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IATA has said that the situation for global airline profitability is ëdesperate and more destructiveí than anything seen in the past. Industry losses this year are forecast to reach $2.3bn so long as the average cost of a barrel of oil remained at $107 for the rest of the year but if prices were in the region of $135 a barrel that figure could exceed $6bn. The record price in May was $135.09 a barrel on May 22 and it reached $138.54 on June 6, a $10 rise in a day. US airlines are already suffering the most because of the downturn in the countryís economy, and they have already raised fares, added new fees and surcharges, cut jobs and reduced services, to cope with the situation. So far, the oil price has been rising quicker than their ability to increase fares. The prospect of sweeping airline consolation this year may have gone but big US carriers are still seeking comfort in the form of strategic alliances as costs threaten their existence.

Another business survey has warned that without a swift reduction in the price of fuel to below $130 per barrel, the airline industry is headed towards a massive failure that will result in more bankruptcies in the US, including liquidations .The top ten US carriers are likely to spend almost $25bn in higher fuel costs this year over 2007 and they could lose as much as $9bn over the next 12 months if fuel costs do not come down as the market will not be able to stand fares rises of up to 20% to cover the rises in fuel costs and capacity could come down by as much as 20% to offset the problems.

A industry survey has found that of 123 budget carriers worldwide, 52% were found to have compromised the budget model and 7% have evolved into full-service airlines. Just 41% of the airlines retain the features pioneered by Ryanair and EasyJet - direct sales, point-to-point routes of less than two hours, single aircraft types, single cabins and simple fares which no interline or codeshare agreements. The hybrids are offering at least three full-service characteristics such as multiple fares or levels of service and fly longer routes and offer flights on global distribution systems. The survey claimed that the original no-frills carrier, Southwest Airlines, should be considered a hybrid, along with EasyJet and Bmibaby.

The number of business and first-class passenger fell in March by the largest number in five years. Such travel shrank 3.9% compared with the same month in 2007, after growing by 5.1% in February. The drop was exaggerated both by this year being a leap year, adding an extra day in February, and by Easter falling in March this year. Such traffic was down 8.5% in the US in March and 17.1% in Europe but the markets in the Middle East, Far East and Africa showed much stronger premium traffic.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 made its first flight on May 19 at Komsomolsk-on-Amur and lasted for 40 minutes. The flight was originally planned to occur before the end of last year. It is the first airliner created in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union and airlines will acquire it to replace Tupolev 134s and TU-154s. Orders total 73 at present and it will be produced in two basic models, one with 78 seats and the other with 98 seats.

The US Dept. of Transportation confirmed the grant of transatlantic antitrust immunity on May 22 to SkyTeam partners, Delta, Northwest, Air France, CSA Czech, Alitalia and KLM, upholding a tentative approval a month earlier. The six carriers will be able to coordinate their transatlantic fares, services and capacity as if they were a single airline, subject to certain conditions.

SkyTeam is looking to announce the addition of an Indian partner later this year and discussions with Kingfisher Airlines have been progressing. Indian Airlines had been asked to come into the alliance last year but that did not happen due to Indianís merger with Air India and the two combined airlines then opted to join the Star Alliance. Jet Airways is still maintaining publicly that it prefers to stay independent of an alliance for the present. SkyTeam is also looking for a South American carrier and Gol/Varig is seen as a suitable member.

Due to the industry downturn, Airbus has said that it has revised the number of orders it expected to receive this year for Airbus A380s from 30 to ëabout 20í.

The Commerical Aircraft Corporation of China has been established with a capital of $2.88bn to build regional commercial jets, with a view to eventually reduce the countryís reliance on Boeing and Airbus. A state-owned unit has taken the largest single stake at 30% and a consortium made up of the municipal government of Shanghai, where the ARJ21 is being developed, and Chinaís two state-owned makers AVIV 1 and AVIC11, will have a 25% stake. The 90-seat ARJ21-700, unveiled last year, is due to be test flown later this year. CACC was officially launched in May and it is to consider producing a single-aisle, 150-seat aircraft in the first place, which will be similar to the Airbus A320 or Boeing 737.

US-based Aerion Corporation, formed in 2002 to reintroduce commercial supersonic flight, has said that in the six months it has been accepting orders for the Aerion supersonic business jet, it has received more than 40 Letters of Intent, backed up by returnable deposits of $250,000. The price per aircraft will be in the region of $80m. A new variant of a Pratt & Whitney engine will be used and the company expects to certify the supersonic jet in 2014.

Boeing has filled up all delivery positions for the supply of Boeing 777-300s until 2014 following increased demand as the aircraft burns some 20% less fuel per passenger than Boeing 747s, which carriers are steadily withdrawing from service. However, so far Boeing has resisted pressure from airlines to increase production but says it constantly reviews ëthe complex process of matching demand with the physical and economic constraints of the production systemí. It is currently producing them at a rate of 6.6 aircraft per month.

Industry analysts have suggested that Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection may not be an option for US airlines during this economic crisis as the capital to fund restructuring and exit from bankruptcy may not be there since airlines are such a poor investment. The industry has already seen carriers, such as Aloha Airlines, go directly to what is known as Chapter 7.

The worldís airlines were operating just 2% more flights in May compared with May 2007, according to OAG, the flight information specialists. Domestic flight numbers was down 3% in the US during the month.

The Nigerian government has approved that its CAA be empowered to remove grounded serviceable aircraft in the nationís airports that constitute danger to air travellers. It has also authorised the need to quicken the installation of radar equipment and ëother high level facilities at all airports to enhance safetyë.It also wants the Nigerian CAA to encourage local airlines to replace their old aircraft with modern ones.

The Oneworld alliance is suggesting that there is a case for its primary members, British Airways and American Airlines, to attempt again to seek anti-trust immunity, given the changing scene since March 30 when the open skies deal came into force and more US carriers were allowed into Heathrow. The two airlines gave up pursuing immunity in 2002 after competition regulators insisted that 224 slots at Heathrow would have to be freed for the tie-up to be agreed. 280 transatlantic slots were opened at the UK hub during this summer and it is now arguable that the slot penalty would no longer be appropriate.

ABX Airís parent company changed its name from ABX Holdings to Air Transport Services Group on May 16 so as to better reflect its range of assets that in addition to ABX now include subsidiaries Air Transport International and Capital Cargo International Airlines. The group had a good first quarter with only a small reduction in its profit against a year earlier from $4.3m to $3.8m as it increased its non-DHL charter flying. That side of the business will need to be expended following news that DHL is to switch its loss-making US express business from DHL to UPS over the next 12-18 months.

Aegean Airlines suffered a loss of Ä4.4m ($6.86m) in the first quarter of 2008., up from Ä 2.6m a year ago. It took delivery of four more Airbus A320 and carried 1.1m , up 10%, during the quarter. It went public in 2007 and its shares have fallen 24% between January and May this year.

Aer Arann had a large increase in its network in May and June , including four new routes from Cork to Brest (weekly) and Nantes (twice weekly) from May 17 and to Lorient (twice weekly) and La Rochelle (weekly) from May 17 for the summer months. Five routes launched from Waterford started with Amsterdam served from May 1 (four flights a week), Malaga (May 3, twice weekly), Faro (May 5 twice weekly), Bordeaux (May 16 (twice weekly) and Lorient weekly from May 24 and twice weekly between June 7 and August 30. Lorient is also receiving flights weekly from Galway from May 24 and Kerry from June 7. To complete the expansion, Aer Arann had a weekly Cardiff-Nantes service start on June 21. It added four more Luton-Waterford flights in mid-May to bring the weekly frequency to 18 after seeing a 10% increase in passengers in the first quarter of this year. Aer Arann has hedged about 50% of its fuel costs this year, but the impact of high oil prices had been limited, according to the airline, because its fleet included 14 turboprop ATR aircraft, which use 70% less fuel than a conventional jet. However, it has said that if fuel costs continue to rise it may seek a financial partner or lease out more aircraft, although it has said that it is in ëa healthy position with reserves to enable us to weather any stormí Aer Arann was to launch twice daily service between Dublin and Derry on July 22 replacing Loganair on the route after it had been awarded the public service obligation three-year contract on the route. In addition, it was awarded the similar Dublin routes to Galway, three times daily, and twice daily to Sligo and Donegal. It was giving up its Dublin-Kerry route the day before as the route has been awarded under the same scheme to Ryanair, as well as the Dublin-Knock route that had been awarded to CityJet to operate a daily service.

Aer Lingus and Ryanair had one of their regular differences of opinion in May. Michael OíLeary has warned that Aer Lingus could go bust if oil hits $200 a barrel and only strong airlines would survive and they ëwould be British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Ryanairí. Ryanair has dismissed any suggestion that it would take over its Irish rival, in which it holds a near 29% stake, if it became bankrupt. For its part, Aer Lingus has said that low-cost airlines, such as Ryanair, were more likely to run into trouble on the back of rising fuel costs, with more established carriers better placed to survive than pure low-cost carriers, which would not be low-cost anymore. An industry analyst has said that no-frills carriers with rising fuel costs will have to slash capacity, stay on the tarmac or look at merging this coming winter. Aer Lingus expects at best to break even in 2008. The economic climate will not allow it to increase its long-haul flights in 2009 despite its medium-term strategy for such growth. It is suspending its Dublin-Los Angeles from November 2. It has no plans as yet to ground any of its short-haul aircraft for the winter period. Its passenger figure was up 10.4% in May to 946,000 thanks to its growing network but the average load factor was down 4.3% to 76.1% on a year earlier. Aer Lingus is to introduce its 18th route out of Cork to Geneva on December 2 with a twice weekly winter service.. Since 2002, it has increased capacity from Cork by 70% and now has four Airbus A320s based there. In the winter schedule, apart from new routes out of Belfast, it is to serve the Sofia route from Dublin and reinstate its Dublin-Newcastle route. The Belfast-Geneva will not be resuming.

Aerocondor of Peru suspended all its scheduled domestic operations, as of June 11, and grounded its four Boeing 737s. This followed government safety concerns after two of its aircraft had mechanical problems in the previous week. The ruling still allows charter flights to operate using its BAe 146 and its Fokker and Antonov turboprops. Aerocondor of Portugal has also suspended its domestic scheduled services.

Aeroflot has been told by Boeing that a delay of two years four months can be expected in the delivery of Boeing 787s it has on order. It had 22 planned to arrive from 2014.

The Spanish travel group Marsans reached agreement in May to reduce its stake in Aerolineas Argentinas from 95% to 35%, with the Argentine government increasing its stake from 5% to 20%, company employees having 10% and Argentine businessmen the rest. The proposition has been made more viable as the government raised domestic air fares in May for the second time in a month responding to complaints from airlines about rising fuel and wage costs.

African International Airways, which has two DC-8 freighters, has been put up for sale. The reason is said to be because the main shareholders are nearing retirement age.

AirAsia had an impressive net profit of $49.7m in the first quarter of the year, up 86% on the first-ago quarter helped by a 10% increase in its average fares. It takes the positive attitude that a consumer downturn is not necessarily a bad thing because low-cost carriers can benefit as passengers who would normally take a full-service carrier are likely to trade down and fly with a low-cost airline. It is to accelerate the retirement of its Boeing 737-300s and is now planning to phase out 16 of the type this year and slowing down its growth in its Thai and Indonesian operations. Its overall fleet will increase by a net seven aircraft in 2008 to 55 Airbus A320s and 17 Boeing 737-300s.

Air Berlin has been given an extension to August 11 to the deadline for the review of its plans to buy a stake in discount carrier Condor from Thomas Cook. The deal announced last September was for Air Berlin to buy Condor in a two stages giving Thomas Cook a near 30% stake in Air Berlin. The first stage of the Thomas Cook deal and the supposed sale of Condor to Air Berlin was to buy 75.1% in February 2009 and the rest in February 2010 after Thomas Cook exercises an option to buy Lufthansaís stake. Air Berlin has abandoned its full-year profit goal and says it will scrap unprofitable routes from its network as it tries to weather rising fuel costs. It had a first quarter loss of Ä59m, down from Ä66.4m a year earlier, helped by rising sales. However, good news for its finances in May came with the news that Russian billionaire Leonard Blavatnik has acquired an 18.9% stake in the carrier.

Air Canadaís average load factor on its mainline system rose to a record 84.3% in May (83.8% in May 2007). Combining operations with its JazzAir regional unit, the figure was 83.2%, as Jazz itself recorded a 2.1% fall to a load factor of 72.4%.

Air France KLM Group reported a consolidated net profit of Ä748m ($1.17bn) for the financial year to March 31, a 16% decline from the Ä891m figure in the prior year. Included was a Ä30m provision to cover possible penalties arising from ongoing antitrust probe into airline cargo activities. 74.8m passengers were carried in the year.

Air New Zealand is to replace Boeing 747s on its service from Auckland to Heathrow via Los Angeles with more fuel efficient Boeing 777s from September 28..

Air One has outsourced its international cargo business to a subsidiary of Lufthansa Cargo and collaboration began on June 14 with the launch of its five times weekly Airbus A330-200 Milan Malpensa-Boston service and the subsequent six times weekly Milan-Chicago service. Air One is now considering serving other US cities, including New York, Washington and Miami.

Alitalia had a first quarter pre-tax loss of Ä214.8m ($331.1m), 41% higher than the Ä152m loss a year earlier. The groupís net equity on March 31amounted to just Ä96m. The net debt at that date was Ä1,352bn showing a worsening of Ä191m since last December. Employees numbered 10,952. The quarterís results were affected by a sharp increase in fuel costs, a 10% reduction in passengers following a cut in capacity on offer, with more to follow from March 30, and the continuing erosion of the companyís commercial credibility. It finally announced on May 27 that its loss for 2007 was Ä495m ($780m), not helped by a new Ä97m write-down in the value of its fleet. It had written-down the fleet Ä197m in the previous yearís accounts. The Italian government is pushing Italians to fly Alitalia as it still serves more domestic routes and international routes from Italy than any other airline with some 630 flights a day to 83 destinations all over the world. The name Alitalia means Italy, thanks to the companyís strong identity and the government has the slogan ëFly Alitalia, making Italy flyí. It terminated services from Milan Malpensa to Brussels, Florence, Pisa, Venice and Vienna in May. An Italian newspaper has said that a draft rescue plan for Alitalia drawn up by an adviser to the Italian Prime Minister calls for a new company with a capital of Ä1.4bn. The government has agreed to convert a Ä300m emergency loan to Alitalia into an asset in a surprise move to win auditor approval for the airlineís finances. It is said to be a temporary measure so the internal auditors ëdonít bring up questionsí. Such action was sure to invite further scrutiny from the EC, which was already looking into whether the emergency loan violated EU rules barring further state aid The loan was required to avoid Alitaliaís capital falling under the legal minimum, which would effectively force the airline to declare bankruptcy. Italian carriers, including Air Italy, and Neos, based at Milan Malpensa and Windjet of Catania, all filed complaints with the EC, claiming the loan was an illegal state subsidy and this was followed up by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Finnair, SAS, Iberia and TAP Portugal jointly pressing the EC transport commissioner to oppose the bailout by the Italian government which they say contravenes EU competition and state aid rules. The EC confirmed on July 11 that it had launched a formal investigation into the loan deal. Under the rules the EC has up to a maximum of 18 months to carry out its investigation. Alitalia has said the loan is a bridging loan to help the privatisation succeed and not aid and is compatible with EU law The next phase in the saga came on May 30 with the Italian government launching its third attempt in 18 months to find a buyer for Alitalia, naming the countryís largest bank as adviser. Secretive new rules were issued in the hope of speeding up the ailing airlineís sale as speed was the essence considering how perilous was the carrierís trading position. Alitaliaís passengers numbers fell nearly 26% in May, according to the Association of European Airlines, and the airlineís shares have been suspended indefinitely. The stateís 49.9% stake in Alitalia was first put on the market in December 2006. Air France-KLM confirmed on June 9 that it was not interested in getting involved again as the economic environment has worsened since it was decided not to proceed with a firm bid in April..

Aloha Air Cargo received its air operator certificate in May and is operating five Boeing 737-200Cs intra-island cargo services in Hawaii.

American Airlines is to cut capacity by 11/12% on domestic routes this winter, more than double its original plan, and retire ëat leastí 75 aircraft as well as cut jobs, likely to be in the thousands as it faces an ëextraordinary difficult environmentí. The fleet reduction will comprise mostly MD-80s but also some Airbus A300s, plus 35/40 regional jets operated by American Eagle and ëa numberí of turboprops flown by American Connection partners. Americanís fuel bill was up $600m in the first quarter and will likely add more than $3bn in annual costs at current prices. To assist in a small way, American was introducing a $15 charge per first bag for tickets purchased on or after June 15 to bring in extra income. The news brought a 24% drop in Americanís share price on May 21, the day its chief executive told shareholders at its annual meeting that ëthe industry will not and cannot continue in its present stateí. American sees the present situation as a survival battle and as the only major US carrier never to have been in bankruptcy protection it wants to keep it that way. American Airlines is to end its New York JFK-Stansted service on July 2 as part of its plan to cut capacity to better cope with high fuel prices. The route was only launched last October. It is also cutting Chicago flights to Buenos Aires from September 3 and reducing service to Honolulu in September and axing the route on January 5. American Eagle is reducing its operations out of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Angkor Airways, based at Phnom Penh, Cambodia, ceased all operations on May 9 due to financial problems. Its two aircraft were leased from Far Eastern Air Transport, which also shut down operations a few days later.

A new charter carrier, Astra Airlines, has been set up in Thessaloniki by a Greek tour operator, starting with a BAe 146.

Bankrupt ATA Airlines has filed a court action against FedEx seeking damages following the cancellation of a key contract for ATA to fly a significant share of contracts for transporting military personnel and their families to and from overseas destinations. The work had accounted for most of ATAís charter business.

Atlantic Airways launched its summer service between Stansted and Sumburgh, Shetlands Islands, on May 23. There are two flights a week until August 29.This is the third year the service has operated.

The Saudi investor, who was to take a 20% stake in Austrian Airlines for Ä50m, did not provide a bank guarantee as required by the deadline set of May 21 as he continued to claim he had been mislead over the financial position of the airline. Austrian Airlines has said it would be open to a majority takeover if that were needed for it to prosper amid high fuel costs. The Austrian government, which has a 38% stake in the carrier, has said the airlineís future should be resolved before the end of the year. Since the airline had been restructured in 2006, when major sources of losses were removed and the carrier made a profit in 2007, conditions had changed for the worse because of the fuel situation. The Austrian Airlines Group lost Ä60.4m in the first quarter of the year and has debts of close to Ä1bn after being hit by high fuel costs, a relatively old fleet (average 9.2 years) and high employee costs and it is now expecting a loss of Ä70/90m this year. Lufthansa has been mentioned as a possible buyer for Austrian and has said it is considering taking a stake in its Star Alliance partner. The Austrian government holds roughly 43% of the airline and has said that it wants the carrier to be majority Austrian owned. Aeroflot has also showed interest in taking a stake as it looking seriously at the possibility of buying assets in the European market, and Air France KLM was also observing the situation..

Azul Linhas Aereas Brasileira is the name of the new carrier being set up by David Neeleman. It is due to receive three Embraer 195s in December and start operations in January 2009.

Best Air of Bangladesh launched its first international flight on May 25 with a four times weekly Boeing 737 service between Dhaka and Bangkok, set to increase to six a week in July. Biman Bangladesh, GMG Airlines, Thai Airways and Druk Air are already operating on the route. The private airlines have permission to operate to seven destinations in six countries and were expecting to serve India from June and Dubai from July.

On July 9, Blue Islands was to stop serving the Guernsey-Paris Beauvais route, which started at the end of March, and replace it with a service to Paris Charles de Gaulle from July 11.

BMI posted a 47.8% decline in full-year pre-tax profit of £15.5m to December last, compared with £29.7m in 2006. However, the 2006 result had been boosted by the sale of Heathrow slots for £16.7m and excluding that, profits were up 19.2%. Passenger numbers increased 1% to 10.6m. However, BMI has increased its balance sheet new asset value following the valuation of its 11% share of slots at Heathrow at £770m, which would value BAís 41% share at £2.8bn. It had a 12.9% increase in revenues to £1.02bn, while its debt was cut by 14%. Lufthansa again said in May that it was ëdeterminedí to take up its option to buy BMI in 2009 and it has been suggested that it would have to pay about £440m to take control under the original option deal. Virgin Atlantic has dismissed talk that it is interested in a tie up with Lufthansa should the German airline go ahead with a takeover of BMI.

Bmibaby celebrated 5 years at Manchester in May and has announced it is planning to double the size of its operations from the airport over the next few years. It is currently operating services to 15 European destinations from Manchester with a fleet of four based aircraft.

Bremenfly is a new German start-up charter carrier with Boeing 737s. It is backed by Jordanian KH Group, which also controls Alexandria Airlines of Cairo and Jordan Aviation of Amman.

British Airways is taking preventative measures to reduce costs as much as possible in the present climate and it is to ground older Boeing 747,767 and 737 aircraft as it tries to break even in its accounts to next March. It is also to cut frequencies, increase fares and axe unprofitable routes to get it through a year when its fuel bill is expected to jump by more than £1bn. BA shares fell below £2 each for the first time in almost five years on May 22 as oil prices touched $135 per barrel. Its May passenger total was down 0.7% against a year ago to 2.82m. Following the move of long-haul routes into Heathrowís Terminal 5 from June 5, BA is to move its remaining long-haul flights into the new terminal from Terminal 4 in two further phases, 29 routes on September 17, followed by a further 12 moving at the end of October. They had originally been scheduled to move on April 30. With the June move, the total daily flights from the terminal increased from 394 to 424. Once all the routes have been transferred the number will go up to around 510 a day. Three routes are to move into a newly refurbished BA check-in zone at Terminal 3 in January 2009. There are the services to Bangkok, Singapore and Sydney. BA has said it would welcome an alliance with Continental Airlines and the two chief executives met on May 23 as a courtesy as Willie Walsh was in Continentalís home town of Houston. BAís pilotsí union, Balpa, withdraw its court action on May 22against BA, and the launch of its OpenSkies airline operation, which could have resulted in the grounding of the airline in the first such strike for nearly 30 years. The BA case was based on any such strike being illegal because the Treaty of Rome prohibits industrial action by unions in one country against companies established in another. BA has said that OpenSkies poses no threat to the jobs, pay or conditions of mainline BA pilots. The unionís members had been unhappy that pilots at OpenSkies airline will have different conditions to existing BA staff. BA unveiled an upmarket shopping mall and high-profile restaurant at its Terminal 7 base at New York JFK on May 21. It is next to spend $30m over an 18-month period to further improve its JFK facilities. BA is to use the forced refuelling stop on its all-business flights from London City to New York in Ireland to speed up the immigration and customs process for entry into the US and, in fact, the flight from Ireland will then become the equivalent of a US domestic service and that should interest business customers. The flights back to London City will be non-stop. BA was launching a new daily service between Gatwick and Paphos on July 2 At the start of the winter schedule on October 26, it is to launch daily Airbus A319 flights between Heathrow and Venice Marco Polo.

Cathay Pacific Airways is considering cutting its loss-making routes because of high fuel prices. It is reviewing all its destinations and decisions are to be taken in August on any route reduction to take place. Fuel costs account for 30% of Cathayís operating costs and the amount it has had to pay for fuel was up 60% in the first four months of this year against the same period in 2007. Cathay Pacific Airways is planning to phase out 23 Boeing 747-400s beginning in 2013 in an effort to realise fuel savings of 22%.. To assist immediately it raised its fuel surcharge 37% from June 1. At the prices at that time, it cost Cathay $360,000 in fuel alone to fly a Boeing 747-400 to London and back from Hong Kong. It took delivery of its first Boeing 747-400ERF on May 23. It currently has 115 aircraft, of which 18 are Boeing 747-200 freighters.

China and Taiwan signed an agreement on June 13 allowing regular non-stop flights between the two countries from July 4. This represents a significant easing of restrictions on air services that had been in force since 1949 when the two sides split following a civil war. Each countries will be allowed to operate 18 flights a week between five Chinese cities initially, Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Xiamen and eight Taiwanese points.

China Airlines is to decide whether to reduce its Hong Kong-Taiwan services once direct weekend charter flights between Taiwan and the mainland start in July. Changes to the cross-strait relations from that date and will be of interest to passengers, who have had to fly via Hong Kong or Macau to mainland China destinations. Cathay Pacific and Dragonair, which fly 18 daily flights to Taipei would be affected even more than China Airlines on flights serving Hong Kong and Taipei. Five airlines currently operate a total of 3,000 flights between the two cities each month, providing about 1m seats. China Airlines provides more than 270,000 seats a month with an average 80% load factor. Flights now from Taipei to Shanghai via Hong Kong can take 5/6hours but direct flights will only take one hour. China Airlines has said is to axe about 100 long-haul flights per month, some 10% and mainly to the US, as it responds to the rising cost of fuel. China Eastern is also looking to cut some international flights. It has said it is losing up to $200,000 on a flight between Shanghai and New York.

China Eastern Airlines is still in talks to sell a stake to Singapore Airlines and expects it to happen but not in the short term in view of events such as the earthquake in May and the Olympic Games in August. It sent 15 aircraft and five helicopters to help with the rescue work after the earthquake on May 12.

China Eastern is to cut back flights on certain long-haul international routes but is trying to avoid significant reduction. It operates 467 routes, including 98 international, with 6,275 regional weekly flights.12 MD-80s are to be phased out in October with the aim of improving fuel efficiency.

China Southern Airlines is to cut services on more than 20 international routes, including Los Angeles, Paris and Singapore and plans to phase out 12 MD-82s this year. China Southern and Air France KLM have agreed to launch a new joint venture cargo airline to be called AE Cargo with operations to start next year and initially operate ten Boeing 747 and 777s. AE stands for ëAsia Europeí. China Southern is to have a 75% stake and Air France KLM the rest.

Club Air of Verona had its air operator certificate revoked on May 23 and ceased operations. It had previously suspended operations in December 2006 but resumed flying in May last year.

CommutAir, now in its 32nd year, has moved its operation out of northeast US to feed Continental Airlines at Cleveland from where it sees good growth prospects from a capacity purchase agreement with Continental and its aim is to also work for other carriers. It has gained FAA certification for the 16 Bombardier Q200s it is acquiring from Horizon. It is finding a home for its remaining Beech 1900s in the corporate market over the next few months. It is now out of the Essential Air Service business and is glad to be so.

Continental Airlines is to cut 3,000 jobs, some 6.5% of its workforce and retire 67 of its older Boeing 737s by the end of 2009 on top of six already withdrawn this year. Its mainline fleet of some 375 aircraft will shrink to 344 by the end of 2009 as more fuel-efficient Boeing 737s replace the withdrawn aircraft. Capacity is to be reduced by 11%. It is also to stop flights from its hubs at Houston and Newark to more than 40 domestic and international destinations, as of September 3, as it scales down ifs flying. Continental Airlines launched a service from Cleveland to Paris CDG on May 22, one of ten new destinations being launched this year from Cleveland. It will operate a daily Boeing 757 service until September 1.

CSA Czech Airlines celebrated its 70th anniversary on the Prague-Rome route on May 16. The initial service in 1938 operated via Bratislava, Klagenfurt, Trieste and Venice. By the outbreak of the second Would War, a year later, Czechoslovak Airlines were operating 24 route segments of which 12 were 12 international. CSA Czech Airlines is to introduce a Prague-Miami weekly service later this year as soon as the US drops the visa requirement for Czech citizens. It has increased its codeshare agreement with Delta to cover most destinations in the US through Prague. Czech had a loss of $27.8m in the January-April period.

Cyprus Airways is considering a partial renewal of its fleet with more-energy-efficient aircraft. Its 11 aircraft have an average age of 12.5 years. The carrier is 69% owned by the Cypriot government and had a net profit of Ä 1.2m in 2007. It is now financially viable, according to its chairman.

Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, as well as Northwestís subsidiaries, applied to the Department of Transportation on May 16 for the transfer of all route authorities held by Northwest and its subsidiaries to Deltaís name. Delta is to increase its services between the US and the Middle East with a new non-stop service between Atlanta and Kuwait City beginning on November 7. Services to Cairo started on June 5 and to Amman on June 6, both from New York, and it claims, with 37 weekly frequencies, that it is offering more flights to the Middle East than any other US carrier

DHL is to shift its US services from ABX Air and Astar Air Cargo to rival UPS which will leave the fate of both airlines and the DHL-owned Wilmington, Ohio air hub in limbo, with thousands of job losses and dozen of aircraft sales possible. The transition is likely to take 12-18 months and DHL hopes of finalise a contract with UPS within the next three months It has been reported that up to 6,000 of the 10,000 employees at Wilmington could lose their jobs. The change in DHLís business model had been expected because of its wish to improve its trading position in the US, where it has yet to see a profit since deciding earlier this decade to try and become a third player in the US express freight market along with UPS at Louisville and FedEx at Memphis. ABX generates about 75% of its revenue from DHL operations.

DHL inaugurated what it claims is the largest industry cargo hub in Central America on May 7 situated at Tocumen International Airport in Panama.

EasyJet celebrated its 10th anniversary at Stansted on May 20. In 1998, it then was operating as the former BA low-cost arm Go, which EasyJet took over in 2002. It is now operating to 26 destinations from the airport with 14 aircraft. EasyJet is to retire its Boeing 737-700s earlier than planned and convert several of its remaining Airbus A319-100 orders to Airbus A320-200 orders. Its passenger figure for May was 15.9% up at 3.878m, but the average load factor was 0.4% down on a year earlier. It handled 40.5m passengers in the year to May (35.2m in the year to 2007). EasyJet started a 90-day consultation with its staff over whether to close its Dortmund base due to the stringent operating hours at the airport which hampers aircraft utilisation and erodes EasyJetís competitiveness. As a result, EasyJet has just three based aircraft, which is insufficient to provide the economies of scale and crewing efficiency necessary to support a low-cost operation. It is to cut about half of all its flights from the airport in its winter schedule. EasyJetís chief executive Andrew Harrison has put more money into the company by spending nearly £500,000 to buy shares at 264.75p each. He now holds a stake of around 0.16% valued at £1.8m. Standard Life Insurance increased its stake in EasyJet to 9.5% in May, making it one of the biggest shareholders in the budget airline.

El Al has allowed for a $20m charge in its financial results in the wake of a US Justice Department investigation into price fixing in cargo activities between several airlines. This sum helped to produce a first-quarter loss of $49.9m, compared with a loss of $15.3m a year earlier. It had a 21% increase in turnover during the year using 36 aircraft to serve some 40 destinations

Emirates is to extend one of its twice daily Birmingham-Dubai flights to fly directly to Guangzhou four times weekly from July 1, increasing to five flights on October 1 and to daily from December 1. It carried its 100,000th passenger on the Newcastle-Dubai route by early June after launching the daily service on September 1 last year as demand exceeded expectations.

Emirates is to operate two one-off Airbus A380 flights between Dubai and New York JFK on August 1 and 3 in advance of the official start of the service on October 1.The flights are said to be in addition to the existing twice daily Boeing 777 service to New York. Subsequently, an Airbus A380 will be deployed on one of the daily fights. Its first Airbus A380 was to be handed over in Hamburg on July 28. Emirates has said it is looking to expand its operations generally at a time when others are cutting back.

Eos Airlines has asked the bankruptcy court to approve a schedule for the auction and sale of the company and its assets. It hopes to sell to a party interested in restarting Eos as a going concern. However, Delta objected to a sale as it maintained Eos was in possession of some of its equipment and in no position to sell it and also said that it objected to maintenance and engine contracts it had with Eos being passed onto another party. Mexicana, which sub-leased three aircraft to Eos, also objected to the planned auction. The court did, however, approve the auction process and the deadline for bids for any of the assets was May 28, with the auction to take place in June.

Etihad Airways is to launch flights to new Indian destinations on August 1 with daily services to Kozhikode (Calicut) and Chennai, following the opening up of operations between UAE and India. They will bring to six the number of cities Etihad serves in India and more flights are in prospect. It had a codeshare deal starting on July 1 with jet Airways on services between Delhi, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi. Etihad has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Malaysia Airlines that will see the two carriers add destinations to their international networks as they move towards a likely codeshare in the future. Etihad also signed a codeshare deal with Yemen Airways, effective June 1.

Ethiopian Airlines says it earned a record $50m profit in the financial nine months to March 31, much higher than a year earlier. It had a 19% increase in passengers to 1.9m. It opened its 51st destination, to Kuwait City, on June 2.

The Isle of Man government has said that grounded EuroManx had been talking to Flybe on a possible take over but a deal fell through on May 8 and EuroManx went into liquidation at 1am on May 9, after which it flew its last Dash8 aircraft off the island at 6.23am to Exeter, informing airport authorities ëtwo minutes after take offí that the carrier had ceased operations to avoid the aircraft being impounded towards payment of debts owned to the Manx government. Before Flybe came on the scene, talks had been held with Aer Arann but they came to nothing.

The Taipei government ordered debt-ridden Far Eastern Air Transport to fly 2,000 passengers on May 12 that would have been stranded overseas back to Taiwan before suspending all its operations, which it did on May 13. It had filed for bankruptcy protection on February 17, and had sought new investors or injections of capital from major shareholders since then. he Taiwanese government had assisted its reorganisation plans after the carrier filed for bankruptcy protection due to a deteriorating domestic market and high fuel costs. There has been criticism of the management and the financial problems have not been helped by investment in other areas apart from the airline business. A reorganisation plan was submitted on May 8 by the carrierís main creditor b but bankruptcy protection ran out on May 22 and the court decided not to renew it. The government took away the carrierís domestic rights at the end of May but allowed it to retain its international traffic rights for the time being based on receipt of a promised cash injection in June. A potential new investor appeared n the scene on June 9 and talks were taking place. The carrier, which started out in 1957, had reported debts of $315m in September 2007.

Finnair is to commence serving the Helsinki-Halifax-Fort Lauderdale route with a weekly Boeing 757-200 service from November 10.With Finnairís fuel costs likely to rise this year by some $250m, compared with last year, cuts of up to 500 in the workforce have been under discussion

First Choice Airways and Thomsonfly merged on May 1 and are now flying under Thomsonflyís AOC. However, they are to fly separately until November.

Flybaboo of Geneva changed its name from May 13 to Baboo to underpin what it sees as a strong growth strategy following the addition of four new destinations and the arrival of three brand-new Embraer 190s. Three of the destinations are in Eastern Europe, St Petersburg, Kiev, Sofia and the other to Vienna, plus increased flights to Nice from the end of May.

Flybe decided to upgrade the aircraft used on its Manchester-Southampton route from an Embraer 145 to a Dash 8 Q400 from July 10 due to the initial success of the service, which was launched on May 8. It was axing its Glasgow-Newquay route on August 2 because of rising fuel costs being higher than revenue earned from passengers, a route it only launched in April. British Airways, which acquired a 15% stake in Flybe when it paid £129m for Flybe to take over its loss-making BA Connect regional services in a deal last year, has written down the value by £6m. The adjustment was made to reflect the valuation in the current economic situation with rising fuel costs. BA stake is also available for sale. At the end of the financial year, the stake was valued at £49m, which would suggest a value for Flybe of over £300m. Following Ryanairís claimed that Flybe and other airlines were unlikely to survive the present economic climate, Flybe noted ëwith indifference the latest rantings of Mr OíLearyí and he had made the ësame unsubstantiated accusations about other issues every year since 2001ë. Flybe said its fuel costs were ëonly 24.6% of the airlineís total cost base at June prices while Ryanairís are 44.5%í and ëwhile Mr OíLeary expects to breakeven at an oil price of $130 a barrel, we believe that fuel will have to rise to well over $170 per barrel before Flybe is forced to breakevení.

Flyglobespan had a £19.3m re-tax loss for last year to the end of October following a turbulent year over the Atlantic. Fuel costs rose 82% in the year and it is now to introduce surcharges on its long-haul flights but it is about three-quarters hedged against further rises in oil prices this year. It had a pre-tax profit of £5m the year before. It has said that it is optimistic about making a profit this year. It says that all 21 aircraft in its fleet are owned or operated by the airline. It launched a weekly Edinburgh-Dubrovnik service on June 10 and is also serving the Dublin-Vancouver route between June and September. Flyglobespan had unwelcome publicity in May when it was announced that it was to be prosecuted for allegedly endangering the safety of passengers after allowing a Boeing 757 to fly ëillegallyí from Liverpool to New York JFK, via Knock, late last June as it flew across the Atlantic with both its engine pressure ratio gauges out of action. The gauges measure engine thrust, which is critical during take-off. The case was to come before magistrates in July. The last similar action against a UK carrier was in 1996. The CAA has also been investigating other allegations that two damaged aircraft, one that had been hit by a baggage vehicle and the other by a suspected lightning strike, had been flown without subsequent official clearance. It was the first UK airline in 15 years to have its ETOPS licence last October suspended covering operations over the Atlantic.

Frontier Airlines, which is restructuring in bankruptcy protection, has reached a deal with its credit charge processor that will allow the continued processing of its credit card transactions without interruption in future. The carrierís three main unions have voted to support temporary wage and benefit concessions sought by Frontier.

Garuda Indonesiaís low-cost carrier Citilink is set to resume flying from September 1 using three leased Boeing 737-300s, that have a smaller capacity that the Boeing 737-400s previously used. Its main base will be Surabaya and not Jakarta.. It stopped trading on January 15.

Gulf Air remains open to joining one of the airline alliances, which is part of its business strategy, as it believes the Middle East will be an important coverage area for the global alliances. Gulf has codeshare deals with American Airlines, Royal Jordanian, BMI, Thai International and EgyptAir. The Bahrain-based carrier has an aggressive fleet expansion programme in hand to defend its position or it believes it will be smothered by other more dominant airlines in the region. It has to push ahead with its plans to connect Bahrain to the world as only 25% of its passengers are local traffic.

Hainan Airlines is joining with the Yunnan local government in south western China to launch Yunnan Airlines, which will comprise mainly of the assets of Lucky Air, an Hainan subsidiary launched in 2006 that apparently will cease to exist, according to reports. Another Hainan subsidiary, Grand China Air, is to be the controlling stakeholder of the new Yunnan Airlines with a capital of $43.3m. Lucky Airís six Boeing 737-700s will form the initial fleet, with plans for it to climb to more than 30 aircraft within three years.

Iberiaís shareholders approved its 2007 accounts at the AGM, which year was one of the best in the airlineís history. The net earning figure was Ä327.6m, up from Ä56.7m seen in 2006. Its long-haul flights carried a record 4.2m passengers, a rise of 8.1% and at an average load factor up to 87.2% from 85.6%. Its share of the market linking Europe with South America rose 1% to 19.9%.

Interavia Airlines of Moscow Domodedovo is the new brand of Astair.

Intercontinental Airways of The Gambia was set to start operations around June 15 with two Boeing 737s to serve seven destinations, including Freetown, Dakar and Accra. It has plans to serve another seven routes outside Africa, including Ireland, the US, UK and Jeddah and Dubai

Jat Airways of Serbia is finalising its strategy for privatisation and up to six companies are said to have shown an interest, with Aeroflot appearing to be the keenest. Under current law, a controlling interest in the carrier can only be taken by a Serbian or EU-based company.

Jazeera Airways had a first quarter profit of $2.8m, up 42% on a year ago. It is to continue expanding and has 34 aircraft on order for delivery up to 2014 to add to its present six Airbus A320s..

Jet Airways connected three major commercial cities with new daily flights from Mumbai to San Francisco via Shanghai from June 14, but has delayed the start of its new service from New Delhi to Hong Kong, due to start in June, to the winter after taking into account market conditions .

JetBlue Airways is to defer delivery of 21 Airbus A320s to arrive between 2014 and 2015 as it takes a more financially conservative approach in view of escalating fuel costs. The aircraft had been due to arrive between 2009 and 2010. Last summer it announced the delay of 16 Embraer 190s to the same timeframe.

In reply to the boss of Ryanair saying Jet2 was one of the airlines which might have difficulty surviving in the present climate, Jet2ís boss said ëIím sorry Mr OíLeary, unlike you, Jet2 has bought all its fuel for this summer, this coming winter and next summer at attractive rates, unlike Ryanairí.

Jet2 is to offer a number of ski fights this winter with services to Chambery, Geneva and Salzburg from Leeds Bradford, Geneva from Manchester and Blackpool and to Chambery from Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester and Belfast International. It had new Newcastle weekly Boeing 737-300 flights launching in June to Rhodes, from June 2 to October 12, and to Kerkyra from June 30 to September 14. It is to launch a weekly charter service between Leeds Bradford and Sharm el Sheikh next February.

Kenya Airways was resuming Nairobi-Paris CDH flights on June 10 after a three month suspension following the post-General Election violence last December. The weekly flights are to increase to three a week later in the summer. One of Africaís few profitable carriers, it recorded a slightly lower annual profit of $62.9m in the year to March. It is 26% owned by Air France-KLM and is presently serving 30 destinations.

Korean Airís Air Korea had a name change to Jin Air on June 15. It is set to launch in July with Boeing 737-800s services between Seoul and Gimpo, on the South Korean island of Jeju, which is the countryës busiest domestic route. It is also to serve initially Busan, the second largest city in South Korea. It is leasing this year from Korean Air two Boeing 737s and two Airbus A300-600s.
The name ëjiní means ëtrueí or ëgenuineí but also can be interrupted to mean ëjeansí which will be part of Jin Airís employee uniforms.

Korean Air is to reduce frequency on 12 routes, suspend five international routes and change aircraft on four others to offset rising fuel costs. Cargo routes will be adjusted based on demand and earnings. Korean is the worldís No.1 cargo carrier.

Krabi Air has cancelled plans to begin operations out of Bangkok in November with a Boeing 747 due to the present economic outlook.

Kuwait Airways is finding that with only 17 aircraft, which are getting older, it is finding operation of its schedule is proving tight. Plans to replace the fleet fell through last year and a renewal appears unlikely before the government privatises the carrier, which may not take place until the end of 2009. Although a couple of aircraft are hopefully being leased as short-term additions, the government made, what is seen now and even then, as a bad decision last year when it would not allow the leasing of more aircraft.

Kuwait National Airlines has formally branded itself as Wataniya Airways, the identity under which it will begin operating next January with two 122-seat Airbus A320s. ëWataniyaí means ëNationalí. It is to initially operate point-to-point services to Middle Eastern destinations towards the south and west of Kuwait.

LAN has requested authority to launch a new cargo airline in Colombia and the plan, if approved, is to launch flights within the next 12 months. It already owns and operates cargo affiliates in Brazil and Mexico and its cargo network serves 75 destinations worldwide. It currently operates nine Boeing 767-300 freighters and also transports cargo in the holds of its 72 passenger aircraft.

Libyan Airlines resumed twice weekly Airbus A320 passenger flights into Manchester from Tripoli in June.

Loganair introduced its new services from Dundee to Birmingham, three times daily on weekdays, and to Belfast, daily on weekdays, on May 21.The routes are operated under the Flybe banner, ahead of the company-wide franchise arrangement that Flybe signed with Loganair which starts on October 25. Dundee was where Loganair started its first scheduled services 45 years ago.

LOT Polish Airlines has moved to suspend it Warsaw-Beijing services, claiming delays in the delivery of its first Boeing 787. The profitability of the route could only be ensured by using a Boeing 787 and without the aircraft LOT cannot sustain losses, especially in the current economic climate. Its first Boeing 787s will begin arriving in 2010, rather than this year as originally planned. The development of its Far East programme will be postponed until then. Another report says LOT gave up the route on June 4 as it had failed to gain rights to fly over Russian airspace, which would appear to be a more likely news story.

Magnicharters, operators of five Boeing 737s, had its operations suspended in June by the Mexican CAA although its operations were not seriously affected because it sub-contracted in aircraft to operate flights. Safety irregularities had been found in maintenance procedures and the carrier was given 90 days to correct the problems or face permanent closure.

The 25 year old shuttle service agreement between Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines on the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route was scrapped in June. Under the profitable deal, the two carriers charged passengers who turned up at the airport on standby for the next flight a common fare. The progressive deregulation of the route and the increasing use of the Internet for bookings has changed the market for the services The route is being taken up by budget carriers such as Air Asia, despite strong objections from the flag carriers. Over its network, Malaysia Airlines is reviewing unprofitable routes as part of plans to cut costs to cope with current industry conditions.

Malev resumed its service between Budapest and Toronto on May 26 with five weekly 229-seat Boeing 767-300ER flights.

Manx2 is to increase its Isle of Man-Belfast service to up to 16 flights a day from October in the winter schedule.

Martinair had a loss of Ä68.9 ($107.2m) in 2007 against a deficit of only Ä7m in 2006. The massive increase came from one-off costs associated with the renewal of its cargo fleet and the ending of its European passenger flights last year, along with a provision set aside to deal with the multinational investigation into airfreight price fixing, Its passenger flights are focused on serving the Caribbean and Canada. It is not to resume its services to Colombo, Mombasa, Muscat and Phuket in the autumn to concentrate on transatlantic services. It has replaced its Boeing 747-200Fs with three ëmore efficientí Boeing 747-300 BCFs. It is planning to replace its six Boeing 767-300ERs in the future, which would allow it to add new destinations to its passenger network. It is to sell its 57% stake in cargo subsidiary Tampa Cargo of Medellin to Avianca.

Mesa Air Group started shutting down its subsidiary carrier Air Midwest in May and was closing down operations on June 30 due to high fuel costs and receiving no credible offers for the unit which can trace its flying back over 40 years. The Phoenix-based airline operated Air Midwest under the federal governmentís Essential Air Service programme, which subsidies routes which would otherwise be unprofitable. Air Midwest currently was operating 20 Beech 1900D 19-seat aircraft serving 27 cities throughout the US. The carrier began filing notices to the DoT of its intent to terminate its Essential Air Services over a year ago.

Mesa Air admitted in mid-May that it might be forced to file for bankruptcy protection by July 20 if its lost its legal fight with Delta which would see an end to a service agreement between them for the use of 34 Embraer 145s operated by its subsidiary Freedom Air. If it did loss, Mesa would have been the eighth airline to seek Chapter 11 protection or close down in the US in five months - MAXjet, Champion Air, Frontier, Skybus, ATA Airlines, Eos and Aloha. However, Mesa won a preliminary injunction preventing Delta from terminating the agreement and Mesa was hopeful that it could resolved the issue but Delta decided to appeal against the ruling. The Delta contract was worth about $20m a month to Mesa and if it lost the case it would cause it to default on lease agreements which in turn would seriously affect its operations and finances.. It also flies for United and US Airways. Mesaís chief finance officer resigned in early June

Sri Lankaís budget carrier Mihin Lanka has been dogged by financial problems and has sought a government cash injection to help it to restart operations. It has debts of $15m and its last aircraft, an Airbus A320 was reclaimed by its Bulgarian owner in April and Mihin has also sought government approval to merge with the national carrier, Sri Lankan Airlines. It is looking to break-even by next February after a relaunch of flights to Trivandrum, Trichy, Dubai, Singapore and the Maldives.

MK Airlines, based at Kent International (Manston), went into administration on June 10 and is now looking for fresh investment funds and talks have been taking place with interested parties. Operations are suspended but MK is keeping its air operator certificate for the present.

Monarch Airlines had an 8.3% increase in passengers on its scheduled services in May to 406,750, with its load factor up 1.9% to 81.3%.

Northwest Airlines was stopping its freighter service to Guangzhou from July 1 because the continued rise in fuel costs made the route unprofitable. Northwest moved its south China air-cargo hub to Guangzhou from Hong Kong 18 months ago and currently five weekly freighter flights operate from Guangzhou to the US via Japan.

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines was ordered to be wound up and liquidated on June 11 after rescue attempts failed. Its liabilities were in excess of $128m, including some 22,000 passenger claims amounting to a quarter of that figure.

OceanAir, the Brazilian carrier, is to cease serving 12 domestic routes which will leave it with 25 destinations as it tightens up its operations.

OpenSkies, the BA subsidiary, started selling seats on May 22 for the launch of its 152-seat Boeing 757 service between Paris Orly and New York JFK on June 19. US approval for the service was announced by BA on May 19, and is the first airline to be created as a result of the Open Skies agreement. The codeshare with LíAvion was also approved. In BAís annual accounts to March 31, it revealed it had spent £17m on establishing the subsidiary.

Pakistan International was to start twice weekly services from Leeds Bradford to Islamabad from July 2 which follows on from the Shaheen Airís flights on the route which also operated twice weekly but stopped from June 1, without any explanation. However, the service which was said to have quickly achieved 75% load factors after launch, proving to PIA that there was a potential for a re-launch by a more established international carrier.

Palmair, the single-aircraft Bournemouth-based charter airline, has been short-listed in July for the Which? magazine Best Airline Award, along with Air New Zealand, Indiaís Jet Airways and Singapore Airlines.

Pan American World Airlines is still flying in a form as PAWA Dominicana and on June 4 it launched the first service by a Dominican airline to US territory, between Punta Cana and Puerto Rico, after a 14-year ban was applied to local carriers by the US. The flights were operated by a 19-seat Jetstream 31. DC-9s are planned to be acquired to serve Miami, Caracas, Havana, San Juan and Curacao. PAWA Dominicana, based at Santo Domingo, received its air operator certificate in May last year.

Pinnacle Airlines Corp. reported that rising fuel costs produced a $5m operating loss in the first quarter of the year at its Colgan Air subsidiary and severe weather and an increase in maintenance costs resulted in it failing to meet incentive revenue levels contained in its services agreement with Northwest Airlines.

Pinnacle Airlines said on June 10 that Delta intended to terminate its contract as a Delta Connection carrier effective July 31 as Delta says it did not meet minimum arrival time requirements for a period since flights began last year. Pinnacle says the flight schedules Delta created were unrealistic. Pinnacle agreed in April 2007 a 10-year contract to operate 16 CRJ-900s for Delta and operations began last December. Six of the aircraft had come into use by April 1. Delta already has a legal fight with Mesa Air over its intention to end a partnership with its Freedom Air subsidiary. On May 29, Mesa won an injunction to prevent Delta from going ahead with the termination.

Qantas is to ground two Boeing 767s, an Airbus A320, a Boeing 737, cancel delivery of an Airbus A321 and accelerate the retirement of four Boeing 747s to offset the rise in fuel costs. It is also to make changes to some international routes to better manage the efforts of higher oil prices. Some services are being withdrawn to Japan to cut back the current A$100 ($95.7m) annual operating losses on such flights, and also on some southeast Asia flights. Its Sydney-Los Angeles service will reduce from 17 to 15 weekly flights and it is to close its pilotís base at Cairns. Its first Airbus A380 to have 450 seats was rolled out of the Hamburg paint hangar on May 31 and is due to be delivered from Toulouse ëlater in the summerí.

Qatar Airways is considering launching a low-fares carrier and says it could roll out a service in 90 days after previously opposing such an operation. This will happen if it feels that existing low-cost carriers in the Middle East are undermining its revenue base.

Indian start-up Quikjet Cargo, based at Bangalore, is planning a launch ësooní with three Boeing 737-300s and also a Boeing 757 freighter aircraft.

Rossiya of St Petersburg has started codesharing on the daily Swiss International service from Zurich to the Russian city.

Ryanair has admitted that the increasing cost of fuel is ëhurtingí and that it could still avoid making a loss with oil prices at $125 per barrel. The price of oil reached $135 per barrel on May 21.Mr OíLeary has said he is now hoping ëoil will stay at $120/130 throughout the winter so weaker airlines will collapse and Ryanair can raise faresë. It is expected to ground 10% of its fleet over the coming winter. Ryanair has upset its fellow UK airlines by suggesting that Jet2, Flyglobespan, Flybe and Aer Arann ëwill definitely go bust, they might not survive the summerí. Other airlines in Europe were also mentioned, Air Europe, Wizz Air. Clickair, Vueling and Air One. Ryanair plans to reverse the trend of other airlines that cut capacity and stop growing, but rather take the reverse course as ëthe tough get goingë and increase its growth and put more pressure on its competitors. Mr OíLeary has said that late booking funeral goers are Ryanairís most profitable customers because they book late as they do not tend to have much notice and they tend to be price insensitive because they have to travel. Ryanair carried 5.06m passengers in May, 22% more than a year earlier due to its growing route network but its average load factor remained the same in May 2007 at 80%. It launched a twice weekly East Midlands-Malaga service on June 2. It is now operating 35 fights a week out of East Midlands. Ryanair celebrated 20 years of flying at Liverpool on May 20. Since opening its first route in 1988, it has carried over 9m passengers through Liverpool and its figures have increased well since making Liverpool one of its key European bases three years ago. Ryanair won the tender for the public service obligation route between Dublin and Kerry and operations are to start on July 22. Ryanairís intervention of the Kerry route will mean the government subsidy for the service has been reduced by over 40% to Ä5.2m but it has called for the end of PSO subsidies, which amount to such Ä45m . It claims they are unnecessary and unjustified in an era of improved motorways and train services from the regions to Dublin, and at up to Ä100 per passenger do nothing more than subsidise unprofitable air routes for unprofitable airlines. However, if unjustified subsidies are available, Ryanair felt is right to apply and that is how it came by the Kerry route on which it has replaced Aer Arann. Ryanair was in dispute in late May with Vladivostok Air, which is flying into Frankfurt Hahn from Moscow, after finding that the Russian carrier had been offering its passengers since April 30 connections at Hahn to six of Ryanairís European destinations, including Dublin and Stansted, and replacing Ryanairís flight code ëFRí with its own ëXFí in front of the flight number on Ryanairís services. That would be a pure codeshare arrangement which is not approved by Ryanair as it has the policy of point-to-point flights only. Ryanair has announced more than 50 new routes to be launched in October at the start of the winter schedules. New UK routes starting on October 26 are Stansted-Madrid and Manchester-Frankfurt Hahn, October 27 are Birmingham-Frankfurt Hahn, Prestwick-Malaga and Tenerife South, Luton-Beziers and Manchester-Brussels Charleroi, October 28 are Bournemouth to Milan Orio al Serio and Paris Beauvais, Bristol-Marrakesh and Szczecin, Liverpool-Fuerteventura and Tenerife South, Luton-Kaunas, Szczecin, Derry and Trapani, Stansted-Zweibrucken and from October 29 Bristol-Gdansk, Prestwick-Faro and Luton-Rzeszow. Ryanair says that the new routes ëwill ensure passenger savings of Ä150m compared with the fares of ëhigh fareí flag carriersë. .Between mid-June and the end of the year 83 European airports are to have new Ryanair routes. The reduction in the share price of Aer Lingus shares has brought a write-down at the end of Ryanairís year-end in March of Ä90m, as the shares were then worth close to Ä310, down from the purchase price of Ä 396m Ryanair had a 17% increase in its annual pre-tax profit for the year 2007/08 of £419m. It carried 50.9m passengers during the year, up 20% on the year before, and it predicted the total would rise 17% in the current fiscal to 59.m and could reach 82m by 2012. Michael OíLeary used the results announcement as another opportunity to described the CAA as ëuseless and incompetent, BAA airports as ëinefficiently built and abominableí and fuel surcharges introduced by BA and other airlines as ëjust a shamí to make money out of the travelling public. Ryanair will not introduce a fuel surcharge ëeven if oil reached $500 a barrelë.

SAS is moving again to split its operations into three subsidiaries with their own air operator certificates in Denmark and Sweden and for its intercontinental services. Its subsidiary SAS Norge has already been operating as a separate carrier since the merger with Braathens.

Shanghai Airlines Cargo International has had an injection of $37.2m from its majority shareholder Shanghai Airlines. The funds will be used towards expanding its fleet by two MD-11s this year and one more in 2009.

Silverjet, once it had the promised investment fund cash promised in early May from Viceroy Holdings, was talking of setting up a new route every six to 12 months and also aiming to have at least one Silverjet franchise up and running within the next 12 months. Possible new routes are to San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as to South Africa and India and franchise deals could involve China, India as well as the US and Europe. The initial $25m was being invested for a 28% stake in the airline. It had continued to operate as scheduled but on April 30 it had said that its working capital reserves were limited and the loan facilities were required as a matter of urgency. Silverjet carried its 100,000th passenger on May 16. However, on May 23 Silverjet suspended trading of its shares amid ëfunding difficultiesí, following the fact that it had yet to receive an initial $5m draw down as part of the planned loan investment it was expecting on May 2. It appeared Viceroy was taking longer than expected to access the funds to pass to Silverjet. It was ominous that Silverjet said it was continuing discussions with other parties interested in investing in the airline. On May 27, Silverjet was still hopeful it would receive the first draw of the rescue package as its backers were ëstill keen to investí but the delay put it on the brink of extinction again. An industry analyst has estimated that the cost of fuel alone for a round trip to New York from Luton has risen from £28,600 in the six months to May to £44,000 and large amounts of fresh equity were needed for the airline to survive. The end came on May 30 with the announcement that Silverjet. was suspending operations and was in the hands of administrators. Its last service operated from Dubai to Luton that day. It collapsed owing creditors £40m, £17m of which is secured against its three aircraft. Of the remaining £23m, £10 is owed to the Reubenís brothers, who invested the money last November. The rest was due to trade creditors. Unsecured creditors and shareholders would loss everything owed to them. Silverjetís increasingly strong operational performance, award-winning customer service, and its position as the last business class-only transatlantic airline carrier, underpinned its potential given adequate funding, according to the airlineís administrator. A Dubai source, reported that Arabjet, a Dubai-based carrier was an interested party and had offered to buy Silverjet for an undisclosed sum. It has plans to start operations in 2009 after originally aiming to start all business-class flights in the first quarter of 2006 but ëinvestment market failureí postponed the launch. There had previously been talk of Viceroy Holdings being a bidder. Subsequently, the former chief executive, Lawrence Hunt, was hopeful, as well as the airlineís administrators that trading would resume services to New York and Dubai íin a matter of weeksí from mid-June, subject to CAA approval, as the administrator has agreed terms on June 10 with new investors, Kingplace Ltd, an Irish investment company managed from Geneva, with the contract to be signed on June 13. The CAA would be much involved in approving any restart of operations as a new operation would have to show it had cash in the bank equivalent to at least six months operating costs before commercial service would be allowed. It has been estimated that Kingplace would have to inject a large amount to make the relaunch viable and satisfy the CAAís requirements As it turned out, the CAA required Silverjet to have more cash in reserve to guarantee operations than the new investors were prepared to put up, plus there was a dispute over aircraft hire, so the end came on June 13 and its 420 staff were made redundant.

Singapore Airlines is to introduce more Airbus A380 flights on the Singapore-Heathrow route from July 16 with 11 flights a week instead of seven. One daily service was to be suspended from July 31 to August 9 to allow the aircraft to be deployed to Beijing to cater for increased demand in the lead up to the Olympic Games SIAís fifth Airbus A380 was due for delivery in late June. Almost 200,000 people have flown on the aircraft since its entry into service last October.

SIAís first Airbus A380 service between Singapore and Tokyo Narita, with 394 passengers and 28 crew, took place on May 20, which was also the day Narita celebrated 30th year of operations. SIA also celebrated 40 years of serving Japan

Singapore Airlines expects to phase out its remaining Boeing 747-400 passenger aircraft within the next three years, replacing them with Airbus A380s and Boeing 777-300ERs. Itís Boeing 747-400 fleet is already less than half the size it was four years ago.

SIA Groupís operating profit for the year to March was $2.125bn, with the airline accounting for $1,644bn, SIA Cargo $132m and SilkAir $40m.The net profit was $2,049m. SIAís passengers were up 4.2% to 19.1m.

SkyEurope Airlines was to commence a three times weekly service into Manchester from Kosice, Slovakia, on June 30.

Skymark Airlines, the Japanese discount carrier, cancelled 10% of its flights in June as it struggled to boost its presence in a market dominated by Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airlines.

South African Airlines has cut more than 1,800 staff since its restructuring plan was launched last year and grounded its six Boeing 747-400s. Since then the plan is said to have yielded $130m in annual cost savings. It is now planning to replenish and modernise its fleet and has been having talks with Airbus and Boeing to lease aircraft for delivery between 2010 and 2014, after first leasing three wide-body and three narrow-body aircraft to be delivered in 2008 and 2009.

Southwest Airlines borrowed $600m in May from a number of banks to bolster its cash position because of uncertainty about the economy. As security, 21 of its Boeing 737-700s were mortgaged to the banks. It did have $2.98bn in cash and another $140m in short-term investments at March 31 this year.

Iberia withdraw its bid for Spanair from SAS on May 28 after rethinking the purchase because there had been no agreement on conditions linked with the deal, but also after taking into account the present state of the industry. SAS had previously said it would cancel the sale if no deal was struck by July 1 and abandon the current sale process and continue as a shareholder committed to ensure a profitable future for Spanair. Iberiaís board approved the purchase in February and since then there has been a high rise in fuel prices and a slowdown in economic growth.

Swiss International has confirmed its wish to develop its brand separate from Lufthansa, which now fully owns Swiss. It is to install new business-class seating in its long-haul aircraft by next year as part of a concerted effort to distinguish itself from its parent.

By May, Swiss International had received regulatory permission to acquire Edelweiss Air from Kuoni.

Brazilís TAM Airlines is to stop operating its Fokker 100s and only use Airbus A320s as it consolidates its fleet. It is also to adjust its network to ëbetter serve its passengersí. TAMís Paraguay subsidiary, formerly known as TAM Mercosur and now called TAM Airlines, has three Airbus A320s but gave up using Fokker 100s in March

Thomsonfly is to cut the number of flights it operates from Durham Tees Valley airport from 14 to six as a weakening economy take its toll on holiday plans. This follows Thomsonís decision not to operate single aircraft bases at UK airports, which will affect Stansted, Bristol, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool.

Thomsonfly has new weekly services out of Coventry in 2009. Kerkyra is to be served from May 1, Zakinthos from May 4 and Menorca and Monastir, both from May 6.

Thomsonfly completed the integration of First Choice Airways on May 13. The First Choice brand will continue to be used for the remainder of the summer season.

Trans States Airlines, the St Louis regional carrier, are considering trimming its fleet of 50 Embraer 145s as the major carriers it flies for trim their services. Some 45 pilots out of a total workforce of about 550 pilots were being furloughed on July 1.

Turkish Airlines, one of the fastest growing airlines in Europe, carried 8.2m passengers between January and May, up 15.6% on the same period last year. This year, its aim is to carry 23.5m passengers, up from 19.6m in 2007 and be handling 40m passengers a year by 2012 with a fleet of about 200 aircraft. It now has 102 aircraft and has another 18 due for delivery this year. Its first quarter profit was up 207% year-on-year to $102.75m.

Ukraine International Airlines increased its weekly flights between Kiev and Gatwick from daily to ten a week from June 18.

Merger talks between United Airlines and US Airways slowed down in May and it was announced on May 30 that they had shelved plans to merge due to union opposition and integration costs, while United was drawing closer to an alliance with Continental Airlines even though Continental was also talking with American and BA on an alliance deal. Investment analysts in the US had demoted the share prospects for Uinited and US Airways getting together over the next year, citing in US Airways case the growing likelihood of a cash shortfall later this year or in early 2009.Increasing fuel costs will also put pressure on Unitedís profit margins and its ability to generate cash, potentially forcing the carrier to consider asset sales or new financing to shore up liquidity. United Airlines is to reduce domestic capacity by 14% in the last quarter of this year as well as eliminate 70 more aircraft and cut 1400/1600 maintenance staff jobs. These figures are in addition to the 500 salaried and management-level job cuts and withdrawal of 30 aircraft already announced. Mainline domestic capacity is to be cut 7/8% over this year and next. The aircraft involved are its 94 single-aisle Boeing 737s, if it can reach deals with lessors, as well as six Boeing 747s.It is to eliminate its Ted operations, reconfiguring its 56 Airbus A320s for a return to mainline service by the end of 2009.

Universal Airlines of Palma has decided not to launch services after threats from Palma-based Air Europaís pilot union to strike over the plans for a new sister carrier. An Embraer 195 order has been cancelled.

UPS is building an intra-Asia hub at Shenzhen to be operational in 2010 to take over from its base at Clark AFB in the Philippines which will reduce transit times across Asia and will have a sorting capacity five times larger than Clark. UPS has another hub, at Shanghai Pudong, opening in November. It has added five MD-11 flights from Anchorage to Shanghai via Nagoya.

US Airways is to reduce its workforce by 1,700, or about 5%, and cut more capacity than planned in the last quarter of 2008 by 6/8%. Its Las Vegas operations are to be cut substantially against the number of flights flown through there last year. It is also returning 10 aircraft to leasing companies and cancelling delivery of two more.

UTair is expanding well with a 29.6% rise in passengers in the first four months of the year to nearly 927,000. Mail carried on its aircraft was up 47.5% and its helicopters flew for 15,687 hours in the same period.

Virgin America is seeking government approval to serve Chicago OíHare, which would become the eighth city in its growing US domestic network. If successful, the carrier plans to offer four daily round-trip flights to both San Francisco and Los Angeles. United Airlines and American Airlines will not be too happy if Virgin is successful in gaining slots at OíHare as both carriers cut flights several years ago at OíHare at the FAAís request to reduce slot congestion and contend they should be given preference for new landing slots.

Virgin Atlantic benefited from the chaotic opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow as shown in the April traffic figures. Virgin had a 4% increase in passengers for the month while BAís figure was down 7.9%. Its first-class numbers were up 10%, compared to 3.4% at BA. Virginís new passenger facilities at Terminal 3, which opened last December, is proving popular with passengers. The benefits continued in May with passenger numbers for Virgin up 6%, while BAís were down 0.7%. Virginës premium passengers were up a healthy 10%. Virgin Atlanticís Sir Richard Branson issued a strong warning to Kenyan politicians that after maintaining services to Nairobi from London throughout the violence seen in Kenya last December, which cost the airline ëmillionsí. He will not give then a second chance if they ímess up againí in the future and the daily Heathrow service will be in jeopardy if the political situation deteriorates again.. Virgin Atlantic is to increase its Heathrow-Hong Kong service from daily to twice daily. Flights will increase to ten a week at the end of October and to twice daily in early December. The route is the third busiest long-haul out of Heathrow after New York JFK and Dubai. Virgin Atlantic celebrated 20 years on the Gatwick-Orlando route on May 28. It was its third destination in 1988 after its launch. A second daily service on the route was added in June 1998 and in the 20 years it has carried almost 10m passengers on the route.

Virgin Blue is to cut some domestic routes , raise fares on more than half its routes and take four aircraft out of the domestic market in the September quarter.

VLM was able to break its daily (May 23) and weekly (May 19-23) passenger records on its London City-Amsterdam route, as a result of switching its Rotterdam services through Amsterdam for that week due to runway maintenance work at Rotterdam. 4,700 passengers were carried on the route on the five weekdays and a record 1,250 on May 23, when 38 flights operated during the day using six aircraft.

An Italian court ordered a new tender be held for Volare within 15 days from May 27, dismissing Alitaliaís contested purchase of the bankrupt budget airline two years ago. The ruling favoured an appeal filed by Alitaliaís domestic rival Air One, which had also wanted to buy Volare. Alitalia had offered Ä38m for Volare, which collapsed two years earlier under the weight of heavy debts and losses, and the deal would have marked the national carrierís expansion into the low-cost market

Merger talks were said to be at an advanced stage in late May between Clickair and Vueling Airlines. Iberia has said it would plan to take a large stake in a new major Barcelona-based low-cost carrier should the merger go ahead. Iberia has a 20% stake in Clickair.

Vyborg of St Petersburg is reported to have temporarily suspended operations and stored its two Il-114s..

Wizz Air, the largest low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe, celebrated its fourth birthday on May 19. To date over 12m passengers have flown with Wizz, 4.2m of them last year, which was 40% more than the previous year. It is now serving 51 destinations on over 100 routes. It has 19 Airbus A320s in service this summer and this figure is planned to grow to 82 aircraft by 2014.

Wizz Air was planning to open its ninth base at Kiev Borispol from July 11 serving seven domestic routes in the Ukraine. It opened bases at Poznan and Cluj earlier this year. A three times weekly Kiev-Luton service is to start on September 15. It was starting a twice weekly Airbus A320 service between Warsaw and Cork on June 26.

XL Airways was introducing new 215-seat Boeing 737-900s from Manchester from May 29. The aircraft have 26 more seats than its Boeing 737-800s and they are also more efficient, using 2.5% less fuel per passenger than the 800s on an average journey.

XL Airwaysí parent XL Leisure group had an operating loss of £24m in the year to October last year. The group accounts were filed on May 29 and the group chief executive resigned for personal reasons on June 10. The groupís net liabilities jumped from £8m to £59m in the year and money owed to creditors almost doubled from £114m to £205m, according to reports..

Zoom Airlines was placed on a list on June 9 of airlines not covered by an insurance company that allows travel companies to buy scheduled airline failure insurance. Such a decision is considered bad publicity for an airline as the list includes Olympic Airlines and Alitalia and the last airline placed on the list was Silverjet on May 23 and it ceased operations a week later. Zoom introduced its Gatwick-Fort Lauderdale service in May and a San Diego service in June and has said that it sees scope for development of more US flights out of Gatwick, which have fallen this summer from 28 to 18 flights a week since some carriers have switched services over to Heathrow. It is considering new routes with two or three weekly flights to US destinations to be offered as it believes passengers are more inclined to fly direct than connect via a hub. Zoom UK is reported to be set to operate charter flights between Finland and Thailand using Boeing 767-300ERs this winter.

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Commercial Airports

Delays in the first quarter of 2008 at the 10 UK monitored by the CAA worsened against a year earlier. The overall number of scheduled flights arriving on time, defined as early to 15 minutes late, fell by 4% to 68%. At Heathrow, 56% of flights were on time, a decline of 9% as the airport was hit by the disastrous opening of Terminal 5 at the end of the quarter, Heathrowís worst performance in seven years. At London City. 58% of flights were on time, down 12%. The average delay across all scheduled flights monitored rose to 18 minutes (16 minutes in 2007), and for charter flights to 28 minutes, against 27 minutes a year earlier.

In view of frequency cutbacks being made by airlines, US airports may have to begin trimming expenditure on improvements to facilities that were based on flight increases, especially those projects considered less essential or adjustable. According to a report by Airports Council International in May last year, US commerical airports faced $75.5bn in spending on capital projects such as terminals and runways by 2011, with 53% of that amount concentrated in large hub airports. One of the biggest expenses is at Chicago OíHare with the work costing some $8.2bn The first phase is to add, relocate and extend runways along with other improvements. Talks are ongoing with airlines with an eye towards the second and final phase.

BAAís UK airports handled 11.8m passengers in April, a drop of 3% compared with April 2007. Easter affected the figures because this year it was in March but when March and Aprilís passengers are added together, the loss for the two month was 0.9%. 350 flights were lost by BA at Heathrow in April because of T5 troubles as well as another 150, mainly at Gatwick, during the month. Traffic was down at five of its seven airports for the month with Southampton up 9.4% and Aberdeen up 1.6%The new Open Skies deal brought a 6% increase in this traffic at Heathrow but overall North Atlantic passengers were down 1%. Over the 12 month period to April traffic was up at five of the airports but down at Stansted 1.5% at 23.43m and down 2.2% at Glasgow at 8.66m.

The BAA May figures were 0.5% down at 12.7m, the biggest drop being at Glasgow which was down 9.1% as it had benefited in 2007 fro the presence of the UEFA Cup Final in Glasgow involving two Spanish teams.

The CAA has said it wants to explore the break up of BAA as it sees the ownership of the top three London airports in the hands of one company likely to prevent, restrict and/or distort competition. It did not identify any significant benefits that arise from this common ownership. The CAA put its views in response to the interim report on BAA by the Competition Commission, which is due to publish possible remedies in August.

British Airwaysí boss Willie Walsh has suggested breaking up BAA would make no difference to competitors for airline customers, instead he wants to see a radical overhaul of the economic regulation of UK airports, overseen by the CAA. Virgin Atlantic believes that competition between different terminal owners within the same airport, like at New York JFK, would help to raise performance standards. Mr Walsh agrees that if BA had been able to own Terminal 5 things would be different.

BAA reported a £51m operating loss for the first quarter of this year. It blamed increased security and maintenance costs which brought its results from a £107m operating profit in the same period in 2007. £24m was spent during the quarter on getting Terminal 5 up and running, or maybe walking. The pre-tax loss was £62m for the quarter. Net debt was up 6.7% at £7.4bn. Since the end of March, BAA has said it is raising £400m from shareholders to assist its debt position and its net income rose to £482m after it booked a £517m gain form the sale of its World Duty Free shops, which will help repay borrowings. It was confirmed on June 1 that Ferrovial has won the backing of eight banks to refinance £7.6bn of debt related to its purchase of BAA, subject to the consent from BAAës bondholders.

The new privately-built airport at Bangalore, which city has the new name Bengaluru, opened for business on May 24 but even before it opened it was attracting comment that it was too small and too far away from the city, which is 22 miles away on congested roads. The old state-run Bangalore International is now due to close but there has been calls for it to stay open as when the deal to build a new airport was signed by the government in 2004, some 5m passengers a year used the airport. Now the figure is 10m, and likely to reach 15m in a few years time following the boom in the civil aviation sector in India. However, the new airport is able to cope with up to 14m passengers and immediately after opening it goes into the next expansion stage. Air India had the privilege of operating the inaugural flight from the airport that was scheduled to takeoff at 00.01 hours to Singapore. Jet Airways had three domestic flights arriving on the evening of May 23 to operate to Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai early next morning.

Belfast City Airport was officially put up for sale on May 28 by its Spanish owners, Ferrovial, who bought the airport in 2003. It paid £35m for it and it has been said that £100m is an expected figure from the sale, which is expected to be completed in the last quarter of this year, based on the interest being shown. However, a figure of £150m has been suggested by the chief executive of the airport, although the owners said that was his personal opinion. Manchester Airports Group has confirmed it has been looking at the airportís figures but has admitted that it is talking with private equity groups about the possibility of a joint bid for Gatwick Airport if it comes up for sale. Also in Northern Ireland, Derry Airport is another airport reported as likely to be coming on the market for sale.

Macquarie Airports has acquired an increase in its beneficial interest in Bristol Airport from 32.1% to 35.5% through a restructure of its co-shareholding in Macquarie Airports Group, after acquiring another 6.7% of the Group shares to take its holding to 70.%. Passengers at Bristol were up 12.3% in April after international traffic figures increased 25.8% over a year earlier.

Ryanair has had some success in a court action to try and prevent what it sees as overspending by Dublin Airport Authority in that it has won the right to appeal the decision of the Irish Commission for Aviation Regulationís interim report on airport charges to the Appeals Panel established by the Irish government. The Court did say, however, that Ryanair had failed to demonstrate that the Commissionís 2007 decision suffered from legal flaws or a lack of process but the Commission has been ordered to clarify its treatment of Ä1.2bn which will lead to a doubling of passenger charges at Dublin Airport, to include the cost of the airportës second terminal. Ryanair is to present its case to the Appeals Panel in a couple of months..

On June 9, Gatwick Airport celebrated 50 years since the much-expanded airport opened at a cost of £7.8m, making it the first airport to combine air, rail and road transport links It is now the sixth largest international airport in the world and handles around 33m passengers a year. The airport first opened in May 1936 when a scheduled service to Paris started.

Councils in the area around Heathrow went to court in May to complain that they wanted noisy aircraft, such as the Boeing 747-400, banned from flying into Heathrow before 06.00. On average there are 16 early morning arrivals each day between 04.30 and 06.00 and the councils wish the government night flight arrangements adhered to after finding many of the aircraft flying in early were in the wrong noise category. However, the councils lost their case after the Court ruled that they wrongly tried to resurrect issues which had been dealt with three years earlier. The judge said that, in any case, the government had remedied the situation after the previous case with a later consultation document aimed at mitigating the effects of night noise.

The Turkish government is planning to build a third airport at Istanbul, which already has Ataturk International and Sabiha Gokcen. It will be located on the European side of the Biospheres, like Ataturk.

Liverpool Airport was celebrating its 75th anniversary on June 28/29 with numerous events. A De Havilland Dragon made the first flight from Speke, as it was then known, to the Isle of Man on July 3, 1933. It had its 50 millionth passenger on June 13. More than 31m passengers have used the airport in the last decade. EasyJet has carried over 13m of them since arriving in 1997.

Manchester Airport marked its 70th anniversary on June 25.Originally known as Manchester Ringway Airport, it is now the largest UK regional airport and the fourth largest UK airport. In the six months of operations in 1938, it handled 4,000 passengers while serving 11 UK airports and one in mainland Europe. In the same six months in 2007, it handled 11m and served over 220 destinations worldwide, more than any other UK airport.

Manchester Airport is making strong efforts to interest Air China in opening up a service into the airport. This follows on from the CAAC in China announcing that it had approved 27 new routes to Europe, one of which was a daily service to Manchester. There is a large Chinese community in the Manchester/Liverpool area.

Newquay Airport opened its new arrivals hall at the beginning of June, the second stage of development n the last two years and part of plans to increase the capacity of the terminal to cater for 700,000 passengers a year. 22 routes are being served from the airport this summer.

The US Dept. of Transportation proposed in May the auction of take-off and landing slots at New York JFK and Newark airports to increase competition and help reduce air travel delays that have had the knock-on effect in the last couple of years to snarl up the countryís air traffic system. 10% of slots at Newark and at JFK either 10% or 20%, both above a base allowance of 20 slots a day, would be involved and that would mean that about 96 slots over the next five years would be affected at Newark and between 91 and 179 slots a day at JFK, depending on which route an airline opted for. The Air Transport Association has slammed the scheme as ëill conceived and unlawfulë. A similar suggestion was announced at New York LaGuardia in April as the three airports had the worst on-time records last year. Continental Airlines has said it will vigorously oppose a scheme that would see property which it owns taken away. It sees auctioning slots as not easing congestion, but which would raise the cost of air travel to consumers and act as an effective increase in taxes on an industry already under financial pressure.

Passengers at Norwich Airport have fallen 87,000 to a figure of 690,000 in the airportís last financial year. This is believed to be the only time passenger numbers have fallen year on year in more than 15 years. The reduction follows on from the airport dispute with Flybe, which axed flights after the introduction of a per passenger fee towards the future development of the airport. A major loss was the axing of Flybeís winter services to Malaga and Alicante.

The departing fee paid by all passengers at Norwich is to rise from $5 to £8 on September 1. The introduction of the £5 fee on April 2 last year upset Flybe, which blamed the tax for its decision to axe routes from the airport. The airport development fee was brought in to help fund a five-year £18m expansion plan. Flybe has said that the new fee ëwill give passengers yet a further reason to choose to fly from Stansted rather than from Norwichí

Visitors to Cyprus will notice improvements at both the islandís airports in the next 12/18 months. Paphos has a new terminal due for completion in August, which is due to open on November 11 after overcoming any teething problems. It will have 24 check-in desks, six security screening positions and three baggage carousels and a good number of shops. It will be able to handle 2.7m passengers a year. A larger airport at Larnaca is also under construction and is due to open in November 2009. The previous main airport at the capital, Nicosia, has been closed to commercial traffic since 1974 following the dispute between Greece and Turkey over the ownership of northern Cyprus and is under the control of the UN.

The CAA has finally licensed Oban Airport and two airstrips on the Isle of Coll and Colonsay to operate, but they can only be used in daylight hours and in good visibility.

There are said to be four main parties out of seven vying for control of Southend Airport, which has been put up for sale at £40/50m by Regional Airports. Two of them are thought likely to be London City Airport and the Reuben brothers as the final four include ëan infrastructure player, private equity and a UK airport owner.

The Stansted runway consultation period has been extended three months to September 26 to give more times for responses from interested parties to BAAís request for planning permission to build a new runway and a second terminal The quantity of material submitted by BAA in the 38 planning applications requires interested parties, including a number of local authorities, to spend a lot of time considering and preparing their obstructions to the plans. Whatever the result of the applications, a final decision will certainly be made by the government after a public inquiry. If finally approved, the £2.5bn development would open in 2015 and serve 68m passengers a year by around 2030.

Stanstedís passenger numbers were down 3.3% in May and down 4.4% for the period January to May (8.70m), giving the many opponents of the airportís expansion plans for a new runway and terminal cause to point out that there was no need for such work, especially as it has always been clear that long-haul airlines had never shown much interest in using the airport. Even when such services start, they are not always successful, evidenced by the loss of MAXjet last December, Eos Airlines in April and American Airlines on July this year.