Short Takes
September 1st 2012
AIRLINES: Planned low-cost carrier, Jetstar Hong Kong, is advertising for cockpit crew. The joint venture partners, China Eastern and Qantas Airways subsidiary, Jetstar, have applied to the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department for an Air Operating Certificate, despite legal arguments that dispute the partners’ rights to set up in Hong Kong because both Jetstar and China Eastern Airlines are foreign carriers. Read More » AirAsia Japan, a low-cost carrier joint venture between All Nippon Airways and the AirAsia Group, was launched last month from Narita, making it the third LCC to be established in Japan. Thai Airways International (THAI) has announced that Thai Smile will not be a low-cost carrier as formally planned, but will be positioned as a regional airline in the THAI group. THAI said the start- up would be “a distinct premium lite brand within a multi-brand company. At a media briefing, THAI executives said Thai Smile would be to THAI as SilkAir was to Singapore Airlines or Dragonair to Cathay Pacific.” THAI said it would drop plans to set up a low-cost carrier for now and work more closely with its subsidiary Nok Air.
FINANCIAL RESULTS: Asiana Airlines, South Korea’s second international carrier reported a net loss of 47.3 billion won (US$41.8 million) for the three months to June 30, which reversed the positive trend of a net profit of 17.7 billion won in the same three months in 2011. China Southern Airlines, based in Guangzhou, said profits for the six months to June 30, slumped by 84%, to 449 million yuan (US$7.06 million) as a result of currency fluctuations, higher fuel prices and slowing domestic demand. Thai Airways International (THAI) announced a quarterly loss, to June 30, of 1.53 billion baht (US$48.4 million), an improvement over the 7.9 billion baht loss for the same three months a year ago. Despite the losses, THAI reported a net interim profit of 2.2 million baht. However, the airline said it could not be certain of reaching its projected profit of six billion baht for the full year.
MRO: Go Air and Lufthansa Technik, have signed a 10-year component support contract for the Indian low-cost carrier’s 20 A320s and its future fleet of 70 A320neos.
PEOPLE: John Wojick has succeeded Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) recently appointed president and chief executive, Ray Conner, as vice-president sales for BCA. Wojick most recently was vice-president North America for the company. Brad McMullen, who was head of sales for Japan and Oceania, is the new head of North American sales.
ROUTES: Cathay Pacific Airways will launch a four times a week service between Hong Kong and India’s Silicon Valley city of Bangalore on December 1. China Airlines will expand its Australasian network from October 28 with the extension of its four times weekly Taipei-Sydney service to Auckland. Scoot, Singapore’s newest low-cost carrier, has launched its Singapore-Tianjin route with a three times a week service that will increased to four times weekly this month. The new route adds to the Scoot destinations of Sydney, Australia’s Gold Coast and Bangkok.
