Zambia's Mahogany Air eyes regional expansion via northern towns

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Mahogany Air is looking to turn Zambia’s northern border towns of Mbala and Nakonde into transit points for Burundi and Tanzania as part of a new push into international markets.

“What we are trying to do is to fly to northern Zambia and connect to the neighbouring countries,” founder and chief executive Jim Belemu told me in a telephone interview.

“So we will fly to northern Zambia, Mbala, and then from Mbala we can connect to Bujumbura [in Burundi]. There is traffic which is so untapped there. Then we are also trying to fly to the Zambian border town of Nakonde and connect from there to Dar es Salaam [in Tanzania]...

Is Kosovo about to get a national flag carrier?

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Speculation is mounting that Kosovo, the partially-recognized Balkan state that declared independence from Serbia in 2008, could soon have a functioning national airline.

The scenario is considered possible after news broke that Leyla Ibrahimi-Salahi, a Swiss national with Kosovan ancestry, has completed a takeover of Germania Flug, the Swiss subsidiary of insolvent airline Germania. The acquisition was made through her investment company Albex Aviation...

The Boeing 747 jetliner turns 50

Full article on economist.com

Earlier this month, a decommissioned Boeing 747 airliner was towed down a Dutch motorway to its final destination as a novelty hotel complex. Its owners reckon they can turn the jumbo jet into a tourist attraction. They are not wrong. Sweden’s Stockholm Arlanda Airport is already using one as a hostel (its best room is the cockpit suite). In Bahrain, developers are planning to turn a submerged 747 into the centrepiece of a new underwater theme park. Having celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 747’s first flight this month, fans of the iconic jumbo jet know that it is falling out of favour with airlines. Before long, ground-based encounters will be the only way of getting up close and personal with these planes...

Malta's Medavia unveils plans for domestic Libyan airline

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Libyan travelers should be able to fly with a new domestic airline next year thanks to Mediterranean Aviation Company Ltd (Medavia), a charter operator and aircraft maintenance firm based in the southern European island of Malta.

Provisionally named Medlib, or Medavia Libya, the new airline is in the process of applying for an Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) from the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority.

“The overall idea is to offer more frequent, reliable services between the Libyan cities,” chief executive Rammah Ettir told me during an interview at the company’s headquarters in Malta. “The services that are being offered at the moment are not really good and the Libyan travelers deserve much better...

Airbus calls time on the A380

Full article on economist.com

After a century of refining their craft, planemakers have become masters of building safe, reliable jets that bring air travel within reach of the masses. Occasionally their products win cult status among passengers. But commercial success and popular appeal rarely overlap. Concorde, the world’s only reliable supersonic passenger jet, wowed travellers for nearly three decades. Beloved by all, it was nonetheless a financial disaster that only stayed airborne because of political will and vast government subsidies. Sixteen years after Concorde’s final flight, another game-changing aircraft that passengers love to fly is facing an uncertain future: the A380...

Interview: Paulo Mirpuri, Hi Fly CEO

Hi Fly finds new customer for 'Save The Coral Reefs' A380

The world’s most recognizable Airbus A380 has been allocated to a new customer for the coming summer season.

The coral reef-themed jet is operated by Hi Fly, a wet-lease company that provides aircraft and crew to airlines on short-term contracts. Hi Fly acquired the double-decker plane from Singapore Airlines last year in the first transaction of its kind in the secondary market.

Having undergone maintenance work this winter the aircraft is now ready for commercial service and will be placed with a single customer during the IATA summer season, which runs from late March to late October.

Interview: Talal Abdulkarim, Syrian Arab Airlines CEO

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Syrian Arab Airlines provoked a curious mixture of applause and raised eyebrows at the annual meeting of the Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO) in Cairo in November, when chief executive, Talal Abdulkarim, urged the industry group to hold its next get-together in Damascus.

The Syrian capital would not have been the first venue to spring to mind when AACO began making plans for its 2019 meeting. In all honesty, it was probably dead last.

Syria has been torn apart by eight years of brutal civil war that began with an Arab Spring uprising but quickly morphed into a multi-faceted battle between regional governments, world powers and a spectrum of rebel groups – most notorious among them the fanatical Islamists of Daesh, who at one point controlled roughly half the country...

Pichler flies the flag against the high threat of low-cost

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Ryanair’s decision to launch 14 routes to Jordan last year could easily have been a disaster for Royal Jordanian Airlines, the country’s flag-carrier.

Only two other Middle Eastern and North African nations – Israel and Morocco – have experienced a large-scale influx of low-cost airlines from Europe. The flag-carriers of both countries struggled financially when their markets opened up to no-frills competition.

Yet, despite facing the same headwinds, Royal Jordanian delivered an 87% rise in net profits in the first nine months of last year, accelerating the turnaround launched by new chief executive Stefan Pichler...

Europe’s largest regional airline is bought for the price of a West London flat

Full article on economist.com

If a good compromise is one where all parties are left dissatisfied, this week’s bailout of Flybe by Connect Airways—a consortium led by Virgin Atlantic, Britain’s second-largest airline—must be a very good deal indeed. Bosses of the regional airline, which is Europe’s largest, have the ignominy of selling a company once worth a quarter of a billion pounds for just £2.8m ($3.6m). Investors will be paid just 1p for shares they might have purchased for £3.41 when the airline was listed on the London Stock Exchange eight years ago. And the consortium—including Stobart Group, which owns an Irish regional airline—inherits £82m of debt and relatively few assets for its trouble...

Last laugh for WOW Air as Indigo swoops, Icelandair fumbles

Full article on forbes.com

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” was almost certainly the rationale behind Icelandair’s now-canceled decision to take over WOW Air this month.

The Icelandic flag-carrier has steadily lost market share since its lower-cost, more nimble, better marketed rival took to the skies in 2012 – copying its intercontinental hub model but with greater efficiencies and a stronger brand.

When Icelandair walked away from the deal yesterday – essentially hinting that WOW’s financial problems were terminal – pundits sounded a death knell for the younger carrier. WOW’s founder, Skuli Mogensen, had been candid that his airline was struggling amid high oil prices and market jitters over the collapse of Primera Air, another low-cost long-haul airline. Joining forces with a flag-carrier he had publicly berated for years appeared to be a final, grudging throw of the dice...