Estonian Air | Lennukad mõtted

Finnair enforced time off for 700 pilots

HELSINKI (AP) – Finnair PLC said Friday it will begin enforced time off for some 700 pilots next month to cut costs.

The plans, part of the company’s ?30 million ($39 million) cost-cutting program, follow earlier announced unpaid time off up to 1,700 cabin stewards and air hostesses in April and May. The staggered layoffs will last at least one week for each pilot, Finnair said.

In September, Finnair employees rejected proposals by the management for voluntary wage cuts to avoid cutting 400 jobs in the airline, which has been struggling with high fuel costs and heavy competition. It then said it was seeking ways to make savings of some ?50 million ($65 million).

Last month, Finnair had warned of imminent cuts as it reported a fourth-quarter net loss of ?44 million ($56 million), down from a net profit of ?27 million a year earlier, despite an increase in passenger traffic. The airline employs 9,600 people.

Finnair, which is 56 percent government-owned, flies to 50 destinations with a fleet of 60 aircraft. Last year, 8.3 million passengers flew the airline.

Bombardier wins Lufthansa order for CSeries jets

Bombardier wins Lufthansa order for CSeries jets

* Initial deal for 30 planes, option for 30 more

* New CSeries expected to “sell like hotcakes”

* Bombardier shares 4.6 percent at C$2.71 (Recasts, adds analyst quotes; in U.S. dollars unless noted)

TORONTO, March 11 (Reuters) – Bombardier Inc won its first firm order for its new CSeries commercial jetliner on Wednesday with a $1.53 billion deal for 30 airplanes from Deutsche Lufthansa AG .

The order, which sent Bombardier shares up as much as 15 percent, moves the Montreal-based company into closer competition with bigger rivals Boeing and Airbus . The CSeries seats between 110 and 149 passengers, and is Bombardier’s largest plane to date.

Bombardier shares rose 12 Canadian cents, or 4.6 percent to C$2.71, down from an intraday high of C$2.99.

“The marketplace that they’re pursuing is a group of geriatric planes plus the bottom end of the Boeing and Airbus range,” said Richard Stoneman, an airline analyst with Dundee Capital Markets.

He said the CSeries aircraft will initially replace Lufthansa’s BAE Systems’ BAE146 model, that was produced from 1978 to 1992.

The agreement also gives the German airline an option to acquire 30 more of the new jets, which will be operated by Lufthansa’s Swiss International Airlines unit.

Lufthansa, Europe’s second biggest carrier, became the launch customer for the CSeries aircraft family in July 2008 when it signed a letter of interest for up to 60 planes, Bombardier’s aerospace division said in a statement.

The new plane series is seen as a key development for Montreal-based Bombardier, which is the world’s third-largest maker of civil aircraft and the No. 1 maker of rail equipment.

The aircraft, scheduled for delivery from 2013, will let Bombardier branch out from its current lines of regional jets and turboprops, which carry up to 100 passengers.

Bombardier says its advanced technology allows the CSeries to operate while using 20 percent less fuel than the older Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families.

The CSeries will also be the greenest single-aisle aircraft in its class, the company says.

“It’s going to sell like hotcakes,” Jacques Kavafian, an airline analyst with Research Capital, told Reuters.

“The company has five years to develop its backlog, so we’re not worried about the current economic environment.

“They’re building this airplane for the next 25 years. The economy will turn around and people will continue to travel and airlines will continue to look at cheap economic airplanes and this one is the most economic in its class.”

Bombardier shares have fallen about 39 percent so far this year as the market for its corporate jets weakened with the global economy and consumer air travel stalled.

The company said last month it would lay off 1,360 people because of the downturn in the business jet market.

Bombardier has said an expected 10 percent rise in orders for commercial aircraft could offset that softness.

——————————————-

VIENNA, March 13, 2009 (AFP) Austrian Airlines, in the process of being taken over by German flag carrier Lufthansa, said Friday that high fuel prices, the financial crisis and a slump in demand pushed it deeply into the red last year.

AUA said in a statement that it turned in a record net loss of 429.5 million euros (554 million dollars) in 2008, compared with a profit of 3.3 million euros a year earlier. “2008 was an extraordinarily difficult year for the Austrian Airlines Group,” board member Peter Malanik said.

—————————————————————-

Ametnik: Ryanairi tualetitasu idee oli “nali”

BERLIIN, 12. märts, AFP-BNS – Odavlennufirma Ryanair juht “tegi ainult nalja”, kui ta käis välja ettepaneku reisijatelt lennukis tualeti kasutamise eest raha küsida, ütles lennufirma pressiesindaja neljapäeval Saksa ajalehele.

Eelmisel kuul vapustas Ryanairi reisijaid Michael O’Leary ähvardus, et lennukites võidakse tualetiustele paigaldada lukud, mille avamiseks on vaja ühenaelast münti.

Ryanairi pressiesindaja Saksamaal Anja Seugling ütles päevalehele Ostthüringer Zeitung, et “see kõik oli vaid nali” ja lisas, et O’Leary mõtles ilmselt lihtsalt valjusti.

O’Leary on Iirimaa üks jõukamaid ärimehi ja tal on halastamatu kuludekärpija maine.

————————————————————-

Travel industry sees business bookings slump lasting

* Amadeus says leisure travel bookings seen at bottom

* British Airways sees business travel doing “very badly”

* Lufthansa’s Swiss says recovery could start in Q3, Q4

* Emirates sees growth opportunities amid “doom and gloom”

* Germanwings wins as business travellers go for low-cost

BERLIN, March 12 (Reuters) – Airlines and travel companies say they do not expect the slump in bookings by business travellers to recover anytime soon as the global economic crisis keeps company travel budgets tight.

The volume of business travel bookings done through agencies dropped 20 percent in January and February compared with only a 12 percent drop in leisure travel bookings, the head of commercial operations at Amadeus, a leading booking system provider to travel agencies, said on Thursday.

“We have a feeling that leisure bookings reached the bottom in the last four to five weeks. Business travel is still getting worse,” Philippe Chereque told Reuters at the ITB travel fair.

The yield on business travel has dropped around 20 percent to 25 percent, Chereque said.

Airlines and tour operators are struggling to remain profitable as businesses and individual consumers cut travel during the recession.

The world’s airlines lost up to $8 billion in 2008, the International Air Transport Association said last week, and few are willing to guess when business travel will start to pick up again.

“If we’re honest, we’d have to say we don’t know,” said Harry Hohmeister, Deutsche Lufthansa unit Swiss’s Chief Network and Distribution Officer told an audience at the ITB fair.

Hohmeister said that if one believed economists, business travel bookings could start recovering in the third or fourth quarter of the year.

British Airways sees business travel doing “very badly”, said Gavin Halliday, head of BA’s European business said. The UK carrier warned last week that it expected an operating loss in its financial year through April 2010 and hinted that job cuts may be on the cards.

Lufthansa, which vies with Air France-KLM to be Europe’s biggest airline, said on Wednesday that it saw its 2009 operating profit falling from 2008. It said the end of the tunnel could come in 2010.

Companies that have not imposed travel bans on its employees are booking cheaper tickets, a trend that has helped low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and EasyJet win market share in the crisis.

“You see more neckties in the tail of the plane now,” Amadeus’ Chereque said.

Lufthansa’s low-cost Germanwings unit has also seen growth in its business travel segment, which accounts for about 40 percent of its revenue, unit head Thomas Winkelmann said.

Some airlines are still planning to add capacity in 2009 and aim to tap into markets where demand is still strong, such as in Africa and the Middle East.

Dubai-based Emirates will boost its capacity by around 20 percent in its financial year starting on April 1 as it adds new large planes, including seven mammoth A380 aircraft. Emirates European manager Nabil Sultan said the company would deploy the new planes to destinations where demand was still high and would try to attract tourism customers. “I still see opportunities amid the doom and gloom that you hear about,” Sultan said.

——————————————————

Cancellations outweigh orders at Airbus, Boeing

PARIS, March 12, 2009 (AFP) – European aircraft maker Airbus said Thursday that cancellations on orders for planes had exceeded new orders since the beginning of the year, matching a similar trend at US rival Boeing.

Airbus said in a statement there had been six orders and 14 cancellations for the company between January 1 and February 28.

Data on Boeing’s website showed that the US jetmaker had 22 orders and 32 cancellations between January 1 and March 10.

The announcement came as a source close to Airbus told AFP that the Dubai-based airline Emirates was seeking a delay in the delivery of several long-haul A380 superjumbo jets because of financing difficulties.

The airline is Airbus’s biggest customer for the A380, having ordered 58 of them. “Emirates could delay deliveries on several planes … They are in talks” with Airbus, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Emirates “is beginning to have problems for the first time. We always relied on this type of company as a major stable client,” the source said. A spokeswoman for Airbus said discussions with clients were confidential. And in Dubai an Emirates spokesperson said: “We had a routine meeting with Airbus to discuss aircraft delivery positions down the line. Like all airlines, Emirates continues to assess all options for its fleet and route operations.”

Austrian Airlines to cut staff work time

Austrian Airlines to cut staff work time

VIENNA (AP) – Austrian Airlines will reduce the working hours of 2,600 employees starting next month to cut expenses, the ailing carrier said Wednesday.

The cost-saving measure will take affect April 1 and is expected to last at least six months, the company said in a statement.

Those affected – all ground personnel – will see either a 20 percent reduction in working hours and a 10 percent pay cut, or a 10 percent reduction in working hours and a 5 percent pay cut.

Trainees, part-time employees and staff who make less than 1,100 ($1,407) will be exempt.

Austrian Airlines is struggling to battle insolvency as it prepares to be taken over by Germany’s Lufthansa AG.

NEW YORK, March 11, 2009 (AFP) – An American Airlines passenger plane made a safe emergency landing Wednesday after an engine failed, sending shards of metal into housing below, aviation officials said.

The plane, a McDonnell Douglas 80, landed safely at New York’s JFK Airport on one engine, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Jim Peters told AFP. No one among the 93 passengers and crew aboard, or on the ground, was injured.

“After it departed from LaGuardia Airport for Chicago earlier today, the crew reported hearing a loud noise and the number two engine shutting down,” Peters said.

Plane makes emergency landing after takeoff in NYC

None of the five airlines leaving the Riga airport

RIGA, Mar 09, BNS

None of the five airlines leaving the Riga airport in fall plan to return next season, said Latvian daily Diena on Monday, citing the airport’s vice-president Janis Balkens.
According to the daily, the only new airline attracted by the airport for the summer season is the fourth largest Italian airline Windjet, who will fly once a month to northern Italian city Forli from June 10.
“Everybody we are addressing says — look what is happening with your domestic market,” said Balkens.
The number of domestic passengers at Riga airport declined by 26 percent in the first two months of this year, and the growth in passenger numbers in airport in general was achieved on the account of transit passengers.
In 2008/09 winter season Germanwings, Austrian Airlines, Aer Lingus, EasyJet and troubled Lithuanian Flylal left the Riga airport.
In the winter season flights from Riga airport are still provided by Airbaltic, SmartLynx, Lufthansa, Finnair, Ryanair, KLM, LOT, Czech Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Turkish Airlines, Aeroflot, and Uzbekistan Airways.
———————-

East Europe’s airlines face shakeout amid crisis * Central, east europe airlines struggle to survive on own * Competition from large airlines, low-cost operators

BUDAPEST, March 10 (Reuters) – National airlines in central and eastern Europe face pressure to give up their independence or go bust as the global economic crisis hits demand and competition intensifies.

“We cannot have one airline per country,” said John Strickland, an analyst at SNL Consulting in London. “If an airline isn’t strong, it’s difficult to keep it going …certainly there is no guarantee.”

Competition is coming from large network airlines such as Germany’s Lufthansa, which feed their transcontinental routes, and low-cost operators flying point-to-point which established a strong foothold in the region.

Among the worst off regional player is Hungarian national carrier Malev, which has posted deep losses for years and expects to be taken over by a Russian bank which financed its privatisation in 2007.

Its regional peers, most still majority state-owned, are not much better off as passenger traffic declines. In January 2009 European traffic was down 6 percent from a year before, according to the International Air Transport Association.

The effects of that decline vary around eastern Europe, but few of the already-struggling national carriers are expected to survive on their own in the long run.

Poland’s national carrier LOT for instance has been hurt by high fuel prices and saw revenue and passenger numbers drop late last year. It has repeatedly put off plans to float its shares or privatise and sacked its fifth CEO in five years last week.

“Every medium sized airline, such as LOT, would have to tackle a serious crisis sooner or later,” LOT’s ousted boss Dariusz Nowak wrote in an open letter before his dismissal.

NEW INVESTORS

Czech flag carrier CSA was put up for sale in February after its second profitable year. Air France-KLM has expressed interest, as has Russia’s Aeroflot.

Loss-making Malev expects to find new investors and a fresh infusion of capital within weeks, interim CEO Geza Fehervary told Reuters. Both should come from state-owned Russian bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), he said.

VEB is expected to take formal control of a 49 percent stake in Malev, and as an owner could extend loans as the airline reshuffles its operations. Fehervary says Malev expects losses to narrow after layoffs and restructuring last year.

Serbia’s state-owned airline JAT Airways will cut about half its workforce this year to cope with the economic downturn, its general manager told state news agency Tanjug last week.

Going it alone is tough for low-cost carriers as well. To their advantage, no-frills operators are not exposed to cargo, premium passengers or long-haul holidays, which have taken a hit in the crisis, said Geoff van Klaveren, airline analyst with Exane BNP Paribas.

“But the bottom line is, short-haul travel is a commodity product,” he added. “Lowest cost will win.”

Slovakia-based Sky Europe has been unable to boost traffic of late, has never broken even, and its shares have gone from above 5 euros to less than 20 cents in the last two years.

CentralWings, LOT’s no-frills daughter, was folded back into the parent company as a charter operator last year.

Budapest-based regional low cost Wizz Air has taken some of that market space. It has grown to fly nearly 6 million passengers in 2008, making it the second-largest airline in the region after Austrian. The company is privately held and is tight-lipped about its financial performance but Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi told Reuters it was doing fine and needed no outside capital.

“We generate enough cash flow to support our operations,”Varadi said, adding the company expects to boost passenger numbers by 35 percent in 2009. “We can grow even in a recession,” Varadi said. “The main factor now is ticket price. Everything else is secondary.”

————————–

Latvia’s Airbaltic carrier to close domestic routes to Liepaja, Ventspils if govt subsidies are cut

RIGA, Mar 10, BNS – Latvia’s Airbaltic national carrier will close its passenger routes to the western Latvian port cities of Liepaja and Ventspils if it does not receive government subsidies this year, the airline’s representative told BNS.

Airbaltic vice-president for corporate communications Janis Vanags said the domestic flights were unprofitable and that the airline needed government support to continue them. “It happens automatically — if the subsidy is not allocated we do not fly,” he said.

Latvia’s Diena daily reported on Tuesday that the new coalition has agreed to scrap the 2.5 million lats (EUR| 3.5 mln) allocation in Latvia’s 2009 budget needed for Airbaltic’s unprofitable flights to Liepaja and Ventspils.

Airbaltic launched summer season flights from Riga to Liepaja and Ventspils in 2005, and in 2007 it opened routes from Liepaja to Copenhagen and Hamburg. The airline only served the Riga-Ventspils route for one season, from April 2008 to September 2008. In 2008, the government allocated 2.59 million lats for domestic flights from Liepaja and Ventspils airports. To cover the costs of domestic flights from Liepaja, the port city’s local authority received 1.49 million lats, while the Ventspils City Council received 1.1 million lats.