Aviation

  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 ...

  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 ...

  Paris / AFP Air France-KLM announced on Wednesday it had trimmed losses in the first quarter of 2016 but the airline said passenger traffic to Paris had been affected by terror attacks in Europe and it warned of a difficult year ahead. The Franco-Dutch group warned of doubts over fuel prices, some bloated routes and uncertainty over the economic ...

  Frankfurt / AFP Lufthansa shares nosedived on Tuesday after the German airline said one-off effects and price pressures pushed it into a loss in the first three months of the year. Lufthansa shares were among the biggest losers in morning trade on the Frankfurt stock exchange, shedding nearly six percent in a market that was down by around 1.4 ...

  Washington / Bloomberg Boeing Co. is prepared to defend its rainmaker 737 jetliner as competition heats up at the top and bottom of the lucrative single-aisle market, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said. The threat to the US planemaker was underscored when Delta Air Lines Inc. announced orders last week for Bombardier Inc.’s all-new C Series jets and Airbus ...

  Bloomberg Delta Air Lines Inc.’s Ed Bastian, the incoming chief executive officer, said he has seen too many bad bets on the price of fuel for the carrier to start hedging again soon. “The reason we haven’t hedged for the last year and a half is there’s just too much volatility, and we’ve been burned,” Bastian said in an ...

  Paris / AFP Air France-KLM’s board of directors have appointed Jean-Marc Janaillac, the current head of French transport group Transdev, as the group’s new chief executive following the surprise resignation of Alexandre de Juniac. “The board has decided that MrJanaillac will be co-opted as a group director when Mr de Juniac leaves office on July 31 at the latest. ...

  Bloomberg Air Canada surged the most in two years after reporting an unexpected first-quarter profit and saying a key earnings measure would rise to a record this year. Adjusted profit was 30 Canadian cents a share, the country’s largest carrier said in a statement that was released recently. Analysts expected a loss of 19 Canadian cents, according to the ...

  Bloomberg InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., the operator of India’s biggest airline IndiGo, slumped in Mumbai after President Aditya Ghosh told analysts that a cooling issue faced by some engines powering the A320neo jets has the potential to hurt the carrier’s low-cost model. Shares of the company fell 5 percent to Rs.1,022.25 in Mumbai after tumbling as much as 6.5 percent ...

  Bloomberg India’s largest airline, which faced delivery delays for its first A320neo jets over issues with Pratt & Whitney engines, said it would consider a competing CFM International power plant for a later order. IndiGo, Airbus Group SE’s biggest customer for the fuel-efficient A320neo, has chosen Pratt for the first 150 of the aircraft, Aditya Ghosh, the carrier’s president, ...