Air France increases Dubai flights

Air France announces that due to high seasonal demand in the winter season to Dubai, it shall be increasing Paris-Dubai nonstop flights from daily to 13 weekly between October and March. In 2018, the P2P demand between CDG and DXB increased by +29% to 514,000 passengers from being 406,000 in 2017. A daily B772ER + 6 weekly A332 shall be used to operate the service.

my opinion - how to restructure Asiana Airlines's fleet

South Korea's 2nd largest airline i.e. Asiana has been officially put up for sale by the Kumho family due to mounting financial issues originally stemming from having a debt of US$ 2.7 billion. The Korean Development Bank is willing to provide new loans up to US$ 900 million provided the sale takes place which includes subsidiaries Air Seoul + Air Busan. 

My personal opinion is that OZ's financial problems are likely to initially arise from its complex wide body fleet structure which is quite ludicrous whilst thankfully the narrow body fleet revolves solely around the Airbus A320 family only. 

The current OZ wide body passenger fleet consists of:

15 A333s + 6 B763s + 8 A359s + 2 B744s + 9 B772ERs + 6 A380s totaling 46 aircraft along with 9 A351s being on order.

OZ has 25 A321NEOs on order starting from 2019 whilst the A351s deliveries commence from 2020-21. 

To save on capital costs initially, as well as raise cash, I suggest the following:

a) The A351 deliveries should be deferred to commence from Q2-2021 to save on capital costs.

b) All deliveries of A321NEOs from 2020 onwards should be postponed till 2022 due to the same reason mentioned above.

c) 6 B763s + 2 B744s should be sold off by Q2-2020 latest to raise cash and taken out of the fleet mix to reduce complexity 

d) A380s should be sold off starting from Q2-2020 onwards and out of service completely by end of IATA Summer 2021 season i.e. Oct 2021 to save on operating costs as well as raise cash. They are currently used exclusively on FRA, JFK and LAX services. The A351s would eventually be their replacement aircraft in OZ's fleet. 

e) The 15 leased A333 fleet should be renegotiated and not have their contracts renewed beyond Summer 2023. 

f) In addition, the existing 7 A320s + 2 A321-100s + 16 A321-200s should be sold off between 2022 and 2023 as each new A321NEO gets delivered. 

g) The 9 B772ERs (avg age 13 years) should be sold from 2021 onwards and completed by Q4 2022. Each B772ER should be phased out as each A351 gets delivered in 2022. This will raise cash as well as take out another fleet type from the wide body mix. 

In this manner from IATA W23 season, OZ's entire narrow and wide body fleet gets standardized in the below manner: 

Narrow body - 25 A321NEOs exclusively seating 180 pax (12J + 168Y)

Wide body - A350 family exclusively (on order 30 firm of which 8 already delivered) + 10 options). To have a commercially viable operation on its long haul + regional route network as well as cater to local cargo market requirements, the break down of the OZ A350 firm order for 30 units should be 16 A359s + 14 A351s (MTOWs). 

In this above proposed manner, the fleet mix gets standardized across 2 types of aircraft only versus 7 currently which is totally insane.  

If the financial performance of the airline improves in 2022-23, the 10 A350s on option should be renegotiated in the below manner:

a) 5 A350s exchanged for 10 A321NEOs to boost its regional network especially on its highly popular Korea-China/Japan/Vietnam routes 

b) The remaining 5 A350s should be converted to the A351-MTOW due to its superior economics on long haul and high demand regional Asian routes. 

c) If the options get exercised, the fleet in 2025 would comprise of 35 A321NEOs + 19 A351MTOWs + 16 A359s totaling 70 aircraft. 

United Airlines announces Cape Town-Newark nonstop

United Airlines has officially announced new 3 weekly nonstop flights between Cape Town-New York (EWR airport) using a B789 effective 15Dec.

The P2P demand in 2018 between NYC and CPT was 57,000 pax round trip. Yields will be very high during IATA winter season.

The proposed flight schedule of UA (dep EWR 2030 arr EWR 0600) connects all of continental U.S and Canada via EWR in both directions very conveniently.

Jet Airways suspends Toronto and other international routes

As per GDS system, India's Jet Airways has closed for sale all Toronto, Amsterdam, Paris, London and Singapore bound flights effective 12Apr (tomorrow) AMS-YYZ + MAA-CDG + BOM-SIN/CMB/HKG + DEL-HKG are showing as being permanently suspended whilst LHR-DEL/BOM + AMS-DEL/BOM/BLR are showing re-opened for sale effective 19APR only for the time being. BOM-CDG is showing closed for sale till 11JUN

Jetblue announces transatlantic expansion plans

Jetblue has officially released today historic details of its planned expansion into the trans-atlantic market segment out of its New York JFK and Boston hub airports effective IATA Summer 2021 season. 

The main highlights are as follows:

1. A total of 13 A321Neos shall be converted into A321NEO-LRs

2. JFK-LON and BOS-LON will be the initial routes to be launched

3. Following the launch of the above two routes, other cities short listed include DUB, AMS, CDG, LIS and MAD

A decision on which London airport will only be made after the IATA S21 slots conference gets concluded in Winter 2020. 

B6 also needs to get FAA ETOPS approval for using the A321 trans-atlantic which is a 12-14 month process. 

Vietnam's Bamboo Airways orders more aircraft

Vietnam's Bamboo Airways has placed an incremental order for aircraft as the airline has outlined a very ambitious long term strategic plan looking to fully exploit the country's growing air passenger market. 

Initially, Bamboo ordered 25 Airbus A321Neos of which now another incremental 25 aircraft of the same type were ordered along side 10 Boeing 787-9s for its wide body fleet. 

For its long haul network, the airline has apparently identified Prague as one of its launch routes with the B789.

Source: https://www.radio.cz/en/section/business/press-vietnams-bamboo-airways-set-to-launch-direct-flights-to-prague

Corsair wide body fleet strategy announced

France’s Corsair under new ownership announced the following changes to its wide body fleet strategy : 1. Future long haul fleet to exclusively revolve around the Airbus A330 family only. 2. An order for 3 Airbus A330-900Neos has been newly placed. 3. Three B747-400s currently in service will be replaced by 3 A330-900Neos + 3 yet to be disclosed used A330-300s or 3 more A330neos 4. Long haul wide body fleet to be increased from 7 to 13 units which shall be A330s only.

Thai Airways 2018 net loss increases to US$ 366 million

Thai Airways announced a net loss of US$366 million for 2018 ie 5 times higher than its 2017 net loss ! It will continue down this path unless it fixes some basic stuff such as 1. Its fleet composition to begin with. No point having A320/330/359/380 operate along side 77W/772/788/789. The fleet mix should ideally be 77W/781/789 for wide body + A320/321Neo for narrow body thus in total having 3 different types only versus 6 currently 🙄 2. On regional routes where the A333/B772 is flown on, many of these multiple daily services operate with less than 60% SF annually thus can be easily be downgraded to A321Neos which would annually end up saving a lot in operating costs. 3. It must lobby the Govt to re-negotiate the open skies policy with certain countries outside of ASEAN region who have taken advantage of it. 4. It needs to look at operating more frequencies to SYD and MEL ie at least double daily each as the average fares are nearly 40% higher than BKK-EU plus 30% shorter flying time. More so now with EK suspending its daily BKK-SYD from July which leaves a void in the market to fill. 5. Some long haul EU destinations need to be suspended where operating cash costs are not covered.

Turkish Airlines increases Africa presence

Turkish Airlines announces another round of expansion in Africa with the launch of 3 new weekly flights to PNR-Pointe Noire - Congo using a B739ER. In addition, services to Libreville - Gabon get boosted from 4 weekly to daily using the same aircraft type.

Both cities offer excellent connections via IST in both directions to Paris, London and other tier 1 EU cities. All of the above are effective 30Jul-19.

Saudia Airlines long term strategy focus revealed

Saudia's CEO officially announces the following long term strategy steps: i. All 35 A320NEOs to be converted into 35 A321NEOs
ii. Out of the 35 A321NEOs, 15 will be the LR version with flat bed seats in business class
iii. A321NEO would be used to boost FRA and VIE to daily services
iv. A321NEO in the future will be used to serve AGP, AMS and ATH
v. No more B77Ws nor B779Xs shall be ordered and instead the airline will focus on ordering more aircraft in the 250-300 seater range
vi. Confirms that ten B787-10s have been ordered out of which 3 will be delivered in 2019
vii. New mega wide body order will be placed by Q4-19 pitting the B787 versus A350 only

British Airways announces Dammam

British Airways announces new daily flights to Dammam, Saudi Arabia using a B772ER via Bahrain effective 01Dec19. The new route will largely be catering to P2P traffic bound to UK from KSA's Eastern province as well as high yielding oil traffic bound to USA.

Emirates increases Cairo frequencies

Dubai-Egypt bilateral air accord further liberalized allowing Emirates to increase their own Cairo-DXB services from 21 to 25 weekly B777-300s effective 28Oct which have been opened for sale. It seems that Egypt is another state blocking EKs A380 entry into the CAI marketplace. P2P demand on DXB CAI over the past 3 years were as follows: *round trip pax below* 2016 - 589,000 2017 - 734,000 2018 - 796,000

Jet Airways announces many route suspensions

India's Jet Airways is under going severe financial and managerial difficulties and as a result of which, the below route suspensions have been officially published for an indefinite period:

• BOM-MAN/RUH/KWI/DMM
• BLR-SIN
• DEL-HKG/RUH/DMM/DOH/DAC/

In addition, BOM-LHR has been reduced from 3 to 2 daily flights with the mid day service 9W 116/115 being terminated.

Rwandair announces Guangzhou via Mumbai

Rwandair announces new 4 weekly flights to Guangzhou via Mumbai using an A330-200 effective 18Jun. WB has also secured 5th freedom traffic rights for the BOM-CAN-BOM sector for which they will have a monopolist position.

Ethiopian announces Marseilles and Houston

Ethiopian Airlines announces that it will be launching new 3 weekly flights to MRS-Marseilles, France using a B787 via Milan effective 02Jul. In addition, Houston via Lomé (3 weekly) has been opened for sale effective 23Jun.