Kyrgyzstan's Air Manas targets Beijing route launch

Full article on forbes.com

Air Manas is seeking permission to launch passenger flights between the capitals of Kyrgyzstan and China.

“We can fly to Beijing. We are looking for the opportunities for that and for the permits,” confirmed Mehmet Nane, chief executive of Pegasus Airlines, the Turkish low-cost carrier that owns 49% of Air Manas.

Nane told me that demand on the Bishkek-Beijing leg will benefit from Pegasus’s existing Istanbul-Bishkek service – effectively turning the Kyrgyz capital into a sixth-freedom base for Turkey-China traffic.

“When you look at Kyrgyzstan on the map it’s the center of Asia," he noted...

Somon Air delays Dreamliner in favor of 767, confirms E2 plan

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Tajikistan’s Somon Air has delayed its planned introduction of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner until around 2022, with management now seeking a 767-300ER and stepping up their focus on regional expansion with Embraer E190-E2s.

“The Dreamliner is still in our strategic plan, but the one that was announced is not going to materialize,” chief executive Thomas Hallam told me during an interview at Somon Air’s headquarters in Dushanbe, the capital of the central Asian nation. “Our timeline is now somewhere around 2022. What we need to do is to look at our core business before we look at our trans-continental business.”

Somon Air signed an MoU for one 787-8 at last year’s Dubai Air Show, with the aircraft originally expected to arrive in early 2018. The opportunity to jump Boeing’s delivery queue arose when Royal Jordanian Airlines cut back its Dreamliner commitment.

Although the wide-body was offered at a “very attractive price”, Hallam said Somon Air needs to be “realistic about economies of scale” as it pursues sustainable growth...

Southend calling: Ryanair admits Brexit hasn't soured it on Britain

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Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, has sounded a resounding note of optimism about the UK aviation market by opening a new base at London Southend Airport – just one year after warning that Brexit would spell the end of cheap flights for Brits.

The airline says it will base three aircraft at the Essex airport in April 2019, days after the UK formally withdraws from the European Union.

Its expansion marks a dramatic climb-down by Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, who campaigned heavily against Brexit before the referendum and then threatened to ground flights when the vote didn’t go his way. "I think it's in our interests … that the aircraft are grounded,” he said in March, predicting that UK travelers will “re-think the whole Brexit debate” once they realize they are “no longer going to have cheap holidays in Portugal or Spain or Italy”.

Eight of Ryanair’s 13 new Southend routes are bound for Portugal, Spain or Italy. They will join the roughly 5,400 flights per month that the airline operates from the UK to the three countries...

A misogynist cannot promote gender equality in aviation

Full article on economist.com

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) was founded in 1945 to unify and promote the interests of airlines around the world. At this week’s AGM in Sydney, despite efforts to the contrary by some, IATA’s message was as dated as the organisation itself: women are too dense to run airlines. Akbar al Baker, the group’s new chairman and the boss of Qatar Airways, a Persian Gulf carrier, told attendees that “of course”, his airline “has to be led by a man, because it is a very challenging position”. He later apologised for what he claimed was a joke blown out of proportion by the media. Yet this was not Mr al Baker’s first foray into misogyny: last year he mocked American carriers for hiring “grandmothers” as flight attendants, boasting that the average age of his cabin crew is 26 years. Until recently, he forbade female staff from marrying or getting pregnant...