December 1st 2023

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Through much of the second half of 2023, a very public debate took place between U.S. carriers about the allocation of highly sought after take-off and landing slots at Tokyo Haneda airport. Read More »

This debate reached a significant milestone this month when the U.S. Department of Transport rejected a Delta Air Lines request to utilise up to two of its U.S.-Tokyo Haneda slot pairs to serve the downtown airport from any U.S. gateway of the airline’s choosing, rather than on routes for which those slot pairs were granted. Delta’s bid was backed by American Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines and opposed by United Airlines. It was far from the end of public claims and counterclaims about the best use of scarce Haneda slots.

Airbus boosted its A320 production capacity with the opening of a Final Assembly Line (FAL) in the building formerly occupied by the aerospace giant’s A380 program. The Toulouse facility, alongside FALs in Hamburg, Mobile and Tianjin, is critical to Airbus plans to increase A320 production to 75 aircraft a month by 2026.

As the grounding of India’s Go First entered its third month, the airline opened an Expression of Interest process in a search for new investors or buyers of the failing LCC.

Still in India, SpiceJet managing director, Ajay Singh, provided the LCC with a 5 billion rupee (US$61 million) capital injection to “accelerate its expansion, capture new opportunities in the market and increase revenue and profits”.

Korean Air said its Available Seat Kilometres, had reached 82% of pre-pandemic capacity in the month.

Virgin Australia announced plans to upgrade the cabins of its existing 737 fleet to approximate the amenities on the carrier’s 737 MAXs as part of a two-year refurbishment program. The refurbished aircraft will be fitted with in-seat power, a tablet/personal electronic device holder and the return of WiFi on board.

Still in Australia, new LCC, Bonza, revealed growing pains in the month when it removed five domestic routes from its network to improve operational reliability and address a passenger demand shortfall.

Capital A logistics company, Teleport, celebrated the arrival of its first A321F freighter, adding extra capacity to its network.

There were troubling times at Bamboo Airlines, which lost its CEO this month when Nguyen Minh Hai left the company less than two months after taking on the role. A host of directors also quit their board seats and its chairman was detained by investigators.

The aviation MRO sector appeared to be well on the road to recovery following SIA Engineering Company’s first quarterly profit since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Market consolidation also was on the cards during the month, after Safran bid to acquire Collins Aerospace actuation and flight control division in a deal valued at US$1.8 billion.