It has been a stellar year for Orient Aviation’s 2014 Person of the Year, Christopher Luxon, and his team of “Air New Zealanders”. After less than two years as Air New Zealand’s (Air NZ) CEO, he has reported record profits for the Auckland headquartered carrier as his “Go Beyond” strategy propels the company to greater fiscal and service heights. Read More »

Relentless growth has not translated into profits in the last year, the director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA), Andrew Herdman, told delegates at the association’s 58th annual Assembly of Presidents last month, held this year in Tokyo. Read More »

Corporate introspection has been the name of the game at Malaysian Airlines (MAS) this year. Said the carrier’s CEO, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, at a leading industry gathering in November: “the incidents we had in 2014 caused us to take a very hard look at what we are doing, what we did in past years and what we need to do as we move forward.” Read More »

Taiwan’s China Airlines may have become the region’s latest full-service carrier to enter the budget sector with Tigerair Taiwan, a joint-venture with Singapore’s Tigerair, but the lone standout in the no-frills subsidiary stakes, Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways, is standing firm. Read More »

He stopped short of calling it a crisis, but the director general of the region’s leading airline body repeated that airline infrastructure remains a major problem for the Asia-Pacific airlines as they surge in growth. Read More »

Demonstrating determination to survive despite the forced cancellation of its A380 order, Japan’s Skymark Airlines has sought regulatory approval to commence some domestic codeshare flights with Japan Airlines (JAL) in 2015. Read More »

In only 33 months, Japan’s commercial low-cost carrier (LCC) business has gone from zero to five budget operators, with added competition for customers from regional LCCs whose passengers are keen travelers to Japan. Read More »

Until the final months the year, 2014 was not substantially different from the previous twelve months for the region’s extremely competitive airlines. The main issues were over-capacity – producing low yields and a flat trajectory for Asia-Pacific air cargo. Read More »

Life at the top of the region’s airlines was generally stable in 2014, with a few notable exceptions. Airlines that have endured the deepest traumas in the last year also were the carriers that suffered upheaval at the top. Read More »

China’s slowing economy dampened the mood of the region’s airline industry in the past year as carriers grew increasingly concerned that a primary driver of its growth might slow expansion. They needn’t have worried. Read More »

Following two of the safest years in commercial aviation, the events of 2014 brought into sharp relief the industry tenet that disaster can be seconds away - and not always as a result of operational error. Read More »

When it comes to the Asia-Pacific LLC sector in 2014, it’s been too much, too soon. Read More »

It was certainly more of the same for most Asia-Pacific airlines in 2014. The passengers kept booking in increasing numbers, but the collective bottom line did not reflect the growth. Read More »

Qantas took delivery of its 75th B737-800, which was named in honor of the airline’s former CEO James Strong, who died last year. Read More »

Air China and Air New Zealand (ANZ) have signed a Statement of Intent to form a strategic alliance on services between China and New Zealand that is scheduled to begin in the new year, improving access for the more than half a million Chinese tourists New Zealand expects to visit the country by 2020. Read More »

India’s government told the nation’s parliament that only nine of Air India’s 370 daily departures are profitable, The Times of India has reported. Read More »

Outspoken Qatar Airways chief executive officer (CEO), Akbar Al Baker said during a panel discussion at the Arab Air Carriers Organisation recent annual general meeting in Dubai, he wanted three “growing airlines” in the Gulf: Emirates Airlines, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways. Read More »

Stalled Jetstar Hong Kong, a proposed Hong Kong budget carrier, said last month that many of its pilots have either resigned or been redeployed because the airline has been waiting nearly three years for the Hong Kong authorities to issue it with an air operator’s certificate (OAC). Read More »

Malaysia Airlines confirms Mueller as turnaround CEO

Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah Nasional, which will soon take full ownership of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), has announced that  Christoph Mueller will be nominated as MAS’s CEO-designate and a non-executive director from January 1. Read More »

Etihad Airways protégé, Jet Airways wants to turn Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport into a mini-hub to extend its network to East Asia and take advantage of the fifth and sixth freedom rights already in place between India and Thailand, the Abu Dhabi carrier told The Bangkok Post. Read More »

Upsetting Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airlines, and some other industry veterans, was the decision by the taskforce established by the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to explore threats to civil aviation, when it ruled that the existing framework is “fit for purpose” and that individual states should continue to be responsible for the safety of operations in their airspace. Read More »

AIRLINES: Juneyao Airlines’ low-cost subsidiary, Jiuyuan Airlines postponed its inaugural flight from Guangzhou to Zhanjiang to early this month following approval of its routes application. It has 50 B737-800 and MAX aircraft on order. Thai long-haul budget start-up, NokScoot, has unveiled its livery, a combination of Nok Air’s quirky bird beak with Scoot’s yellow swoosh. Read More »

Indian low-cost carrier (LCC), SpiceJet, reported a net loss of 3.1 billion rupees (US$50.4 million) for the second quarter ended September 30, narrowed by 45% from a loss of 5.6 billion rupees in the same period a year earlier. Load factor increased 13.3% to 81.9%. Read More »

Long-haul LCC, AirAsia X, a subsidiary of the AirAsia Group, has announced it will trim its Australian network in 2015 after losses from its Australian operations increased to 121.4 million ringgit (US$42 million) in its third quarter, to September 30. Read More »

Aircraft lessor, Avolon, had a busy few days in the first week of December. After months of negotiations, it was informed by China’s aviation conglomerate, AVIC, that the Mainland company would drop its bid to buy the Dublin-based lessor. Read More »

Asia-Pacific airlines continued to record encouraging growth in international passenger demand in August, underpinned by sustained expansion in emerging markets and continued improvement in the U.S. economy. Read More »