Aviation

  Bloomberg India is considering buying and leasing small planes to local carriers as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to connect remote towns and villages by air, people familiar with the proposal said. To succeed, Modi’s plans would need small, 20-seat aircraft, which are usually not leased out by traditional aircraft-renting companies, the people said, declining to be ...

  Bloomberg International Airfinance Corp. Ltd. is seeking to raise at least $1 billion to buy 18 Airbus Group SE planes that will be leased to Saudi Arabian Airlines, according to three people with knowledge of the plan. IAFC is exploring options including 12-year amortizing loans to pay for 10 A330-300 jets and eight A320 narrow-bodies due for delivery in ...

  Bloomberg How do airlines make money? You might be tempted to answer, “by selling plane tickets.” But it’s rarely as simple as that. Take AirAsia Bhd., the Malaysian budget carrier that reported third-quarter results on Thursday. It’s become so dominant in Southeast Asia that rivals have started ganging up on it. Yet you have to go back as far ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business British Airways launched its new British Airways BOTler, a personal Facebook Messenger BOT that serves customers with a ‘best of the best’ guide to travelling to London this winter. In highlighting numerous reasons to visit the UK capital this winter season, the British Airways BOTler will offer live updates on exclusive deals and personalised recommendations ...

  Berlin / AFP Germany’s flagship carrier Lufthansa offered pilots a new wage deal to end a crippling three-day strike that has led to mass flight cancellations affecting over 300,000 passengers. However the pilots’ union Cockpit swiftly rejected the new offer. The airline said it had been forced to cancel more than 2,700 flights since the start of the walkout, ...

  Nairobi / AFP A maverick 72-year-old British pilot taking part in a vintage air rally turned up in South Sudan on Saturday after going missing for a second time when the event arrived in Kenya. Maurice Kirk is one of about a dozen pilots flying vintage biplanes across Africa, but has repeatedly run foul of organisers for failing to ...

  Bloomberg US airlines are posting record profits, awarding hefty pay raises and winning over longtime skeptics like Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The missing ingredient: proof that the industry can weather a downturn. Previous airline booms were followed by busts that eventually forced all the biggest full-service airlines into bankruptcy. The difference this time is an eight-year era of ...

  Bloomberg The biggest version of Airbus Group SE’s A350 wide-body jet made its first flight on Thursday, swelling the twin-engine model’s capacity and casting further doubt on the future of four-turbine planes including the Boeing Co. 747 and the European manufacturer’s own A380. The A350-1000, which departed Airbus’s base in Toulouse, France, at 10:42 a.m. local time, seats 366 ...

  Berlin / AFP Pilots at German flagship carrier Lufthansa stayed away from work for a second straight day on Thursday, forcing the airline to scrap 912 flights and grounding 115,000 more passengers. The airline had already scrapped nearly 900 flights that affected 100,000 passengers on Wednesday after pilots staged a walkout in a row over pay and working conditions. ...

  New York / AP The 50 busiest airports in the US collected more than $183 million last year from travellers using taxis, shuttle buses or other forms of ground transportation, according to Associated Press calculations from data obtained through dozens of public records requests. Fees ranged widely from airport to airport. They were only paid — directly or indirectly ...