Aviation

Bloomberg The Netherlands has rejected a cost-cutting plan put forth by Air France-KLM’s Dutch arm and withheld a portion of a $4 billion government bailout until it approves the restructuring plan. The Dutch government won’t grant a second tranche of state aid because pilot union VNV rejected a pay cut, Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra and Infrastructure and Water Management Minister ...

Bloomberg IAG SA, owner of British Airways, said it is conducting a review of hedging policy after the coronavirus pandemic sparked a mammoth loss on oil derivatives contracts. The company uses such contracts to try and limit its fuel bill — usually the single biggest expense for airlines — but lost 1.6 billion euros ($1.9 billion) as a result of ...

Bloomberg IndiGo will trim its fleet size over the next two years as the coronavirus pandemic continues to weigh on Asia’s biggest budget airline by market value and other carriers around the world. “Fleet count will be stagnant, go down a little,” CEO Ronojoy Dutta told analysts during a conference call. “In 2022, we will be down slightly, by 2023, ...

Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc shareholders backed a 2 billion-pound ($2.6 billion) equity raise, a key step towards shoring up the British engine maker’s finances to outlast the Covid-19 pandemic. Investors voted 99.5% in favour of the rights issue, according to a statement. Their support means Rolls-Royce can access a further 3 billion pounds of funds, through a bond sale and ...

Bloomberg EasyJet Plc sold more jets to aircraft lessors, raising almost $400 million to pad its finances against a surge in Covid-19 cases that’s pushed a travel recovery into next year. The UK discount airline said it sold nine Airbus SE A320 jets in two transactions, and will lease the planes back for almost 10 years, according to a statement. ...

Bloomberg SpiceJet Ltd is starting a seaplane service connecting the city of Ahmedabad with Kevadia, site of the world’s tallest statue — a 182-metre tribute to the country’s first home minister, Vallabhbhai Patel. Flights will start this Saturday, the 145th anniversary of Patel’s birth, from Sabarmati riverfront to near the so-called Statue of Unity. Fares for the 30-minute trip on ...

Bloomberg Many European airports will struggle to stave off insolvency without state help unless travel recovers from its pandemic slump by the end of the year, according to the continent’s main industry group. Airports Council International Europe predicts that 193 out of 740 airports in the region will soon struggle to pay their bills while government-imposed quarantine requirements remain in ...

Bloomberg ANA Holdings’s plan to launch a new low-cost carrier has doubters, given the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on airlines worldwide and an industry trend towards retrenching. The company said it will launch a new budget brand around fiscal year 2022, targeting medium-distance flights to Southeast Asia and Oceania. That coincided with the carrier unveiling a restructuring plan involving cost reductions ...

Bloomberg ANA Holdings Inc forecast its biggest-ever operating loss of 505 billion yen ($4.8 billion) for the fiscal year through March 2021, the latest airline to face an existential threat to its business due to the pandemic. The Japanese carrier unveiled a restructuring plan that calls for: A newly branded low-cost carrier in addition to Peach, the budget airline already ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG told staff that winter schedule cutbacks will cause it to bench an additional 125 aircraft and temporarily close large parts of its administrative operations. The reduction will cut the carrier’s active fleet back to the level it operated in the 1970s, with the impact filtering through its operations, it said in a letter to employees seen ...