Widerøe pins future of social routes on electric plane breakthrough

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Widerøe is banking on the launch of an all-electric, sub 50-seat aircraft by the end of the next decade in order to maintain its deep footprint in the domestic Norwegian market.

“I really believe that we will have a major technology shift in this turboprop segment, and I think, in fact, there could be a possibility for flying all-electric … in the timeframe around 2030,” Stein Nilsen, Widerøe chief executive, told me last week during the ferry flight of the airline’s new Embraer E190 E2 from Aberdeen to Bergen.

Nilsen was responding to a question about Widerøe's 25 Bombardier Dash 8 Q100s and Q200s – small turboprops with 39 seats that the airline mostly deploys on Public Service Obligation (PSO) routes within Norway...

Estonia's Nordica plans new EU bases as export model takes off

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Estonian airline Nordica is talking to about ten potential customers for its contract flying services and could open up to three new bases in the coming winter season, chief executive Jaan Tamm has told me.

The Baltic flag-carrier supplements its scheduled network out of Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, with various kinds of ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance) contracts for foreign customers. Nearly two-thirds of the flights conducted by Regional Jet, its operating subsidiary, are flown under these export arrangements...

Why posting a 'very large loss' is a good sign for Qatar Airways

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Never one to mince his words, Akbar Al Baker, the chief executive of Qatar Airways, has been more than candid about the “very large loss” that he expects his company to announce for the 2017-18 financial year. Qatar’s flag-carrier agreed in January to start putting detailed financial statements in the public domain – a move designed to ease concerns about unfair state support and minimize the likelihood of America curbing its access to the U.S. market.

The expected loss will mark a dramatic reversal of recent claims of profitability. For 2016-17, Qatar Airways had announced net profits of 1.97 billion Qatari riyals ($541m) in filings audited by Ernst & Young’s local branch in Qatar. The previous year’s audited report put its takings at 1.62 billion riyals, while an informal figure of $103 million was given by Al Baker for 2014-15.

As I wrote previously in relation to Etihad Airways – another state-owned Gulf carrier with delusions of profitability – such claims are misleading and should not have been repeated by media outlets without strong disclaimers...

Georgia's MyWay Airlines plans intercontinental hub in Tbilisi

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The tiny Caucasian country of Georgia could become a hub for intercontinental transfer traffic if Chinese-owned MyWay Airlines fulfils its five-year business plan.

Igor Aptsiauri, the start-up’s commercial director, says capital city Tbilisi has geographical potential for linking up flights between Asia and Europe, but is held back by the modest ambitions of flag-carrier Georgian Airways – currently the only local carrier with scheduled passenger flights.

“One of our biggest strategies that we have right now is we want to develop Georgia and Tbilisi Airport … further as a hub connecting Europe and Asia,” he told me...

Why Iceland's WOW Air could be planning to fly from America to India

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WOW Air has confirmed its intention to launch Asian flights during a new wave of long-haul expansion in 2019, but chief executive Skúli Mogensen is remaining tight-lipped about which destinations will be served.

“Beyond next year, with the addition of the A330neos, we will start Asia flights,” he told me last week, referring to the delivery of four next-generation wide-bodies in late 2018. “It is very interesting to see how well Iceland is positioned to make certain connections [with Asia] ... East Coast U.S. is by far the superior route for connections...

Pegasus Airlines may launch Ukrainian subsidiary, order more A321neos

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Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines is considering setting up a subsidiary in Ukraine and may also increase its order for Airbus A321neos, according to Emre Pekesen, sales and network planning director at the low-cost carrier.

Management have held talks with Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry in Kiev about the possible joint venture, which would be majority owned by Ukrainian investors and would fly under a Ukrainian operating license. Pegasus already runs one such joint venture, Air Manas, formerly branded Pegasus Asia, in the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.

“Pegasus always is looking around nearby countries and just waiting for the opportunities,” Pekesen told me...

Wizz Air UK: A case study in Brexit scaremongering

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Wizz Air, the central and eastern European low-cost carrier, has unveiled plans for a dedicated UK subsidiary to grow its British operations after Brexit – despite being depicted by many as an early casualty of the UK’s vote to leave the EU.

The move is designed to help Wizz Air expand its presence at London Luton Airport regardless of any headwinds caused by the UK’s withdrawal from European aviation treaties. The airline currently uses its Hungarian operating license to base planes in foreign cities like London, exploiting liberal cross-border rules within the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA). Unless Brussels agrees otherwise, Britain’s access to the ECAA will automatically expire in 2019...

Interview: Patee Sarasin, Nok Air CEO

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Nok Air's outgoing boss believes his company needs a strategic partner to stay afloat and that Singapore Airlines may step in if Thai Airways International (THAI) ends its financial support.

“The shareholders have been discussing about this themselves,” Patee Sarasin told me this month, when asked about the possibility of THAI abstaining from Nok’s 1.7 billion baht ($51 million) recapitalization. “The current major shareholders now, beside THAI, have expressed that they are willing to take all of it if TG [THAI] doesn’t want to participate.”

In that scenario, Sarasin said Nok would begin searching for a new strategic partner “that can provide knowhow”. He confirmed that Singapore Airlines, an existing partner of Nok’s through low-cost long-haul venture NokScoot, would be among the candidates...

Interview: Yaroslav Agafonov, Yanair CEO

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Ukrainian airline Yanair has secured traffic rights for several European countries and expects to launch new scheduled services in the summer 2018 season.

“We are intending to enlarge the geography of our network from Kiev and Odessa,” chief executive Yaroslav Agafonov tells me, referring to the airline’s flights to Tbilisi and Batumi in Georgia, plus Tel Aviv in Israel. “It may be secondary airports, not huge airports, for example Krakow in Poland, Paderborn in Germany, or Frankfurt Hahn.”

Agafonov also identifies Cyprus, Italy and Romania as potential targets for expansion, without specifying which cities will be considered in those markets...

Interview: Volodymyr Omelyan, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister

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With a score of 29 out of 100 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index – placing it 131st out of 176 counties – Ukraine was guaranteed a turbulent ride in March when its pro-Western government moved to liberalize the closely guarded civil aviation market. It ultimately took just four months for Ryanair to cancel its planned launch in the country, retreating from what Volodymyr Omelyan, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister, describes as “sabotage” by a network of post-Soviet oligarchs and vested interests...

Friend or foe? American Airlines partner British Airways deepens ties with Qatar

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British Airways (BA) has announced plans to serve Qatar’s capital Doha with a nonstop daily service from October, removing its existing stopover in Bahrain.

The move comes less than a month after Qatar Airways disclosed that it has increased its stake in International Airlines Group (IAG), the parent company of BA, from 9.99% to 12%. Both airlines are members of the Oneworld alliance and have reciprocal codeshare agreements at their hubs.

By itself, the steady expansion of ties between the flag-carriers of Britain and Qatar is not remarkable. For fellow Oneworld member American Airlines, however, it may have uncomfortable ramifications...

Norwegian Air poses no threat to 'Open And Fair' skies – unlike Etihad and Qatar Airways

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The Partnership for Open and Fair Skies, a lobby group representing three major U.S. airlines and other industry groups, chose its name well when it entered the scene last year.

By incorporating a variant of the term “open-skies” into its brand, the Partnership explicitly affirmed its support for aero-political deregulation – the removal of bilateral traffic rights and the expansion of cross-border competition between airlines.

To do anything less would be foolhardy given the overwhelming body of evidence that open-skies accords – of which America has signed more than 100 – create vast economic benefits.

Yet, interposing this widely-acclaimed term, the lobbyists snuck in the most subjective and malleable of conditions: “fair”...

Why American Airlines is wrong to predict long-term profits for the industry

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“What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.”

So wrote Raymond Aron, the French philosopher, whose 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals criticized the blind optimism displayed by many of his countrymen about Marxism.

In my chirpier moments I might take issue with so bleak an assertion. But experience quickly restores one’s cynicism: bull markets always overshoot; politicians always disappoint; and the airline industry always crashes to the ground after a period of historic outperformance...

Spirit Airlines nears its 'Ryanair moment'

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The new chief executive of Spirit Airlines, Bob Fornaro, is vowing to soften the airline’s uncompromising approach to customer service, mimicking the charm offensive pursued by Europe’s Ryanair three years ago.

Spirit, Ryanair and other ultra-low-cost carriers (ULCCs) base their business models on an extreme interpretation of airline economics – stripping fares to the bone and imposing surcharges for all non-essential services. Whereas most airlines show flexibility over fee structures in order to build customer loyalty, ULCCs compete solely on price and use punitive penalties to influence passenger behavior.

The strategy clearly works: Spirit’s no-nonsense persona under former chief Ben Baldanza secured the lowest unit costs in the US airline industry (5.15 cents per Available Seat Mile). Its parsimony fed through to lower airfares, catalyzing price-sensitive demand and driving 30% capacity growth last year.

But the airline’s bad-boy image creates a different type of cost...

Why you can safely ignore airline safety rankings

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Travel websites were abuzz this month with the latest safety ranking from Airline Ratings, an industry data provider. Australian flag-carrier Qantas was crowned the safest airline in the world for the third year in a row, while other big names like American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Emirates also made it into the top ten. At the bottom of the list were some rather more obscure carriers like Batik Air and Kalstar Aviation.

Airline Ratings came up with its ranking by looking at a range of factors perceived to reflect safety performance – prior accident history, current fleet type, recognized industry certifications and so forth. At least two other websites also claim to rank airlines by safety: the Air Transport Rating Agency; and the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Center.

Each of these reports, though, comes up with wildly different rankings. And that is not surprising, given that their authors are engaged in PR exercises bereft of any statistical validity...

Etihad's backdoor access to Europe slammed shut

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It is a strategy that has won James Hogan, the chief executive of Etihad Airways, plaudits from the across the airline industry.

Shackled by restrictive traffic-rights agreements, Abu Dhabi’s Etihad has in recent years gone on a shopping spree across Europe. Equity stakes in Alitalia (49%), Air Serbia (49%), Switzerland’s Darwin Airline (33%) and Germany’s Air Berlin (29%) have allowed the Gulf carrier to pursue backdoor expansion across the continent, swapping traffic with local partners and restructuring their networks to feed Abu Dhabi.

The investment model has narrowed the gap between Etihad and its two older, larger Gulf rivals – Dubai’s Emirates Airline and Qatar Airways – contributing an estimated $1.1 billion to the newcomer’s top line in 2014...

Don't blame Kuwait Airways for discrimination against Israelis

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Kuwait Airways has suspended flights between New York’s JFK Airport and London’s Heathrow Airport after the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) took umbrage at its longstanding policy of turning away Israeli passport-holders. The flag-carrier will still fly nonstop between New York and Kuwait – and will continue refusing Israelis on that service – but it has been forced to abandon connecting flights via the U.K. capital. The decision amounts to a legal victory for Eldad Gatt, an Israeli citizen who filed a discrimination complaint with the DoT in 2013 after being refused a ticket for the New York-London route...

Heathrow third runway: How democracy is killing the world's busiest hub

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Have you spotted the problem with my headline? London’s Heathrow Airport is no longer the world’s busiest hub for international traffic. Dubai International Airport (DXB) stole that title last year, handling 70 million passengers compared with Heathrow’s 68 million. DXB will eventually be replaced by an even larger Gulf mega-hub, Dubai South, with an annual capacity of 250 million people. Further East, China will have constructed 58 new airports by the end of the decade. Even North Korea opened a new one this year. In totalitarian societies, it seems, airport infrastructure projects are all the rage...