Brendan Sobie’s Post

Airport fees are also significantly lower at Charleroi compared to other airports. For instance, no passenger fees are charged at Charleroi, while at Brussels Airport Zaventem such levies can reach up to €24.91.As La Libre's source explained, Charleroi's fees can afford to be low primarily because the airport receives substantial public subsidies, estimated to be around €30 million per year."[These] subsidies no longer make any sense," the source said. "Without this public money, the airport would be at a loss... Charleroi could triple the amount of its [airport] fees and Ryanair would stay."Related News https://lnkd.in/et-3x3FU

Wizz Air Holdings PLC (AIM:WIZZ) rounded the six months to 30 September 2023 off with total revenues of €3 million, marking a 39% year-on-year increase and a return to profit for the Hungarian budget carrier. The London-listed group carried just shy of 33 million passengers in the period, a 27% increase compared to the same period in 2022. As a result, last year’s interim operating losses flipped into profit to the tune of €523 million. The second quarter was particularly lucrative for the airline, with post-tax profit closing five times higher on a yearly comparative. Average seat kilometres (ASK), which is an indicator of capacity management, increased 27% year on year, with unit costs per ASK falling more than 12%. Surging staff, maintenance and marketing costs were offset by cheaper, well-hedged fuel prices. More at #Proactive #ProactiveInvestors #AIM #WIZZ #Wizzair http://ow.ly/rfWC1050N8m

Wizz Air Holdings PLC (AIM:WIZZ) copped a surprisingly bearish sell rating after Liberum initiated coverage on the Hungarian budget airline carrier this week. Despite being the fastest-growing budget #airline in Europe, analysts at broker criticised Wizz Air’s pursuit of “less-competitive but less-attractive markets” in Eastern Europe. “Strategy going east, value going south,” as Liberum’s Gerland Khoo put it. Liberum’s outlook is in stark contrast to the broader market consensus. Particularly UBS, which upgraded the London-listed airline in June on the prospects of a return to profitability in 2024. Yet Liberum’s contrarian view comes with some reasonable justifications beyond Wizz Air's focus on Eastern Europe. #AIM #WIZZ More at #Proactive #ProactiveInvestors http://ow.ly/z2oq104NI8Y

For over a week now Malaysia's domestic airline sector has been gripped by news of the sudden collapse of MYAirline, just 10 months into its operations. From simply an airline failure, ostensibly driven by a mishandling and miscalculation of its finances, the carrier's crumbling act is going through many twists and turns, most recently by the arrest of its co-owner and founder for alleged involvement in money laundering. Whilst damaging to Malaysia's regulatory bodies as well as to the country's reputation as a vibrant aviation and aerospace centre, this debacle is a blessing in disguise, presenting an opportunity for the new government led by Anwar Ibrahim to clean up the industry's decades-old antiquated system. With a population of slightly over 30 million, Malaysia has more than five airlines - including its flag carrier Malaysia Airlines and privately-owned AirAsia - resulting in excess capacity and therefore an inability by any one company to consistently make profits. If Malaysia's policy-makers can exploit this embarrassing snafu, and formulate a new aviation policy to rebalance and redraw the aviation ecosystem, the result will be healthier balance sheets for all concerned. Read our analysis here. Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture Malaysia (MOTAC) Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia Malaysian Aviation Commission #Malaysia Malaysia Airports #airlines #airlineindustry #airlineeconomics Batik Air

2023 was pivotal for us at Thai Airways International and this week was big with two major announcements. Our record breaking 2023 profit of US$782 million (28.1 Billion Thai Baht) came about with focus, consistency, discipline, avoiding distractions as well as the improvement of many important yet easily overlooked intricate details that heavily impact revenue. In 2023 we laid the foundation for the successful future of Thai Airways by ironing out seasonality, through the focus on the network opportunities as well as commencing the implementation of our new network and fleet plan. This has led to the order of up to 80 Boeing jets. A further 12 Airbus aircraft will be joining the fleet the next and following year increasing our single aisle capacity in our Bangkok hub. The fleet will continue to grow in 2025 and 2026 with widebody capacity being added before the deliveries of this week's order commence. The recent completion of the Thai Smile integration into Thai Airways and the future retrofitting of these aircraft will allow for a more coordinated and better revenue managed regional feed.  Our Thai Airways fleet is now at 70 aircraft, headed toward a fleet of 79 by the end of the year with 9 widebody airframes joining throughout the year. In summer 2024 we will operate a total of over 1600 flights a week from and to our Bangkok hub. This includes 84 weekly flights to Europe, 35 to Australia, over 70 to China, as well as 66 weekly flights to Japan and more than 70 to India & Pakistan and increased regional frequencies. The first phase of our JV with Turkish Airlines and our daily flight to İGA İstanbul Airport has been very successful offering further reach into Europe and North America, with some of the highest load factors on our network. As we progress our cooperation will further develop providing Turkish Airlines even more opportunities beyond Bangkok and for Thai Airways beyond Istanbul.  To make sure our strategy delivers the best possible returns we are implementing O&D logic with that a new revenue management system and the pricing methodology to support this. Our new website and app will go live later this year, combined with enhanced payment solutions across all channels. Our new multilingual international call center will commence operations in April to name just a few of the major enhancements we have been working on. These are a few of the undertakings fueling our resurgence. 2023 laid the foundation for a successful new Thai Airways for 2024 and beyond.

SAS - Scandinavian Airlines is in a unique position. With three sub-scale hubs, it can't really compete against the likes of KLM or Lufthansa that each have a large connecting hub for network flows in and around Europe. And, when it comes to its home markets of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, SAS faces increased competition from European juggernaut Ryanair but also local Norwegian Air that has done well since its restructuring wrapped up in 2021. Mind you, SAS continues through it's own U.S. Chapter 11 restructuring that has dragged on beyond the one year timeline it initially forecast. “I … think it is something that we can deal with,” SAS CEO Anko van der Werff told investors of the competition on September 1. But of course he would downplay any competitive threat, particularly from Norwegian whose CEO Geir Karlsen keeps saying it is steadily gaining share in the Norway market — from, though unsaid, SAS — through growth but also an updated loyalty program and a new deal to buy regional Widerøe. What's SAS to do? Van der Werff, for now, is focused on completing its restructuring now targeted for the end of the year. That will give it the cost and capital structure it needs to really succeed, he said. In other words, we should all just give SAS more time, that's all it needs — something everyone has heard before and should take with a healthy dose of skepticism. #airlines

In our latest article, Eden Li looks at the history of airline deregulation in Aotearoa New Zealand. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/ghc3Rtq4