Orient Aviation May 2014
Cover Story
Myanmar’s airline industry tested by rapid growth
STAMPEDE
Little more than two years ago, Myanmar was one of the region’s forgotten aviation markets. Decades of isolation, under a repressive political regime, had excluded the resources rich country from the region’s airline boom, but no longer, as Tom Ballantyne reports. Read More »
News Backgrounder
Not enough vetting, not enough tracking
No, unlike our texts and emails, governments and their ATC operators are not always tracking commercial airline flights. Nor are immigration authorities consistently checking passengers with airline supplied lists or Interpol notifications. Read More »
News Backgrounder
Philippines returns to global skies
"This country is definitely back on the global aviation map,” declared Philippine Airlines (PAL) president, Ramon Ang, in April when the U.S.’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it had restored the Philippine’s category 1 safety rating. Read More »
News Backgrounder
Another ten budget carriers will be launched across the Asia-Pacific by year end, adding to the 47 low-cost airlines competing for the region’s bargain hunting present and future travelers. Read More »
News Backgrounder
When the Asia-Pacific’s largest LCC operator, the AirAsia Group, recently announced it had signed a deal that will sell all the carrier’s fares and ancillary services via the Travelport global distribution system (GDS, industry watchers agreed the decision was a groundbreaker in the GDS world. Read More »
Special Reports: MRO
Manufacturers win more airline business from MROs
Global spending on MRO for jets and turboprops will increase by more than 4% this year, to $57.7 billion, and reach $86.8 billion by 2024, industry forecaster TeamSAI reported in its latest Global MRO & Fleet Forecast. Read More »
Special Reports: MRO
Foreign carriers boost China MRO earnings
Servicing aircraft operating the expanding schedules of international flights into China is an increasingly profitable business for Mainland MROs. Read More »
Comment
No gain without pain is clearly the story for Myanmar’s emerging aviation market. A little more than two years after the country opened its doors to the world, following decades of isolation under military rule, the aviation sector is in overdrive. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Europe questions foreign investment in EU airlines
The European Commission (EC) will investigate foreign airline ownership in European carriers, including Korean Air’s (KAL) 44% holding in Czech Airlines, Chinese investors’ 35% equity in Cargolux and Etihad Airways’ part purchases of airberlin, swiss carrier Darwin airline, and the Abu Dhabi’s airline’s planned investment in Italy’s Alitalia. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Star scores its first partner in India
Air India, which applied to join the Star Alliance seven years ago, will become a Star member in July, reported the alliance’s CEO, Mark Schwab. Star accepted Air India’s application for membership in 2007, but the admission process was postponed four years later to allow the carrier time to work through a painful merger with its domestic partner and begin to turn around years of losses. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Unity needed to achieve carbon neutral goals
The aviation industry must speak and act with one voice if its target of carbon neutral growth by 2020 is to be met, said Tony Tyler, the director general and CEO of the International Transport Association (IATA) last month. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Garuda Indonesia fines tunes network
Garuda Indonesia has shelved plans to develop an Australia-London route and will refocus on opportunities in Asia, particularly Japan. The Indonesian flag carrier has invested in a fleet of B777-300ERs, which were intended to build demand for a one-stop service between Sydney and London via Indonesia. In North Asia, Garuda can reap the benefit of its SkyTeam membership, as well as its new partnership with All Nippon Airways. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Shandong Airlines to buy 50 B737s
Twenty-year-old Shandong Airlines, controlled by the Shandong Aviation Group, has agreed to purchase 50 Boeing 737-800s (16) and 737 MAXs (34) for an estimated US$4.6 billion. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Airbus has won an order for seven A320neo, with three options, from Royal Brunei Airways, as the carrier continues its fleet upgrade and renewal. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Philippine Airlines (PAL) has joined several carriers in the Asia-Pacific in banning the carriage of shark fin. Read More »
Regional Round-Up
Mainland pilots allege airline safety threatened
Air China has verified reports circulating via social media that more than one hundred of the carrier’s pilots claim overwork and underpay of cockpit crew is undermining the airline’s safety. Read More »
Short Takes
AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has signed on Airbus ProSky to develop an Asia-Pacific air traffic flow management strategy that will have a major goal of integrating and co-ordinating ATFM capabilities across the region. Read More »
MRO briefly …
Switzerland-based SR Technics, owned by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company, and AeroAsia (GMF) have established a component support shop in Jakarta for Garuda’s A330s and B737NG aircraft. Read More »
Business Digest
Lunar New Year boosts passenger demand
A total of 19.5 million international passengers flew on Asia-Pacific airlines in February, 3.8% more than in the same month last year. The numbers benefitted from an increase in leisure traffic during the Chinese New Year festive period from late January to early February. Measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), international passengers carried increased by a corresponding 3.8%, which underlined continued demand for long- haul and regional travel. Available seat capacity expanded by 5.2%, which produced a1.0 percentage point fall in the average international passenger load factor, to 77.0%, for the month. Read More »
