Airline Business

The route by which we’ve got this story has surprised even us, but we’ve been told – on good authority – that the news will break this weekend that BAA’s refinancing battle will get even tougher with major backer Citibank pulling out.

The bank, which was being lined up to provide the largest chunk of money to BAA in this financing round, is believed to have reversed an earlier decision to extend further credit to the UK airports operator.

If this plays out it will be a major blow to BAA, and could influence other banks mulling a role in BAA’s refinancing.

Continue reading "BAA and the great airports break-up" »

Further to my blog on Monday commenting on Silverjet's prospects of staying alive, these seem to have improved greatly with the announcement that it has signed an MOU with an investor from the United Arab Emirates.

The UK-based all-business carrier says the unnamed investor will pump in $25 million (£12.7 million) right away and up to another $75 million to help take the brand to other places like Africa, the Middle East and the Far East.

Continue reading "Middle Eastern white knight rides in for Silverjet" »

Amid all the current doom and gloom, today's comment from Lufthansa chairman and CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber is interesting: "The record-breaking year 2007 will not be a one-hit wonder."

After annoucing a record profit and dividend for the year, Mayrhuber is determined the group will not flop back in 2008.

“We have enough thrust for another ascent and we have the flexibility to slow down in case of downwash. We have made provisions – with regards to the balance, strategy and operations...We are concentrating on continuity," said Mr Mayrhuber.

Continue reading "Mayrhuber: 2007 will not be a one-hit wonder for Lufthansa" »

Silverjet will be profitable in a "couple of months", I heard Silverjet CEO Lawrence Hunt say on the UK's breakfast business programme on Radio 4 this morning. Cynics might say "if you are still around!".

He was commenting on the survival prospects for all-business class carriers following the demise this weekend of EOS Airlines. So far Hunt's Silverjet, the London Luton Airport UK outfit, has outlasted its US-based competitors. MaxJet of course went pop on Christmas Eve. In Europe only French carrier L-Avion remains alongside Silverjet.

The clip can be found on the Listen Again section of the Today programme between 0600 and 0700.

Continue reading "Silverjet battles on regardless, as EOS calls time" »

Blogging here from Kuala Lumpur at the close of the Airline Business/UATP Airline Distribution conference where the rather inspirational Malaysia Airlines chief executive Idris Jala has this morning waxed lyrical about the carrier's turnaround plan and it's vision for a sustainable profitable future.

He has also been talking about industry consolidation.

Below is the story I have written for our 24-hour news wire service Air Transport Intelligence on what he said:

Continue reading "Malaysia Airlines head Idris Jala on industry consolidation" »

When JAL's Eco Jet press release popped into my inbox this week my interest was piqued. Are our friends in Japan promoting a new green jetliner design - a la easyJet with its "ecojet" - giving a gentle shove to the airframers and engine manufacturers on coming up with the next generation of more environmentally friendly aircraft?

Sadly no. This is a PR exercise. A demonstration of JAL's green credentials and efforts.

Continue reading "JAL gets an Eco Jet" »

Aircraft and engine manufacturers, airports, airline bodies and airlines have joined together to sign a declaration outlining their commitment to tackling climate change .

The declaration was signed during the Aviation and Environment Summit, which is currently underway in Geneva. Those that have signed up to the declaration do solemnly swear that they are "committed to a pathway to carbon-neutral growth" and "aspire to a carbon-free future".

These are lofty ambitions, particularly the bit about the airline industry being completely carbon-free in the future. Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr recently penned a Feedback piece in Airline Business outlining his concerns about biofuels, saying there was not enough arable land on the planet to grow the necessary crops.

So what's the answer? How will airlines stop emitting carbon dioxide in the future? Just over a year ago I wrote a piece for Flight International following an interview I did with a NASA scientist, who claimed aircraft could be powered using a type of biofuel derived from saltwater plants grown in the desert.

I'm not quite sure how this plan has developed - I should probably follow it up - but maybe, just maybe a carbon-free future isn't beyond the realms of possibility. Who knows? It would take a much more scientific brain than mine to work that one out.

The UK Competition Commission will this week issue the initial findings of its investigation into BAA's ownership of seven UK airports, according to The Times and The Financial Times.

The findings could eventually lead to a break-up of BAA's ownership of three of London's major airports: Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

The FT quotes sources as saying the Competition Commission will not conclude that "everything is fine", which may be a slight understatement if the views expressed by easyJet, Ryanair, Virgin Atlantic and bmi during a recent hastily-called press conference to protest airport charge increases are anything to go by.

Now anyone with any heart has a soft spot for Alitalia, but surely the time has finally, finally come to let this venerable old girl of European airline history bow out of the game with dignity?

Try telling that to Italy's new hierarchy.

If the miracle workers now in charge in Italy get their way this wilting carrier will be save. But just what are they smoking?

The latest story from the Financial Times has the government ready to lend Alitalia another Euro 100-150 million ($160-240 million). The European Commission and everyone else in this continent will look most dimly on this prospect - the last cash injection from the state of a cool Euro 1.2 billion was supposed to be the last.

Then there is the suggestion that a recent meeting between new Italian prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi and the Russian president Vladimir Putin had Alitalia on the agenda. The thinking is that Aeroflot could come back into the Alitalia frame - far-feached isn't it.

Continue reading "Time to let Alitalia die with dignity" »

At a time when US airlines are dropping like flies into the ointment of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a sun-tanned (perhaps a little too sun-tanned) Sir Richard Branson has graced the pages of Time magazine to tell the Americans that Virgin America will "shake up the market".

In an article spawned from an interview with the "rebel billionaire" at the Sunset Marquis hotel in Hollywood (where else?), Time describes how Branson has "hope for air travel in the US, where poor service and perpetual bankruptcies have turned the industry into a sick national joke".

The article goes on to say that to order food on a Virgin America flight, passengers just have to select what they want on a touch screen and pay for it using their credit card, and then the food is brought to their seat.

I've got to hand it to him, this is a great idea and hopefully other carriers will follow suit.

No more impatient waits for the cumbersome food trolley to slowly make its way down to the back of the plane, where I always seem to get stuck and where, with stomach growling, I'm often told that "we've run out of sandwiches".

Time will tell whether Virgin America does live up to Branson's high hopes for it, but innovations like that certainly seem to be a step in the right direction.