Starting from January 26th, US air travel consumers will notice advertised fares for domestic travel appreciating significantly, as new rules mandated by the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) take effect. When the DOT announced a set of new “consumer protection” rules earlier this year, airlines predictably voiced their fierce opposition, especially to the new policy on taxes. Airlines will now be required to advertise fares with all government taxes …Read More
Tag Archives: Lufthansa
Stakes are high for Virgin Atlantic in bmi acquisition race
It appeared to have been a done deal when British Airways’ (BA) parent International Airlines Group (IAG) and Lufthansa reached a draft accord to sell the loss-making British Midland Airways (bmi) subsidiary to UK’s largest carrier in early November. In a surprising revelation on 12th December, however, Lufthansa said it had also reached an agreement in principle to sell bmi to British Airways’ arch-rival, Crawley, England-based carrier Virgin Atlantic. “We …Read More
Acquiring bmi boosts Virgin Atlantic’s growth potential
Since acquiring the United Kingdom (UK) carrier British Midland Airways, or bmi, in 2009, turning around the loss-making airline before selling it to another airline has always been one of the many options being considered by its parent Lufthansa. As Europe’s largest airline by revenues appointed Morgan Stanley recently to look at all potential options for the ailing UK carrier which has been battered by this year’s Arab Spring in …Read More
Lufthansa reaffirms service entry date as 747-8 makes progress
As the Boeing 747-8F freighter wraps up its flight testing programme for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification in preparation for a September entry into service (EIS) with Luxembourg-based Cargolux Airlines, launch customer for the passenger 747-8I Intercontinental variant, Lufthansa, has reaffirmed an early 2012 entry into service (EIS) target for the biggest iconic jumbo jet the Chicago-based airframer has ever built. “We plan to receive our first B747-8I on time in …Read More
Emirates soaring skywards
The largest carrier in the Arab world, Emirates Airline, has posted a record-breaking full year 2010 profit of AED5.9 billion (US$1.6 billion), just shy of the unprecedented HK$14 billion (US$1.8 billion) in 2010 net profit posted by its peer Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways (“Sky is (not) the limit for Cathay Pacific“, 14th Mar, 11). However, being located at the centre of the world connecting different destinations in Asia and …Read More
Airbus faces challenges on A380 profitability
As the Asia/Pacific region emerges from the 2007-2009 global financial crisis as a global leader amid this fragmented economic recovery with a strong rebound on travel demand, of which industry body International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates carriers in the Asia/Pacific region are going to account for US$7.7 billion of the US$15.1 billion aggregate industry-wide net profit in 2010, it is clear that this market is the one that will …Read More
A quiet surprise
Unaffected by the recent engines woes caused by a Rolls-Royce Trent 972 uncontained engine failure on board a Qantas A380 in which a misaligned counter-bore in the stub-pipe resulted in a fatigue cracking and hence the failure of the Intermediate Pressure Turbine (IPT) disc, as well as the scramble for replacing 40 engines in question worldwide, A380 operators have remained satisfied over the superjumbo. Aspire Aviation recently talked to two …Read More
Airbus may meet 2010 A380 delivery target
For the first time ever in the history of the world’s biggest planemaker Airbus, the beleaguered A380 superjumbo program is likely to marginally meet its 2010 delivery target of 20 airframes, despite the bigger concern still lies on the sustainability of a further production ramp-up and the doubt on the profitability of the program has yet to abate. Having delivered 14 examples in the first nine months of 2010 but …Read More