Korea’s dominant LCC, Jeju Air, announced today it was walking away from a proposed takeover of fellow South Korean LCC, Eastar Jet.Read More »In a filing with the Korea Stock Exchange, the airline said its decision was the resultof violations in the purchase contract and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Under the deal, Jeju Air would have purchased 51% of Eastar for 54.5 billion won (US$45.5 million) from the LCC’s parent, Eastar Holdings.
Eastar, which faces an uncertain future in the absence of new ownership, called on Jeju Air to proceed with the transaction. Eastar senior vice president, Kim You-sang, told the Yonhap News Agency the airline would "seek every possible measure to make Jeju take responsibility for the deal's collapse". The sale already had been delayed once.
Japan Airlines (JAL) has pared its planned domestic capacity expansion for the first week of August following the country’s recent rise in coronavirus cases. "With a new wave of COVID-19 cases being detected in Japan, the number of incoming reservations is running below the current forecast for the first half of August," JAL said in a statement yesterday. As a result, the airline planned to operate 85% of normal capacity from August 2-8, down from a previously scheduled 90%. The schedule for rest of the month is unchanged.
Japanese LCC, PeachAviation, said yesterday it was back to operating a full domestic schedule of about 100 daily flights on 22 routes, which had been part of the airline's business plan before the coronavirus outbreak. The All Nippon Airways (ANA) group carrier said it intended to operate 3,967 flights in August, 21% above the initial business plan of 3,270 flights for the month.
Privately-held Myanmar Airways International (MAI) has written an open letter to the country's government calling for a "level playing field" in the provision of relief flights. The letter, posted by MAI CEO, Saravanan Ramasamy, on his Linkedin page, said the airline was keen to continue relief flight operations to help those wishing to return home and support the carriage of medical supplies of cargo during the coronavirus pandemic. "With the recent request to grant specific carrier preference to undertake such relief flight operations, our humble request is for us to be given a level playing field to continue to demonstrate our passion to serve the nation," the MAI letter said. Myanmar's border is expected to remain closed to international passenger flights until at least October.
Air New Zealand (AirNZ) said yesterday it had extended its current pause on accepting new bookings for New Zealanders looking to fly to the country until July 29 to ensure compliance with the government's rolling 14-day quota. AirNZ has limited capacity for inbound international services since July 7 at the request of the government to help ensure the country could better align daily arrivals with capacity available at managed isolation facilities.
Airports of Thailand (AoT) figures showed Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport had 187,909 passengers in June, down 96.1% from 4.8 million year ago. Despite the substantial year-on-year decline, the June figures represented more than triple the 55,280 passengers transported through the airport in May. Aircraft movements rose 47% month-on-month, to 5,043 in June, from 3,433 in May.
