Aviation

Lufthansa reins in expansion as crowded skies threaten profit

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG will rein in expansion plans this year as a glut of plane seats depresses ticket prices and travellers delay bookings amid fears of terror attacks. Capacity growth this year will be below the previously targeted 6 percent, Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr said in an interview in Berlin. That marks the second reduction in projected ...

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Solar Impulse 2 flies from Arizona on historic flight

  Los Angeles / AFP The Solar Impulse 2 took off from Phoenix, Arizona to Oklahoma on Thursday, resuming its record-breaking quest to circle the globe without consuming a drop of fuel. The experimental solar-powered plane, piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, took off for the latest stage of its around-the-world flight aimed at drawing attention to clean energy technologies. ...

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Qatar Airways postpones longest non-stop flight

  Doha & Paris / Reuters Qatar Airways has delayed the launch of the world’s longest scheduled direct flight — from Doha to Auckland, New Zealand — by two months because of the late delivery of Airbus A350s, an airline spokeswoman said. “I can confirm we are looking at February. It’s due to aircraft availability, specifically the delay in delivery ...

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EasyJet flies into a loss over Brussels attacks

  Luton / AFP-Bloomberg British no-frills airline EasyJet on Tuesday said it had fallen into a loss during the first half of its financial year in the wake of the Brussels attacks. Its earnings statement added that future revenues would be impacted also by recent events in the Belgian capital. Net losses stood at £20 million ($29 million, 25 million ...

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Turkish Airlines posts biggest loss as direct traffic dips

  Bloomberg Turkey’s national airline reported the biggest loss since at least 1999 in the first quarter as geopolitical risks and security concerns pressured direct traffic into the country. Turkish Airlines posted a loss of 1.24 billion liras ($422 million) in the three months through March, compared with a net income of 373 million liras in the same period a ...

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Lufthansa under stress amid revamp struggle

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG said passenger fares are set to erode further this year as it grapples with unions over a restructuring of European operations aimed at stemming the flow of customers to discount rivals. The stock fell as much as 7.1 percent. Lufthansa’s yield, a measure that reflects average ticket prices, suffered the biggest drop in at least ...

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JetBlue, Bombardier resume talks on C Series

  Bloomberg JetBlue Airways Corp. resumed talks with Bombardier Inc. about a possible order of the planemaker’s C Series aircraft, after a pause in discussions earlier this year, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides began meeting over the jetliner in the second half of last year, but broke off negotiations about two months ago, said the people, ...

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Plunging fares to guzzle fuel saving, says Air France-KLM

  Bloomberg Air France-KLM Group said air fares will come under sustained pressure this summer amid a glut in capacity, making it tougher to maintain the pricing discipline that helped the company pare losses in the first quarter. Declining unit revenue, a measure that reflects average fares, wiped €119 million ($137 million) from earnings in the three months through March, ...

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Business-jet sales dip most since 2011

  Bloomberg Sales of new private aircraft fell 16 percent in the first quarter from a year ago as demand weakened for the largest planes. Jet airplane billings were about $3.53 billion in the first quarter, down from $4.2 billion a year earlier, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. That was the biggest decline in almost five years. Demand ...

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Airbus sets sights on the stratosphere with glider flight

  Minden / AFP Airbus completed a test flight of a glider set to eventually travel to the edge of space, in a pioneering step into the stratosphere. The Perlan 2’s flight, from an airstrip in the western US state of Nevada, took place two hours after the planned start time due to heavy rain. It lasted just a few minutes ...

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