Aviation

  Tokyo / AFP Japan Airlines on Monday slashed its full-year earnings outlook, and warned its fiscal first-half net profit nosedived owing to a slump in its international business. While falling oil prices have helped carriers’ profits — fuel is often an airline’s single-biggest expense — the loss of a fuel surcharge imposed to deal with previously sky-high crude prices ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business British Airways (BA) launched a direct flight between Muscat and London, further adding convenience to customers travelling between the two regions. The UK carrier, which first began flying to Oman in 1972, inaugurated the new service with a water cannon salute as it landed at Muscat International Airport on Monday. Customers, who previously flew between the ...

  Bloomberg Business-jet deliveries are dropping and won’t rebound before 2018, according to a benchmark forecast of corporate aircraft demand over the next decade. Honeywell International Inc. lowered its annual long-term forecast for private jets by 7 percent, or 600 aircraft, as emerging markets suffer from low commodity prices and the U.S. economy limps along at a slow pace. As ...

  Sydney / AFP Australian carrier Qantas flagged on Monday a hit to first half earnings with falling international airfares offsetting a decline in fuel prices. The airline, which has turned itself around in recent years on the back of aggressive cost-cutting, said it expects underlying profit before tax to be between Aus$800-850 million (US$607-645 million) for the six months ...

  Bloomberg China has a dream of challenging the duopoly of Airbus Group SE and Boeing Co. in the global market for air planes. That ambition is slowly taking shape in a hangar in Shanghai. The state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd., locally known as COMAC, is building the 168-seat, single-aisle aircraft C919, betting the model would help the ...

  New York / AFP Low-cost air carriers are spreading their wings across the Atlantic, much to the chagrin of the major airlines now forced to serve new destinations and cut fares. Transatlantic flights operated by Norwegian Air, Iceland’s Wow air, Canada’s WestJet and Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc have multiplied in recent years as jet fuel has grown cheaper. Frequently ...

  Bloomberg The UK’s government’s decision to expand London’s Heathrow airport is about ‘50 years too late,’ according to the chief executive officer of Dubai Airports, which is building one of the world’s largest aviation hubs. “Unfortunately the bureaucracy in the UK seems to be the world’s most refined and the world’s most comprehensive when it comes to strangling infrastructure ...

  Bloomberg Thanks to new technology, flying in a private jet is no longer just for business titans and the super-wealthy. But in a paradox, that means aircraft manufacturers like Cessna and Bombardier Inc. are selling fewer planes. The general aviation industry is undergoing a major shakeup as new business models attempt to match idle aircraft with passengers, many of ...

  Bloomberg British Airways is betting on a trans-Atlantic boost from the weaker pound to help offset the negative impacts of the U.K.’s Brexit vote. BA’s dollar bookings will be worth more following sterling’s near 20 percent decline against the US currency, while there’s scope for higher fares as US carriers rein in capacity, Willie Walsh, chief executive officer of ...

  Shanghai / AFP China’s three biggest airlines all reported surging net profits in the third quarter, statements showed, as the country’s economy stablises. Net profit for China Southern, Asia’s biggest airline by fleet size, leaped to 3.31 billion yuan ($425.1 million) in the three months to September, nearly three times the 1.18 billion yuan made in the same period ...