It’s Friday, and I’ve been under the weather with a cold, so lets do a roundup before I go for another bucket full of lemsip…
Qantas – From Bad to Worse to Bad
Qantas is having one hell of a rough time it seems, with the latest traffic numbers down again by 1.4% year on year. Things are slowly improving, but it’s a hard road for the flying Kangaroo
TUI Group cancels 10 787’s – swaps firms for options
TUI Travel cancel 10 of its 23 787 orders, but instead swaps it for 13 options, leading to a possible 13+13 fleet of them. Originally part of the First Choice TravelGroup order, TUI group took these on when they merged with First Choice.
TUI insist they’re committed to the 787, however, there is going to have to be a management of expectation of the project, and containment of costs – however good the fit of the aircraft.
BA’s Baby Bus goes back n forth across the Pond
BA1 and BA2 have successfully come to life, forming the London City – New York service. Good luck for this service, and lets hope the numbers are good to support it over the coming year.
US Carriers shore up the cash
It seems if what AA can do with getting cash, everyone else can. United, Airtran, Delta and US Airways have been issuing stocks and shoring up cash to improve day to day liquidity.
Air China – Double Digit Growth
August was a good month for Air China – with 29% growth in traffic which includes 11% international traffic growth with load factors at 81.6%.
Pretty good work in this climate – however what is the fiscal numbers mixing in with those growth numbers? They haven’t been released alas.
Emirates – the road to the higher density A380
November is going to be an interesting time to Emirates as they recivie the first of their High density 517 seater A380’s (for those who collect numbers MSN007 – one of the test units which had Rolls Royce Engines – now with Engine Alliance GP7200’s) – with some of the crew rest areas removed. Of course this is for routes under the 12 hour marker.
Knowing Emirates alas, that assignment will accidental move around.
The 600 seater versions for Indian subcontinent hops has been put on hold for now. One less packed sardine can to worry about in that case.
Jetstar respec’s A330-200’s – goes for High Gross Weight.
Jetstar (Qantas) is specificing slightly different A330-200’s to everyone else and are going for the High Gross Weight (HGW). Launched by Korean air, these aircraft have an extra payload space for cargo (3.4 tonnes) or more range (610Km).
Perhaps slightly worrying for Boeing is the lack of availability and delays to the 787 project lead JetStar towards Airbus..
Frontier exit Chapter 11 – Formally a Republic Airline.
Frontier – the airline with the animals on the tails – has successfully exited Chapter 11 protection and is formally part of the Republic Airlines Holdings.
It’s good to see some survivors out there. Republic seems to have a winner on it’s hands if they can manage it..
