airport to Vancouver’s city center, the airport is also extremely well connected to the city by transit with a rapid transit rail.
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Latvian airline airBaltic has mandated global investment bank Greenhill to evaluate financing options for the future development of the airline, which includes the search for a potential new investor.
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Martin Gauss, Chief Executive Officer of airBaltic: “Over the last years, airBaltic was able to improve its performance whilst several airlines left the market. In order to follow the growth strategy outlined in our Destination 2025 business plan, airBaltic requires additional financing for the future development of the company. We are pleased to be working with Greenhill as an experienced financial adviser on potential options.”
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In the early hours of February 7, Delta flight 744 pushed back from the gate at New York's LaGuardia airport carrying customers for the first time on board Delta's newest narrowbody jet, the state-of-the-art A220-100.
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Delta's A220 is the latest investment in a fleet modernization program that aims to replace 20% of older, less-efficient aircraft by 2020.
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Delta took delivery of its first A220 in October 2018, and recently announced an order for 15 additional A220s, extending its order book to 90 total aircraft.
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Czech Airlines Technics (CSAT) has appointed a new member to its Board of Directors. Effective Monday, January 21, 2019, Petr Doberský will be in charge of the company’s Finance, Development, Procurement and Logistics departments. Doberský was elected Board Member to fill the post vacated by Ivan Pikl who had left the company.
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The entire aircraft maintenance department has been under the management of the current Vice-Chairman, Igor Zahradníček, since December 2018. In addition, as of January 1, 2019, CSAT has two new Supervisory Board members, namely Jan Brázdil and Jan Kment.
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AES Global, a UK and EU based aerospace design and certification organisation, has extended its cabin connectivity upgrade packages to include business jets.
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Under the company’s EASA Part 21J approval, AES Global has recently completed Minor avionic modification installations on Bombardier Global 5000, Bombardier Global Express, Bombardier Challenger CL605 and Boeing BBJ aircraft types.
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In co-operation with ALAMO Engineering, AES Global was responsible for the engineering, design and certification of the cabin connectivity upgrade programs including SDR Gateway Upgrade, ADR-2200 WIFI/4G-LTE Router upgrade and STAGE Media Server Unit upgrade.
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Baines Simmons, part of the Training & Consultancy division of global aviation services group Air Partner, has appointed three new consultants to the team. Steve Hough joins as Senior Consultant, while Ludo Forrer and Ferdi Taljaard have been appointed Associate Consultants. All three will report directly to Mike Wallace, Head of Training & Consulting Operations.
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Embraer and WDL Aviation GmbH, a German charter and ACMI airline headquartered at Cologne Bonn Airport and part of the Zeitfracht logistics group, have signed an agreement on a Flight Hour Pool Program to support the airline’s recently leased fleet of four used E190s.
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WDL, which becomes a new Embraer E-Jet family customer in 2019, leased the aircraft to replace their current fleet. They will start flying the E190s from March 2019.
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The Pool Agreement, which will be in effect during the duration of the lease, covers access to a large stock of components at Embraer’s distribution center in Paris (France), full repair coverage and a selected list of essential components, parts and services to support the start of aircraft operations.
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In January, Finnair carried 1,007,800 passengers, 4.4% more than in the corresponding period of 2018. The overall capacity increased in January by 10.0%. Finnair's traffic improved by 5.7%. The Passenger Load Factor decreased year-on-year by 3.1% points to 77.0%.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
February 19 - 20, 2019 – Palma de Majorca, Spain
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