Pasaulio aviacijos naujienos

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Keliaujantiems iš Anglijos – tūkstantinės baudos

Jungtinėje Karalystėje vis dar įvestas griežtas karantinas, kuris riboja tarptautines keliones. Visgi, tai gyventojų nesustabdo – tūkstančiai jų kasdien renkasi ne tik darbines, bet ir turistines keliones. Jau nuo kovo 29 d. įsigalios dar griežtesnis nurodymas – visi, keliaujantys be rimtos priežasties, sulauktų net 5 000 svarų sterlingų (5,8 tūkst. Eur) baudos.

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Galima ir taip daryti, norisi paminėti tas vietas kur atrodo svarbūs faktai ir aplinkybės Europinei ar mums aktualiai aviacijos rinkai, kad būtų galima diskutuoti, tik jas grupuojant į trumpą loginės sekos atpasakojimą daug išsišokimų/dalinių minčių šuolių būtų, o ilgą - gautųsi praktikanto rašymas. Ben bandysiu tuomet tą pirmą variantą geriau.

[Romas]

Ar būtina dėti tokias ilgas citatas angliškai?
Užtektų nuorodos, vienos pastraipos ir trumpo esmės atpasakojimo.

[bato_usai]

Ryanair Unhappy With TAP Air Portugal Bailout

Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson has said the airline would continue to fight state-aid for national carriers to the very ‘last resort’. Following appeals of EU Commission approval for French, German, and Swedish government aid, it has its sights set on the Portuguese bailout of flag-carrier TAP – which could end up reaching over €3 billion before its restructuring process is complete.

The fact that Ryanair is unhappy with a state-supported bailout of a national airline should come as a surprise to no one. Over the past year, the Irish low-cost carrier has brought court cases against government support to Air France, SAS, Lufthansa, and Finnair. The airline has filed no less than 16 lawsuits against the European Commission related to state-aid since the beginning of the pandemic.

The latest round of discontent is directed towards the government support for Portuguese flag-carrier TAP Air Portugal. The European Commission first approved the €1.2 billion ($1.435 billion) bailout in June last year. Ryanair has now vowed to appeal the decision and fight what it calls ‘illegal state aid’ to the very ‘last resort’.

For 2021, the Portuguese government has budgeted another €500 million ($606 million) to help its struggling airline. It has already sought approval from the Commission for the funds to be granted as ‘interim aid’ while the airline undergoes restructuring. The plan, submitted in December, involves 2,000 job cuts by 2022, 25% pay cuts, and another €2 billion in state-guaranteed funds to cover expenses until 2024.

Eddie Wilson is skeptical about the airline’s potential of ever being able to repay the funds and that keeping TAP alive will end up being all at the expense of the tax-payers.

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American Airlines unveils $7.5 billion debt sale to repay government loans

American Airlines Group Inc said on Monday it will sell $7.5 billion of bonds and leveraged loans backed by its loyalty program to repay U.S. government debt.

Under the deal announced on Monday, American will issue a private offering of notes worth about $5 billion, half due in 2026 and half in 2029, and a $2.5 billion term loan credit facility.

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Tikrai gaila dėl CSA. Tik ar 82 ml. EUR tokia suma dėl kurios bankrutuojama esamomis sąlygomis? Įtariu, kad tai tik ledkalnio viršūnė.

Čekus vyriausybė atsisakė gelbėti. Bet bankrotas patapo dėl to, kad įsiskolinimų ir turto santykis neigiamas.

“[Czech Airlines] is unable to meet these obligations owing to a lack of liquid funds,” the petition states, adding that the company’s liabilities exceed the value of its assets. “For this reason the [company] is also in a state of over-indebtedness.”

Czech Airlines posted losses of 60 million euros for 2020 as its sales slumped to 20 percent of 2019 levels because of the virus.
https://www.brecorder.com/news/40072...ines-goes-bust

[Sula]

Tikrai gaila dėl CSA. Tik ar 82 ml. EUR tokia suma dėl kurios bankrutuojama esamomis sąlygomis? Įtariu, kad tai tik ledkalnio viršūnė.

[bato_usai]

Gaila čekų. Istoriškai prisimenu juos kaip viena inovatoriškesnių, nestandartinių oro linijų.

Czech Airlines Declared Bankrupt After Previously Laying Off Staff

The fifth oldest airline in the world, Czech Airlines, has been declared bankrupt in Prague last week. The airline is in debt to 266 creditors, mostly suppliers, and 230,000 passengers who are awaiting refunds for canceled flights. The total debts equal $82 million.

The Court has asked ČSA’s creditors to register their claims ahead of their meeting in June. Meanwhile, the insolvency administrator is reportedly weighing up whether to ground the fleet and request the airline to sell its assets. At present, Czech Airlines flights are still operating but at a greatly reduced rate. The airline has taken its ATR aircraft out of it fleet and now only has three planes remaining.

The insolvency proceedings have so far revealed that 266 of ČSA’s creditors are owed CZK 800 million ($36 million). This group contains all the suppliers to the airline. At the same time, there is as many as 230,000 passengers who have been identified as creditors too, because they are owed money for the flights that Czech Airlines had canceled. The total amount of money owed here is as high as one billion Czech Koruna ($46 million).

Last month, ČSA sent a letter to the Employment Office of the Czech Republic to inform it that it would be dismissing its entire workforce of 430 people. The news was the first strong sign that the airline was on the brink of collapse. The news came just several days before the expiry of an emergency moratorium on the airline’s debts at the end of February.

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Wizz Air Abu Dhabi Adds Two New Routes To Kazakhstan

Wizz Air Abu Dhabi was first announced in 2019 with a target launch date in the second half of 2020. The timeline slightly shifted, with the launch postponed from mid-October to mid-November and then to mid-January.

The airline’s launch has been impacted by the global health crisis and travel restrictions to some of its planned destinations. Athens and Thessaloniki have been the main services operating thus far.

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Portuguese government seeks approval for €460m aid to TAP

Portugal’s government has formally notified the European Commission of its intent to grant interim support to flag-carrier TAP. Up to €463 million in aid within the scope of the restructuring can be notified, according to the government.

Finnish flag-carrier Finnair has been cleared to receive €351 million in support, through a hybrid loan, from the country’s government, after the Commission found it to fall within state-aid rules.

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Belavia Takes Delivery Of E195-E2 To Celebrate Its 25th Birthday

The E2s will supplement the carrier’s current fleet of seven E195s and five E175s. Belavia says that it began flying Embraer’s E-Jets in 2012 as part of a fleet modernization plan. The third and final E195-E2 is expected sometime next month.

Since taking delivery of its very first E2, Belavia has mainly deployed it on flights to Istanbul, Turkey. Interestingly, for an aircraft that has been under Belavia’s care since late December, the jet has only flown around 12 round-trip journeys out of Minsk.

Happy Birthday Belavia – The Belarusian Flag Carrier Turns 25

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Huge Demand Prompts Air Serbia To Up New York Frequency

Air Serbia is increasing the frequency of its flights from Belgrade to New York JFK due to increased demand. This is despite the travel restrictions imposed between Serbia and the US as a result of the pandemic.

“The addition of another weekly flight to New York, despite the coronavirus pandemic, is a clear indicator that our transatlantic connection functions well and that it represents one of Air Serbia’s strongest routes. The United States is a very important market for us, and we are glad to provide a continuous and strong flight connectivity, not just to Serbia, but also the broader region.”

Air Serbia first launched flights to New York JFK five years ago and has been flying there continuously up until the pandemic struck and Belgrade Airport was closed. Still, the interruption only lasted for less than three months.

As Simple Flying reported at the time, Air Serbia was the airline with the highest load factor at JFK’s Terminal 4 in September 2020. At 67%, it carried a higher load than any other airline to the Big Apple.

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Emirates wants its employees to take the vaccine instead. This is for both safety and operational reasons, with an internal staff email saying,

“Certain countries may in the future differentiate entry criteria between those who have taken the vaccine and those who did not. Keeping this in mind, having a vaccinated workforce has become essential not just from a health and safety angle but from an operational one too.”
https://simpleflying.com/emirates-un...w-covid-tests/

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Low Cost Carriers Want EU SAF Targets To Apply To Long Haul Flights

The European Commission is working on goals for carriers to use a minimum share of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) to curb the aviation industry’s carbon emissions. As the group redraws targets for 2030, several European low-cost carriers have written to the European Union to ask for sustainable fuel quotes to apply for all flights, not just short-haul services. Easyjet, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Jet2, and the non-governmental organization, Transport & Environment have all signed the letter.

According to Reuters, the signatories are looking for the quotas to apply on trips to and from Europe, not just those within the continent. The letter states that by excluding long-distance operations in the SAF mandate, the key area that needs to be decarbonized the most would not be covered.

The group of organizations referred to information from the air traffic management group, Eurocontrol. The data highlights that 6% of flights from European airports that flew over 4,000 km accounted for half of the total CO2 emissions from services leaving the continent.

Moreover, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary emphasized that it’s not logical to exclude long-haul trips from SAF usage obligations as it’s what he feels is the only way to decarbonize. Earlier this month, Ryanair shared details of its commitment to SAFs. The airline joined the Fuelling Flight Initiative to help it achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the aviation industry.

https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-a...-idUSL4N2L83JG

The European Commission is drawing up targets for airlines to use a minimum share of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), to curb the sector’s planet-warming CO2 emissions. In December Brussels shelved a draft 5% target for 2030 for being too low.

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Norway blocks Rolls-Royce asset sale to Russians, cites security concerns

The Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM) expressed doubts over the $178 million sale of the Norwegian engine manufacturing company owned by Britain’s Rolls-Royce to Russian-controlled company THM Group. The deal is being assessed due to the security-related implications for Norway‘s navy and the civilian sector. On March 9, 2021, the government of Norway announced the suspension of the sale arguing that there was “significant uncertainty in relation to national security interests” related to the deal.

In 2019, Norway implemented a new national security-related law under which the government received the right to suspend foreign acquisitions when the national country‘s interests are involved.

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US And EU Agree To Suspend Aircraft Tariffs For Four Months

The United States and the European Union agreed this week to suspend all retaliatory tariffs exports between the two imposed in the Airbus and Boeing disputes for a period of four months. This move will allow both parties to concentrate on resolving the ongoing trade dispute between the pair.

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Hope lies in leisure and cargo as Lufthansa suffers 2020 loss of €6.7bn

Overall, for the year ending 31 December 2020, Lufthansa Group reported a net loss of €6.7 billion on a 63% drop in revenues to €13.6 billion.The group’s airlines saw revenues down 74% at €7.2 billion, as they recorded an adjusted operating loss of €5.4 billion.

It closed the year with net debt some 43% higher at €9.92 billion.

“The Lufthansa Group is well financed beyond 2021,” says chief financial officer Remco Steenbergen. “This is also helped by the previously unused elements of the stabilisation package, which we can draw on as needed to further strengthen our balance sheet.”

That potential recovery is backed by group liquidity of around €10.6 billion ($12.8 billion) as of 31 December 2020 – including €5.7 billion related to undrawn government stabilisation measures.

Etihad operating loss more than doubles in 2020

Etihad Airways has accelerated restructuring efforts after its core annual operating loss more than doubled to $1.7 billion in 2020. The Middle Eastern airline had made an operating loss of around $800 million in 2019. EBITDA swung a profit of $450 million in 2019 to a $650 million loss last year.

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airBaltic Plans 3 Week Trial Of IATA's Travel Pass Health Passport

airBaltic today revealed its plans to become one of the airlines trialing IATA’s health passport solution. Initially running for three weeks, airBaltic will offer the solution on two routes originating in Riga. Passengers traveling to and from Olso and Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport will be able to use the offering.

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FAA Selects Five Host Airports to Test and Evaluate Unmanned Aircraft Detection and Mitigation Systems

The research will lead to the implementation of new technologies that will make airports safer for passengers and manned aircraft. Researchers plan to test and evaluate at least 10 technologies or systems at these airports. Testing will begin later this year and continue through 2023. It will create standards for future unmanned aircraft detection and mitigation technologies at airports around the country.

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Czech Airlines insolvency petition outlines scale of financial burden
https://www.flightglobal.com/airline...142693.article

Czech Airlines’ insolvency petition sets out the scale of the company’s financial problems, which it partly attributes to the inability to source rescue funding from the Czech government.

The company has 266 creditors, with the total liability to suppliers amounting to Kc809 million ($37.1 million) as of 25 February, its petition to a Prague municipal court states.

But the petition, seen by FlightGlobal, adds that there is a debt of nearly Kc1 billion to “hundreds of thousands” of passengers who are owed for the cancellation of flights.

“[Czech Airlines] is unable to meet these obligations owing to a lack of liquid funds,” the petition states, adding that the company’s liabilities exceed the value of its assets.

“For this reason the [company] is also in a state of over-indebtedness.”

It is blaming the need to file the petition on a combination of the impact of the pandemic, an absence of support from the Czech government, and the competitive pressure from other better-funded carriers.

“Virtually all of the [airline’s] competitors have received significant state aid,” it says.

The petition puts the company’s revenues last year at Kc1.69 billion compared with Kc8.5 billion in 2019 and over Kc9 billion in 2018.