Welcome to the 2020s! It will be, for sure, another decade of ups and downs for the world’s airlines. But will there be more ups than downs? That was happily the case last decade, broadly speaking, as strong industry profitability...
Read MoreAs IATA discussed in detail last week, the world’s airline industry enters the 2020s with a 10-year profit streak. But as 2019 again reaffirmed, profits are increasingly concentrated among the sector’s largest intercontinental airlines, together with its strongest low-cost carriers....
Read MoreBoeing’s MAX still isn’t flying. Airbus can’t get its NEOs delivered on time. But at least there’s still buoyant demand for narrowbody aircraft. Not so for widebodies. Last week, another widebody blow: United, in announcing a big order for narrowbody...
Read MoreAllegiant is not an airline. No, says its management. Allegiant is a travel company. Whatever the appropriate label, Allegiant is phenomenally successful, sporting one of the airline industry’s most unique business models. Many aspects of that business model — direct...
Read MoreMexico's Volaris, an ultra-LCC owned by the Indigo Group, is growing. Fast. Next year, it plans to expand capacity by another 10%. But it's not the market's Aeromexicos or Interjets that Volaris sees as its main competitors. Instead, as Volaris...
Read MoreAir India, a notoriously bloated state organ, is again up for sale by India’s government. In April, Jet Airways stopped flying, eliminating Air India’s only home-grown rival on intercontinental routes. The two airlines competed vigorously on shorthaul international routes as...
Read MoreIAG’s interest in buying Norwegian is now history. But its interest in consolidation? Anything but. The latest move is a €1b deal to buy Spain’s Air Europa, a carrier specializing in Latin America flights from Madrid. The opportunity came as...
Read MoreWhen Christina Cassotis became CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority in January 2015, Pittsburgh International Airport was casting about for a new airline to make it a hub, after US Airways left. Pittsburgh shouldn’t chase the goal of becoming...
Read MoreAir Lease Corp.’s John Plueger, presenting at an Airline Economics conference in New York on Oct. 18, identified several “hot topics” currently facing the airline industry. One was environmental sustainability. Another was the tariff war now affecting Airbus planes exported...
Read MoreIn the years leading up to the current decade, Thai Airways knew nothing but profits — more than 40 straight years of profits. Then its world turned upside down. From 2011 through 2018, Thailand’s national carrier amassed nearly $1.8b in...
Read MoreWizz Air, which five years ago had about 50 planes, now has close to 120. More importantly, with this phenomenal expansion has come just as phenomenal profitability, highlighted by three straight years — 2015, 2016, and 2017 — with operating...
Read MoreAlright, so the global economy is slowing. But it’s still growing. Oil prices are down by roughly a fifth from levels last autumn. Many short-haul markets are seeing a reprieve from overcapacity due to aircraft shortages. Air traffic continues to...
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