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Aviation History
2002
2002 - 3382.PDF
• Australia's government has appointed advisers to help with the sale of three Sydney-area general aviation airports it hopes to privatise in mid-2003. The three Sydney Basin airports being put up for sale are Bankstown, Camden and Hoxton Park. The process is expected to be completed around the middle of next year. The sale of the airports will complete Australia's airport privatisation programme. • Meggitt has acquired Lodge, a UK aerospace sensor and industrial igniters business, from Smiths Group for £33 million ($51.6 million). • UK autoclave specialist Aeroform has bought US autoclave machinery manu facturer Thermal Equipment (TEC). TEC, which was bought for an undisclosed sum from Dover Diversified, has delivered autoclaves to all major US prime aerospace contractors. • Air France, British Airways, Global Freight Exchange and Lufthansa have got the go-ahead from the European Union for their GF-X Operation - an electronic tool for selling freight capacity. • Pilot Investor of Iceland has acquired a controlling interest in wet-lease operator Air Atlanta Icelandic. • Saab is merging its command and control system, electronic warfare and avionics businesses in a single company. It will com prise Saab Tech Systems, Saab Avionics and Saab Facilities. BUSINESS REFINANCING PAUL LEWIS / WASHINGTON DC Boullioun secures $2bn to free expansion plans Leasing company looks to swell 85-strong narrowbody fleet and may include freighters Boullioun Aviation Services has completed more than $2 billion worth of refinancing of its current portfolio of aircraft, allowing the US leasing company to consider ordering more aircraft next year. For the longer term, Boullioun is also looking to broaden out from its current fleet of narrowbody pas senger aircraft to include freighters. The Seattle-based company has privately placed a $950 million asset-backed structured financing transaction following agreement with 18 financial institutions for a $1.1 billion extension of bank financing. The two deals split and LEASING Arkia adds Boeings to business Israeli private airline Arkia is buying ex-American Airlines aircraft as the basis for a new leasing business. II has purchased five Boeing MD-82s and one Boeing 767-300 for $91.4 million. The aircraft have been immediately leased back to American for 12 or 13 years. Arkia owns 29 aircraft leased to airlines including Air France, Air Canada, Air Transat and Polar Air Cargo. Arkia president Professor Israel Borovitch says the latest deal will be the basis for Arkia Leasing, which will co-ordinate the airline's leasing business. Meanwhile, Arkia is expanding its route network, with destinations that the Israeli ministry of transport recently took away from El Al, including Copenhagen, Tashkent and Tiblisi. rebalance Boullioun's financing between German owners WestLB and third-party banks, freeing up resources to expand. "By getting third-party financ ing, we have the resources to con tinue to order aircraft," says chief operating officer John Willingham. Boullioun has rolling options on 28 Boeing Next Generation (NG) 737s and an undisclosed number of Airbus A320 family aircraft. "We'll be looking next year to see if and when we'll exercise these...and talking to manufactur ers about what makes sense," Willingham adds. Boullioun has 85 aircraft in its fleet, all narrowbody jets apart from three Boeing 767s. It has still to take delivery of 26 of 30 A320s and 12 of the 30 737NGs it last ordered, all of which will be com pleted by 2006. The company plans to stick with a predominantly narrowbody fleet, and says lease rates for 737NGs and A320s continue to hold up after recovering from a post-11 September drop. Less attractive is the larger Boeing 757, the value of which has tumbled in the last year. "The bad news is we've got two 757s; the good news is we've only got two," says Willingham. One of the 757s has just been replaced with an unidentified Asia-Pacific operator after being returned by bankrupt US operator National Airlines. Boullioun envisages eventually converting at least one of the 757s into a freighter. Boullioun also has 41 earlier generation 737-300/400s. The company's long-term goal is to grow its portfolio to about 250 air craft, but Willingham says this will be done "steadily and sensibly". REPRIEVE Troubled Air Lib given more breathing space The French government has extended Air Lib's licence to 31 January and given it until 9 January to repay a €90 million ($90.6 million) government loan. The reprieve comes despite France's civil aviation council, CSAM, rec ommending the licence not be renewed because of the airline's financial woes. Air Lib's licence was due to expire on 15 November. The French transport minister's move came after Air Lib president Jean-Charles Corbet revealed the airline had found a potential investor in Erik De Vlieger, head of Dutch group Imca. Air Lib says De Vlieger "is looking to develop its air transport activities and is particu larly interested in Air Lib Express" - the low-cost arm of Air Lib. Imca, with an annual turnover of €400 million, has interests in Metropolis and KLM regional Air Exel. De Vlieger is considering splitting Air Lib from Air Lib Express to try to create Europe's third major low-cost airline. Air Lib has until 9 January to repay a C90 million French government loan But doubts linger over whether Air Lib can repay its debt to the government, which De Vlieger has stressed he will not do. Corbet, in an effort to show goodwill to the government, says he will lay off about 500 of Air Lib's 3,200 staff. Most of the cuts would be in the French West Indies, which are suf fering an unprecedented slump in tourism, hitting Air Lib's routes to Guadeloupe and Martinique. 22 19-25 NOVEMBER 2002 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.flightinternational.com
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