Aviation

Bloomberg The aircraft that broke down the door to intercontinental flying for the masses has a new mission: lugging as many German tourists as possible on the short-haul hop to Mallorca. Deutsche Lufthansa AG will deploy 364-seat Boeing Co 747-8s on two-hour trips from Frankfurt after looser coronavirus curbs spurred bookings 25-fold since April, it said. The jet will ply ...

Bloomberg South Africa agreed to sell a majority stake in the country’s grounded national carrier to a local jet-leasing company and private-equity firm, ridding the government of an entity that has long been a drain on state finances. A consortium comprised of Johannesburg-based Global Airways, which owns recently launched domestic airline Lift, and private-equity firm Harith General Partners will take ...

Bloomberg Reopening more international travel routes from the UK will be “challenging” because the country must do everything it can to protect itself from new coronavirus variants, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said. Britain last week tightened restrictions on overseas travel, removing Portugal from its so-called green list in a major blow to the airline industry. Restoring travel in the medium-term ...

Bloomberg Airbus SE inched closer to a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic after increasing the number of jetliner deliveries to 50 last month. The European planemaker accelerated production with five more planes handed over than in April, according to a statement that confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report. Airbus is plotting a way out of the Covid-19 crisis even as a ...

Bloomberg Buyout firm KKR & Co is close to reaching an agreement to buy Atlantic Aviation from Macquarie Infrastructure Corp, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal could value the airport services company at about $4.5 billion, including debt, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter was private. A sale was expected to ...

Bloomberg Lufthansa Consulting GmbH is in talks with Sudan’s government over a role in restructuring one of Africa’s oldest airlines. “If not through a joint venture, they can help to restructure Sudan Airways so that it can be competitive,” Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim said in an interview. He didn’t give more details or say at what stage the discussions were. ...

Bloomberg UK tourists scrambled to return from Portugal before a quarantine requirement kicks in on Tuesday, driving up ticket prices as travellers rearranged flights ahead of the deadline. A three-hour British Airways flight from Faro, in the popular Algarve region, to London City airport on Monday night costs $1,000, according to Skyscanner. The following day, when passengers will be subject ...

Bloomberg Labour unions have asked the federal government to review its approval of Breeze Airways to operate in the US, citing concerns over the discount carrier’s recruitment and employment policies. The unions said Breeze, an upstart domestic carrier founded by airline entrepreneur David Neeleman, violated age discrimination and diversity statutes with a plan to hire flight attendants solely through a ...

Bloomberg IndiGo, one of Asia’s biggest budget airlines, reported a wider-than-anticipated loss as passenger traffic shrank with the coronavirus tearing through India. The carrier, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, posted a loss of $157 million in the three months through March, its fourth quarter. That compared with a loss of 8.7 billion rupee a year ago. The average forecast from ...

Bloomberg France will allow vaccinated travellers from the European Union to enter without showing negative Covid-19 tests starting from June 9, a move designed to ease travel before the traditional summer holiday season. The looser rules unveiled for one of the world’s top destinations will organise countries into three categories, with visitors from so-called “green” nations accepted with proof of ...