Reading Time: 2 minutes The air transport industry in 2017 was definitely a ride to remember: travel bans, laptop bans, a handful of bankruptcies, all at the backdrop of unprecedented financial results for airlines. In this end-of-year post, I’d like to go back to several events that made history. This list does not intend to be complete or objective, […]

Reading Time: 2 minutes The year 2016 seemed to be a year of never-ending aviation incidents. From an Egyptair flight being “forcibly diverted” to Cyprus by a man wanting to impress his girlfriend, to then-Vice Presidential Candidate Mike Pence’s chartered Eastern Airlines 737-700 overrunning the runway at LaGuardia, the accidents and incidents seemed to pile up. The good news, […]

Reading Time: 4 minutes According to the CIA World Factbook, there are 41,820 airports around the world, but not all are created equal, as every investor knows. As the global economy shifts to the East, it’s little wonder that four of the largest airports by the number of passengers carried are located in Asia: Bejing (PEK), Tokyo (HND), Hong […]

Reading Time: < 1 minute Hawaiian Airlines has announced plans to repurchase USD100 million worth of its own stock by the end of 2019. The new stock repurchase programme will extend the existing one, which also covers USD100 million worth of shares. Hawaiian Airlines has repurchased 2.27 million shares worth USD90.5 million in 2017 alone. According to an SEC filing, […]

Reading Time: 2 minutes The airlines of the Lufthansa Group have so far welcomed around 121 million passengers on board their aircraft in 2017. The seat load factor this year remains on a record course of 81.1 percent. In November 2017, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group welcomed around 10.1 million passengers. This shows an increase of 32% compared […]

Reading Time: 6 minutes The International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecasts global industry net profit to rise to $38.4 billion in 2018, an improvement from the $34.5 billion expected net profit in 2017 (revised from a $31.4 billion forecast in June). Highlights of expected 2018 performance include: A slight decline in the operating margin to 8.1% (down from 8.3% […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced global passenger traffic results for October showing that demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometers, or RPKs) rose 7.2% compared to the same month last year. Capacity grew 6.2% and load factor climbed 0.8 percentage points to 80.8%, which was a record for the month. October’s performance was a […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes Being shocked by a number of bankruptcies, for around 7 years the global aviation industry had been subject to diminished enthusiasm from investors. However, since 2016, record-low aviation fuel prices have led to more green on the airlines’ balance sheets, growing cash flows in the market and an increasingly positive outlook on the future of […]

Reading Time: < 1 minute Emirates has been working with Australia-based computer-vision technology company Seeing Machines in an effort to understand how pilots interact and monitor instruments in-flight. According to the airline, the findings will allow Emirates to improve training procedures and help flight crew prepare for a wide range of in-flight scenarios. As part of the partnership, Emirates and […]

Reading Time: 2 minutes The fleet size of operators in the Middle East is forecast to more than double from 1,250 to 3,320 aircraft over the next two decades, according to the Airbus Global Market Forecast. The Middle East will need some 2,590 new aircraft by 2036, for replacement of 520 older generation aircraft, and 2,070 aircraft for growth, […]