Afloat

HAL Bookings have opened for Holland America’s new Ryndam cruise ship, currently under construction at Fincantieri’s Marghera shipyard in Italy and set to join the fleet in May 2021.

AMADEUS River Cruises will build a new riverboat set to debut in 2021 along the Danube and the Rhine in Europe.

CELEBRITY Cruises cut steel on the third of its revolutionary Edge-class ships at a ceremony in France today. Celebrity’s president and CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.’s chairman and CEO Richard Fain both attended the event.

FRED OLSEN Cruise Lines has announced a series of dedicated whale-watching cruises including the 16-night “A Voyage to Remote Spitsbergen,” round-trip Liverpool on Black Watch, departing June 25 and the 16-night “Fjords & Icebergs of Remote Greenland” round-trip Dover sailing on Boudicca departing August 11.

LANDBLAD Expeditions’ new polar expedition ship, National Geographic Endurance, completed its first sea trials in Norway, near the entrance to the country’s famed Geirangerfjord.

THE RIVER Cruise Line is changing its name to Arena River Cruises in the run up to launching a new premium vessel and expanding its cruise programme.

UNIWORLD Boutique River Cruise Collection has unveiled two new itineraries that combine one of the company’s river cruises with a journey by land and rail in 2021. The company has partnered with Golden Eagle Luxury Trains to create journeys that will travel through Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia.

P&O Cruises’ new ship, Iona, “floated out” at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, for the first time today.

CELEBRITY Cruises’ forthcoming Celebrity Apex passed another milestone as it completed its sea trials off the coast of France. The ship, will enter service on April 1, 2020, went through its sea trials in the Bay of Biscay and was overseen by more than 50 specialised crew members,

AMSTERDAM ’s decision to impose a tax just on cruise passengers led to a 40pc reduction in calls to the city in 2019.

CMV Cruise & Maritime Voyages acquired Pacific Dawn and Pacific Aria from P&O Cruises Australia in 2021.

ROYAL Caribbean is advising passengers booked on its Southern Caribbean voyages calling on Martinique that as of 2020, all passengers will require a valid passport.

MSC Cruises introduced custom, accessible shore excursions designed for passengers with all types of mobility in 20 destinations including 11 ports in the Caribbean and nine ports to come in the Mediterranean.

Estrid arrives Stena Estrid launched in a storm

The newest addition to the Stena Line fleet started service on the Dublin to Holyhead route on January 13, braving the elements of Storm Brendan to complete her maiden voyage. Despite a challenging introduction, customers have been taking to social media to praise the new ship and her staff. The threehour and 15 minute crossing

Will give passengers a chance to explored facilities including Estrid’s spectacular Sky Bar, two Happy World children’s play areas, a relaxing Hygge reclining lounge, Stena Plus lounge, two movie lounges, bigger Truckers lounge, Taste restaurant, and a bigger better shopping experience. The ship also has 175 onboard cabins, including six deluxe cabins with double beds and balcony access.

A sister ship Stena Edda is due to start service from Belfast to Liverpool in March this year, with a third next generation ferry Stena Embla due on the same route in early 2021.

Celebrity Cruises’ forthcoming Celebrity Apex has passed another milestone as it completed its sea trials off the coast of France last week.

The ship, which will enter service on April 1, 2020, went through its sea trials in the Bay of Biscay and was overseen by more than 50 specialized crew members, including engineers and nautical experts. Despite strong winds and heavy seas, the ship performed admirably, the company said today in a statement.

“The purpose of a sea trial is to test the functionality of the ship, but this wasn’t just any sea trial -- and Celebrity Apex isn’t just any ship,” said Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises. “In typical Edge Series-fashion, the ship absolutely exceeded our expectations, performing perfectly in line with our above-andbeyond operating standards.”

Celebrity Apex is the sister ship to Celebrity’s groundbreaking Celebrity Edge, which debuted at the end of 2018. APEX REACHES CLIMAX

Lisa Lutroff-Perlo and Richard Fain cutting steel

P&O Cruises has confirmed Azura will head to the shipyard in Ferrol, North Spain, for a multimillion-pound update from April 3, 2020, following the ship’s Euro

pean repositioning.

The 12-day dry dock will see Azura get open deck areas reworked to improve outdoor dining venues, new canopies and deck furniture will be added and swimming pools and the poolside areas will be refreshed.

entertainment venues and children’s space H20 will be upgraded; Blue bar, Brodie’s, Malabar and the poolside Terrace Bar will offer draught beer on tap and The Retreat and The Oasis Spa will offer new treatments and spa experiences.

The company was founded on the basis that very few small to medium sized Irish travel companies can aff ord to employ dedicated personnel to deal with the wide range of managerial and strategic challenges that are required to keep a modern travel business viable in today’s digital environment.

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Simple things like organising a local trade or media event can present a variety of challenges from selecti ng the right date and venue to agreeing a suitable guest list that ensures the brand secures a positi ve return on its investment.

LocalMarketi ng provide travel and tourism organisati ons with the opti on to outsource one or more areas of their business to an experienced, well connected team of qualifi ed personnel who will provide them with cost eff ecti ve soluti ons to ensure their brand can launch, develop or conti nue to operate successfully in the Irish travel market.

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CITYJET announced plans to slash the number of pilots on its payroll in Finland following the conclusion of redundancy talks in which the airline said it would offload twothirds of 40 pilots in Helsinki as well as all other flight crew.

TURKISH Airlines is reviewing a third daily flight Dublin-Istanbul most probably departing before 0600 to connect with Asian flights in the afternoon wave. There may be potential for a fourth daily Dublin flight.

KLM will launch daily Amsterdam-Cork route from Mar20 with 3-class (Business, Economy Comfort, Economy) KLM Cityhopper Embraer E175 and E190. Ex AMS 1550, ex Cork 1710 (local). These don’t clash with the Air France timings.

CORK flight school Atlantic Flight Training Academy announced a new partnership with low-cost Turkish airline Pegasus, in which Aer Lingus was a founding partner, to train its pilots. The 20 pilot candidates who will be involved in the pilot training program will receive 18 months of training in Cork before returning to Turkey.

AIR FRANCE -KLM, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic have been granted Antitrust Immunity by the US Department of Transportation in the framework of the extension of the transatlantic joint venture, the final regulatory step for the airlines to move forward with their alliance.

BA British Airways is to launch winter 2020/21 services to St Lucia, Cancun and Cape Town from London Gatwick.

EASYJET is set to return to Britain’s benchmark FTSE 100 index six months after the budget carrier was demoted.

LOGANAIR has announced plans to shut its base at Norwich Airport and cancel its Norwich-Manchester flights. it will continue to fly out of Norwich to Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Jersey.

RYANAIR applied for two daily Paris Orly to Dublin slots but was not successful. Aigle Azur slots at Paris Orly were reallocated, largely to Air France for regional PSO and long-haul domestic Outremer services and to other French carriers for long-haul domestic with a routes to Lufthansa (Munich), Wizz Air (Budapest and Sofia), and easyJet (Glasgow).

WIDERNE (Norway) cuts 4,000 annual flights from its domestic network, as the carrier struggles to reach profitability.

AERCAP entered into an agreement with Boeing to reschedule the delivery positions of a portion of the B737 MAX aircraft under AerCap’s forward order contract with Boeing to later dates.

TAP The Portuguese government aims to keep a 50pc stake in TAP Air Portugal should there be any change in the future shareholders.

HNA Group (China) has embarked on a divestment campaign with the singular purpose of returning to its core aviation business.

End of growth Michael O;Leary at the Airlines4Europe conference in Brussels

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said that the coronavirus impact will not show in the airline’s end of year accounts, due at end March. He expects a hit in quarter one of 2020-21, dependant on the size of the enforced cancellations due to Coronavirus.

Speaking to travel Extra on the

margins of the A4E conference in Brussels he said that the combination of B737 Max and Coronavirus would mean virtually no growth for Ryanair next year, and possible in 2021.

AIRBUS Airbus, if you talk to them, will say our order book is full out to 2025, we have no capacity, and the price codes are mad, so that vindicates their position. Interesting, they called us about a week ago and said, if we had some aircraft available sooner that 2025 would you take them. We said, if the price is right, we’ll take aircraft, today, tomorrow, next month. Yes, we are in the market for aircraft but only if the price is right, and we are happy to wait until the price is right, but we are not going out to buy somebody else’s expensive aircraft.

ALWAYS GETTING BETTER I would like to think Always Getting Better is still continuing. The problem is it gets overtaken by other issues. It is still there for us. We don’t push it. We are trying to get back to low fare, great care. Nobody is going to pay any attention to what your strapline is amid Covid and Max aircraft delays.

AUSTRIA Austria is a difficult place to make money. It is not that competitive but there is huge excess capacity. We have charged in there, Wizz has charged in there, Level were in there, Easyjet were in there before we were. We have seen the same situation emerge. Austrian has gone from 65pc market share in Vienna, this time they will be under 40 for the first time. Lauds has gone from nowhere. This time next year will be up around 30pc to 23pd. Wizz is number three. They should be around 10pc or 12pc. Then there is nobody else. Eurowings have pulled out, Level have pulled out, EasyJet have pulled out. If the environmental tax it damages earnings to and from Vienna it will also speed up the consolidation of the withdrawal. I would not be surprised to see Wizz withdraw from Vienna or at least close a base in Vienna in the next twelve months

BREXIT There is a reasonable chance that Brexit is going to settle down by the end of the year. I think a trade deal will get done before the end of the year. I think it will get done because the British to roll over from most of their positions. Johnson has the attention of a fleas and he will just deliver. They will finish up with a Norway option. They will pay, they will comply, but they won’t have a seat in the room. You talk to Willie, he thinks it is a box ticking exercise, his insights in London are more accurate than mine. I think they are playing politics and it has worked for them. Johnson has got a majority as a result of it. But when push comes to shove they will roll over on it.

GROWTH Even at its best we were only going to deliver 2pc or 3pc growth, because of Boeing Max. There will probably not be any growth at all, but remember if we get the Max in at the end of the year we will probably add some capacity, but I would think, on balance, probably no growth at all this year. It is far too early to say what the impact of Coronavirus would be. I think if we were to lose 10pc of our bookings through the second half of March, April and the first half of May, that is probably about 2m passengers, 2m passengers would be most of our growth for the next twelve months, but that would be 2m passengers on a target of 155m, so about one or one and a half per cent.

ITALY Italy is our biggest market, 32m passengers. We are the biggest airline domestically in Italy. We have 33pc share of the Italian market, Alitalia is about 22pc.

Michael O;Leary at the Airlines4Europe conference in Brussels with Carsten Spohr of Lufthansa Willie Walsh CEO of IAG, Ben Smith of Air France

CORONAVIRUS Our sense of this is that’s people will generally put off travelling unless necessary for the next three of four weeks. For the next two weeks we are heavily booked, no cancellations, so we won’t be that affected, but there will be a higher no show ratio. I think, after that, things will have bottomed out at that point in time. People will be fed up following the outbreaks. We don’t yet see any diminution in the bookings over the Easter period. Nor do we see a demand for cancellations or refunds over that period. We think there is a reasonable prospect that Easter will see some return to normality. If that takes place we will all be launching seat sales through May, the first half of June and whatever length it takes.

BOEING 737 MAX Once we were pretty sure we were sure we were not going to get it this side of June we deferred. Our first delivery now is September. I think the place will return to service in June July in America. I think in Europe it will be slightly later, in September, October. The challenge for us now is there is 20 of the Max aircraft for Ryanair already built and sitting on the ramp in Seattle. They will get delivered really quickly, I am saying October November. The challenge is will Boeing spool up the production line and deliver us another 30 aircraft for the summer of 2020-21. I am more concerned now, not that we will get the first aircraft in the autumn, because we will, but will we get enough aircraft to be able to go back to 50 aircraft delivery for the summer of 2021. Because of aircraft sales and lease returns, will still only give us net 25-30 aircraft for summer of 2021. Over a two year period we are going to have very modest traffic growth.

ing tell us that the leasing companies are cancelling orders. They don’t have the cash flow for them. Customers are abandoning orders. One of the upsides

of the Coronavirus is that you will see another number of airlines fail. Some of the crazy big orders that were never going to be delivered like the Indonesia Lion Air order with Airbus and Boeing, the Norwegian order, will collapse, and that may create some movement on the order book. Airbus themselves are delivering aircraft three or six months behind schedule so they need some of those to be cancelled just to catch up with their orders.

is outline agreement in principle on compensation, but the computations cannot be done until we get the deliveries and we have some reasonable confidence as to when the first of the aircraft is going to be delivered. There are a number of discussions going on. There is a compensation discussion. There is a pricing discussion going on because clearly these aircraft have suffered a reputational risk, we need to do the pricing, and we are also involved in a new order discussion, but they don’t have the head space to deal with that at the moment.

GERMANY The target of

14pc in Germany is not gone. It was always going to be flexed. The difficulty we have had this year, because we are short of aircraft, we have closed the base in Hamburg, closed Bremen, closed Nuremberg, We would like to reopen those straightaway as soon as we have available aircraft. Stuttgart is still strong. Berlin we are growing. Germany is still strong. Germany is not a market at the moment I would like to have mad cap expansion in. Lufthansa themselves, they bought Air Berlin last year, instead of taking out about 30pc or 40pc of the capacity they flew the entire capacity, they had this kind of paranoia that the rest of Europe was going to arrive in and plunge airport slots, nobody cares about Germany, they are taking out significant capacity in Eurowings we have seen their capacity cut by 12- 15pc. A lot of the capacity cuts they announced late on Friday evening are also going to be focussed on Eurowings, Germany will settle down pretty quickly in the next year or two. It is one of the least profitable markets, so most of our growth this year is going into Poland, Romania where we are seeing very profitable growth, those markets where we are chasing Wizz further and further east. Dublin Munich was ended because of aircraft availability, and also costs in Munich are nuts. It is mad.

London decision went for us. It is insane to say that an airline must be responsible for strikes, because if the airline was in control of this there would not be a strike. Unions can call a strike to disrupt your business, if they can disrupt your business and force you to pay millions of euro in compensation when it is clearly outside of the airline’s control, I find it very hard to see how we won‘t win that ultimately on appeal. No airline will willingly have a strike. We do everything in our power to actually buy off the strikes. Our English strikes by BALPA in August, not one flight was cancelled. If we can do that, and we can manage our way through it. Less than 25pc of the Irish pilots went on strike, and we had to cancel less than 20 flights on any given day. When we can make those effort to find our way around strikes. If we have to cancel some flights it is clearly not within our control. We only do it as a last alternative.

PROFIT Coronavrius won’t have any effect on our March year end results this year because most of that is the bag already. First quarter next year will get hit. Passenger numbers will be down 10, 15pc in to April, May, June, and if passenger numbers are not down 10pc yield will be down because we will all be dumping, seat sales, getting everyone moving again once everyone is confident to start moving down. March does not run a profit. Back end of March might into April. April yes, but that is heavily driven by Easter. The reality is it, does cost us money.

BOOKINGS On the first of every month we would have 80-65- 35 visibility. On March 1st we will typically be 80-85pc booked. We would be 60-65pc booked for April. We would be down at about 30-35pc booked for May. For the last week in February we saw a sharp decline. We were supposed to take 3.5m bookings a week. Last week we took 2.5m bookings. So we are down 20pc. I think it will accelerate this week, partly because we took out 2,500 flights, we will probably be down 30pc this week. Thereafter, a lot depends on the media coverage and what government do.

MAX PASSENGERS We will have to have customer confidence-building measures say for the first six months. We don’t want people to feel they’re trapped on a MAX. If you don’t want to go on it, fine. Off you go, take off the bag, and you can have a full refund. The offer would only be available to those who turn up at the airport. After all, if the airline is unable to advertise if a flight is operated by a MAX in advance, passengers wouldn’t know they were on a MAX until they arrived at the gate and saw the serrated engines and split wingtips.

BIGGEST ISSUE Without a doubt the biggest issue we face at the moment is national governments taxing flights, not as an environmental measure just tax grabs. We have done so much in the last twenty years to lower the cost of air travel. Now you have governments going the other way. Let’s tax the life out of it. The other is the single European sky. ATC is a shambles. We would eliminate 90pc of our flight delays in an entire year, more than 90pc of our Eu261 payments which last year in our case were €160m, if you eliminated delays, if you closed down Karlsruhe and stopped the French air traffic controllers going on strike. It is nuts. Twenty years later, despite all the promises, the EU delivered nothing.

RYANAIR announced a new route Mykonos-Budapest 1w from July 2020 ICAO reports that some 70 airlines have cancelled all international flights to/from mainland China, and that a further 50 airlines have curtailed related air operations. This resulted in an 80pc reduction of foreign airline capacity for travellers directly to and from China, and a 40pc capacity reduction by Chinese airlines. Prior to the outbreak, airlines had planned to increase capacity by 9pc on international routes to China for 2020 Q1 compared to 2019. ICAO estimates that 2020 Instead Q1 seen capacity drop 40pc, or a reduction of about 18m passengers compared to what airlines had projected, a potential reduction of US$4 to 5 bn in gross operating revenues for airlines worldwide. Aer Lingus say no additional A321LRs will be available to the airline until the autumn, so no new routes will be added in summer 2021.

A380 The first Airbus A380 to be retired after 10 years in service arrived at Ireland West Airport Knock for dismantling. Dismantling an A380 is within the capability of EirTrade Aviation who are based at the airport on the Western Apron. The company specialises in airframe disassembly for A380, A340, A330, A321, A320, A319, B777, B757, B737/3/4/5, MD83, ATR72-212A.

DERRY Steve Frazer joined the City of Derry Airport team from his previous position as Director of Engineering and Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Gulf Helicopters in Qatar, Nordic Aviation Capital (Denmark & Limerick) appointed Patrick de Castelbajac as CEO, effective 2020 Q3. Patrick will be based at NAC’s newly opened Headquarters in Limerick. Most recently, he was President of Asia-Pacific region for Airbus. Prior to this, he was Executive Vice-President Strategy and International. From 2014 to 2016, Patrick was CEO of ATR. Prior to this, he worked in Airbus from 2002 in a variety of senior management positions. Before joining Airbus, Patrick spent three years with Baker & McKenzie as a lawyer and a member of the Paris Bar.

BA will launch a seasonal Heathrow-Newquay route (A319 5w) 02Jul07Sep20, competing with Flybe’s PSO operation Newquay-Gatwick.

VIRGIN Atlantic is to re-launch daily seasonal B787-9 service Heathrow-Cape Town on 25Oct20 with B787-9. It last operated the route in Apr15.

TUI fly German) cancelled its contract to lease four aircraft to Eurowings, in order to take advantage of the void left by Thomas

AVOLON has dropped four A350-900s from its total order of 14, while adding 10 more A330-900s to reach 37.

WAHA Capital recorded a net gain of US$11m through the divestment of its remaining 6pc stake in AerCap Holdings NV. This will remove an overhang on AerCap’s stock.

SUNEXPRESS Germany plans to drop its long-haul routes in 2021, which are operated by Eurowings.

Aercap now has 1,334 aircraft with income up 12pc A erCap reported 2019 Q4 net income up 33pc to US$309.8m, with total revenues up 3pc to $1.25 bn. For 2019, net income was $1,145.7m, up 12.8pc,with revenues up 3pc to $4.8 bn.

The increase in net income was primarily driven by higher lease rents resulting from an increase in average lease assets due to the delivery of new technology aircraft in 2018 and 2019.

As of December 31, AerCap’s portfolio consisted of 1,334 aircraft that were owned, on order or managed. The average age of the owned fleet was 6.1 years (2.3 years for new technology aircraft, 11.3 years for current technology aircraft) and the average remaining contracted lease term was 7.5 years.

New technology aircraft now comprise 58pc of the owned fleet.

Prior to the grounding, AerCap had delivered five B737 MAX aircraft that are currently on lease to an airline customer, and it currently 95 MAX aircraft on order. It is uncertain when and under what conditions our Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will return to service and when Boeing will resume making deliveries of MAX aircraft to AerCap. As a result, it incurred delays and expects to incur future delays on deliveries, and any such future delays are likely to have an impact on financial results.

CEO Gus Kelly said he does not have young current technology aircraft (incl A330 or A330neo) because Aercap focused all new orders for the last decade on new technology aircraft.

“We will ensure that the shareholders of AerCap do not bear those losses (from delayed MAX deliveries), and that we will receive adequate compensation from Boeing in connection with those costs that we are suffering.” Gus Kelly of AerCap: Shareholders will not bear cost of B737MAX

Kenny Jacobs is to depart Ryanair after initiating the Always Getting Better Campaign.

In the six years of AGB, Ryanair has doubled traffic, doubled profits, and increased load factor by 15 percent (to 97pc) by attracting high-margin customer segments like business travellers and group bookings. When they started AGB, the Ryanair net promoter score was -26, and today it is +21. This tells us that Ryanair customers prefer the Ryanair of today to the Ryanair of six years ago. Ryanair will always be a functional brand that delivers value, on-time performance (OTP), and the best route network in Europe — get that right with great consistency, and the formula works. DEPARTS RYANAIR

Kenny Jacobs

Ryanair ‘s leading routes last summer by ASK shows seven of the top 15 routes are to Spanish destinations. Four of the top six routes are to Spain with Malaga just edging out Faro for the top spot thanks to its longer sector length. Of the remaining eight routes, there are two each to Italy, Portugal and the UK, and one each to Hungary and the Netherlands.

The highest frequency routes last summer were London STN (54w), London LGW (48), Birmingham and Manchester (both 37) and Amsterdam 28.

A total of 20 routes were served at least 2-daily and a further 23 were routes were served at least daily. All routes are served at least 2-weekly in summer. Last summer Ryanair served 100 destinations from Dublin after adding a dozen new routes.

Ryanair offered flights to 140 destinations from Dublin in 30 years of operating from the airport. SPAIN TOPS IRISH RYANAIR ROUTES

Shamrock soars Laura Bennett;Sean Doyle, Niall McCauley;and Paul Deegan at Aer Lingus brand reveal

Aer Lingus carried a record 2.5m passengers on trans-Atlantic services in 2019, and plans to increase capacity this summer.

The new Montreal service has been delayed to 2021, and there will be no new trans-Atlantic routes in 2020.

Orlando, Florida will move from a four flights per week service to six flights per week, the Miami service will increase from two to three flights per week and the Dublin to Seattle route will move to a daily service in summer 2020, increasing from five flights per week.

Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Minneapolis St Paul will be serviced by the larger Airbus A330 aircraft and the full Boeing 757 fleet will be replaced by four new Airbus A321 neo LR. Aer Lingus now flies to 14 North American destinations.

Aer Lingus will add 300,000 extra summer seats to Europe on five new European routes for 2020 with flights direct from Dublin to Italian cities Brindisi (Puglia), Alghero (Sardinia) and Rhodes (Greece), from Shannon Airport to Paris and Barcelona and from Cork to Nice and Dubrovnik. Da ve Shepherd, Chief Commercial Officer at Aer Lingus said “las summer we deployed two Airbus A321neo LRs to our fleet. W e are due to take delivery of more of these next generation aircraft in 2020, which we believe will transform our long haul offering with the ability to serve long haul destinations with narrow body aircraft. This not only opens up new North American route possibilities for Aer Lingus in the future, but also connection onwards to Europe .”

Aer Lingus operating profit was €276m in 2019 according to IAG preliminary results.

Aer Lingus margin was

Ex Ireland JFK Boston Chicago San Francisco Orlando Ex America Boston Chicago JFK San Francisco Dulles Ex Britain Manchester Birmingham Edinburgh Glasgow Heathrow AER LINGUS TOP 5 TRANSATLANTIC

13.0pc, down 2.5, IAG reported preliminary results for 2019 with an operating profit of €3,285m (12.9pc margin) compared to €3,485m (14.4pc) in 2018. Aer Lingus capacity increased 4.2pc from the addition of a new route connecting Dublin and Minneapolis and increases to San Francisco, Seattle and Philadelphia.

Passenger revenue was up 6.1pc, cargo up 0.6pc and other revenue (nearly all intra-group) down 16.8pc. Total revenue was €2,125m up 5.8pc.Passenger load factor was 81.8pc, up 0.8 points, both figures less than for the other main IAG members.

Passenger unit revenue was up, with strong longhaul performance and positive retail performance, despite challenging European market conditions

The reported 2019 Q4 Group operating profit was €765m (12.3pc margin), 7pc higher than €715m (11.9pc) in 2018 Q4

Aer Lingus Q4 margin was 6.2pc, up from 5.3pc in 2018 Q4, and British Airways 16.0pc, up from 15.4pc, Iberia 8.0pc, unchanged and Vueling 0.9pc, down from 3.9pc

The net impact of current (Coronavirus) flight can

cellations and redeployed capacity is to lower IAG’s FY 2020 planned capacity (ASK) by approximately 1pc to 2pc. It is not possible to give accurate profit guidance for FY 2020 at this stage. Fuel bill should be significantly down in 2020.

IAG remains confident that a comprehensive air transport agreement will be reached between the EU and London. As required by the EU, IAG’s airlines submitted plans on ownership and control to the national regulators in Spain, Ireland, France and Austria.

Those regulators confirmed that the plans would satisfy EU ownership and control rules in the event of a no deal Brexit.

The EU Commission has been notified about the remedial plans by the national regulators. The plans don’t require EC approval but, as with all EU operating licences, the EC has the right under EU law to investigate and, where appropriate, request the regulators to implement corrective measures.

The Westminster Government has not required British Airways to submit any remedial plans for a no deal Brexit

AIRBUS VR flight training solution was designed by Captain Shane Carroll, an A320-family pilot and instructor, with his team of professional software developers from the consumer entertainment industry. Once an Aer Lingus A320 captain, he is currently head of Virtual Reality (VR) Projects at Airbus, based in Dublin. The training solution will provide portable training with a ‘study & practice tool’ for pilots to train at their home base… or remotely, and is capable of complementing the full flight simulator sessions that are conducted in flight training centres. It will first be used in the Airbus training centres from 2020 H2, with the aim to make it an integral part of the Airbus type rating curriculum.

AMERICAN Airlines, British Airways, OpenSkies, Iberia, Finnair and Aer Lingus submitted their Joint Response to the US Department of Transportation’s request for additional Information to extend their North Atlantic Joint Business Arrangement to Aer Lingus. Code sharing would extend to all AA and Aer Lingus transatlantic and behind and beyond networks.

IAG Willie Walsh of IAG said “we have to satisfy the regulators in the countries where we operate, principally, in Spain, France and Austria that our ownership and control are in line with EU regulations. All of the national regulators that we have dealt with have since informed us that they are satisfied. And that our structure is fully complied with the regulations. The EU Commission had the opportunity to challenge that. But given the process we have gone through, which is quite detailed, and quite extensive, we are satisfied that our structures are robust and that we will continue to stand up to any scrutiny as we move forward.” Stobart Group sold off a 51pc majority shareholding in Stobart Air to the carrier’s 450 employees in 2019 to ensure the operation complied with EU rules following Brexit. Ryanair announced a new route Chania to Budapest, 1w from June 2020

CORK AIRPORT Kevin Cullinane, Head of Communications at Cork Airport, has been elected Chairman of the Airport Council International (ACI) Europe Digital Communications Forum at their Spring Conference in Athens. The forum represents airports from over 45 European countries. Qatar Airways has bought a US$600m stake in IAG to increasing its holding from 21.4pc to 25.1pc. Under UK law this would allow Qatar To veto “special resolutions.” IAG is a Spanish/EU company and similar provisions may or may not apply.

EU competition regulators widened their investigation into additional incentives granted by Spanish authorities to Ryanair and other airlines operating at two airports in Catalonia, concerned that they may have an unfair advantage.

RYANAIR announced a new year-round route Paphos to Yerevan in Armenia) 2w commencing in June as part of its renewed Cyprus 2020 schedule.

CATHAY Pacific filed inventory changes for Hong Kong-Dublin service. From March 29 2020 to June 30 2020. Reservation is available in full fare J/W/Y-class only, often an indication a service may not operate. This route is supposed to operate 4w with A350- 900XWB aircraft.

AER LINGUS has been named the fifth most family friendly airline worldwide by travel website Lastminute.com and second best in the survey for shortest delays, averaging just 3 minutes.

USA INTERNAL Beginning October 1, 2020, the US. Transportation Security Administration will require passengers 18 years or older to present government ID to fly within the USA..

IAG Willie Walsh says airframe manufacturing levels are “at a speed way in excess of what the industry needs or wants,” and says a “disconnect” between airframe and engine manufacturers directly influenced delivery delays which “are not just annoying, they have a big financial impact” on airlines. “We need strong competition between manufacturers. We only have two. I think we have seen both manufacturers have become complacent … They were planning on delivering a lot more aircraft than was required by the industry.

CAR The Department of Transport (etc) has notified the EU Commission of the transfer of responsibility for Ireland’s Single European Sky’s National Supervisory Authority’s economic regulatory functions from the IAA to the Commission for Aviation Regulation, as and from the 011Jan20. Against this background, the CAR has decided to extend its existing three-year Strategic Plan by one year to coincide with the establishment of Ireland’s new civil aviation regulator. In 2020, it plans to work with the Safety Regulation Division of the IAA to put in place a Strategic Plan for the new IAA. In this consultation paper, it proposes to add to its Strategic Plan, as required, to take account of additional responsibilities that we have taken on or expect to take on during 2020. This is open to public consultation with a submissions deadline of 5pm on Fri 28Feb20.

ETHIOPIAN Airlines Service Dublin to Addis Ababa will operate via Vienna in summer20m instead of the present stop at Madrid. Frequency is to increase from 3 to 4w from 07Jun, Aircraft type is B787-9 (unchanged).

JUNEYAO Airlines has confirmed suspension of its plans for Shanghai-Helsinki-Dublin until further notice.

TAP Air Portugal plans to IPO in early 2021, pending financial results.

ETIHAD has started adding more flights from India as it looks to utilise the capacity which is lying idle due to temporary suspension of most of its operations to China due to coronavirus outbreak.

DUBLIN Airport partnered with Hack Access for its accessibility hackathon even

Charges appealed Aviation commissioner Cathy Mannion

Outgoing transport minister Shane Ross established an Appeal Panel to consider requests for appeal against the Commission for Aviation Regulation’s Determination on the Maximum Level of Airport Charges at Dublin Airport.

Minister Ross appointed Mr Eoin McCullough SC as Chair. Ms Hannah Nixon who extensive experience in English regulation and Andrew Charlton, former Chief Legal Officer Qantas with Australian NZ staff based in Brussels & Geneva.

As provided for in legislation, the Appeal Panel three months to complete its work by May 4. The Appeal Panel may confirm the Determination or refer the decision in relation to the Determination back to the Commission for review.

An Bord Pleanála claimed it no role in dealing with a request by Dublin Airport for a determination on the planning implications of its exceeding a cap on annual passenger numbers.

The planning authority dismissed a series of questions referred to it by Fingal County Council, after daa sought clarification about whether it would need new planning permission for its T2 if it breached a condition of planning permission in 2008, which put a limit of 32m on the number of passengers using airport terminals.

Daa also asked if 3m transit or connecting passengers who do not use the terminals can be treated separately. The operator pointed out that such passengers using Dublin Airport are currently double-counted as both arriving and departing passengers. Daa sought information on whether counting such passengers just once would represent ‘development’ in planning terms. An Bord Pleanála said it considered the questions raised by the council and DAA to be outside its scope.

The Bord explained that an issue referred to it under Section 5 (4) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 confined its role to determining whether a particular matter was a development and, if so, whether it was a development exempted from requiring planning permission.

In Aug18, it rejected an application by daa to amend the wording of the condition to remove connecting passengers from its scope.

Aer Lingus plans to grow its fleet by four aircraft in the next two years. Speaking to Travel Extra at the margins of the A4E conference in Brussels, IAG CEO Willie Walsh told Travel Extra that Coronavirus had not diminished his anger at Airbus for A321 delays.

“Aer Lingus suffered as a result of not having the A321 for this summer, as we had hoped to have from

the beginning of last year. I am still on with Airbus. We are committed to taking all of the aircraft that we have ordered. This is a temporary issue. We are not going to do anything to jeopardise any of the long term direction of the business.”

Willie Walsh says Aer Lingus target customers are those trading down. “The focus is connecting Ireland and Europe to the US.” ASK growth goal 2020-2022 is 5pc a year.

“We have replanned our network, particularly in regard to the Aer Lingus transatlantic, to reflect planned A321LR delays, which we see continuing through ‘20 and 2021 and maybe into the early part of 2022.” When will they come? “Ask Airbus.”

Aer Lingus fleet end 2022 will have 60 aircraft as against 56 at end 2019, (13 A330, 3 A321LR, 1 B757. 34 A320, 3 A321. and 2 Avro RJ), probably one A330-300 and three A321XLR of the eight on order from Airbus. So no extra short-haul unit?

“This new aircraft is absolutely central to our plans to expand our trans-Atlantic network and we are committed to taking the aircraft as and when we get them. The sooner that we get them the better.”