737-Max For Kish Airlines

Photo Kish Airlines  Fokker F100

Iran’s Kish Airlines and Boeing are undstood to have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) this week for the purchase of 10 new 737-Max aircraft. 

Mohammad Taghi Jadidi, Kish Airlines’ managing director told local media that the MoU for purchasing 10 Boeing-737-MAX airplanes was signed following the negotiations with the representative of the US company this week. 

Kish Airlines is currently actively seeking a financing invester to help it complete the deal for the new fuel efficent aircraft which would dramatically enchance and upgrade the carriers exsisting fleet. 

Capt Jadidi also told reporters that, Kish Air will purchase six Airbus A-320 family jets by the end of the current Iranian fiscal year (March 2018), explaining that these aircraft are ones that have been from other airlines by banks.

The Kish fleet currently includes -

2 Airbus A320-200
2 Airbus A321-200
4 MD83
3 MD82
3 Fokker F100

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Cal Jet Air by Elite Airways offers new daily scheduled service beginning September 28 out of McClellan Palomar Airport.  Starting with 2 flights per day to Las Vegas, this new service will save North County residents hours of commuting time and is a monumental breakthrough for Carlsbad since this will be the first regularly scheduled jet service ever offered. 

The fleet of new generation Bombardier CRJ700 luxury jets will operate twice daily flights and feature six first class seats and fifty eight economy / coach seats. The airline is promising fares starting as low as $67 each way and passengers even get complimentary beverages and snacks for that price.  

The owners of Cal Jet LLC are former airline and travel executives who have partnered with Elite Airways to expand services throughout the U.S.  “We know this will greatly benefit the airport, passengers and greater North San Diego County with positive new business development and employment opportunities" they said. 

(images from Cal Jet)

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Ryanair Attacks Passengers Over Cabin Baggage

The budget carrier Ryanair has again attacked its passengers, this time it is over the size of their carry on bags! 

The Irish airline complained today that too many of its customers were attempting to sneak larger bags on board than the supposed budget airline allowed. They say this is what is causing flight delays and aggravation at the boarding gate.   

Today the Ryanair demand passengers comply with its cabin bag rules, which it claims are "repeatedly flouted", warning if it continued they would review the policy. Many in the travel industry believe this is just the next step of introducing a charge for the carriage of cabin bags. 

At the moment Ryanair passengers can take a single 10kg cabin bag, that's 55cm x 40 cm x 20cm in size, plus an additional item such as shopping carrier bag or handbag.  Anything else, or bigger than the sizes above would have to be placed in the hold – at the passengers expense. The dimensions for bags allowed in the cabin with Ryanair is smaller than British Airways, Monarch,  Thomson, Jet2, Norwegian and most other airlines, with the exception of Easyjet - which is slightly smaller. 

Another Quarter of Losses for El Al

.The Israeli airline El Al reported a massive 53 percent drop in quarterly profit this week, citing higher salary and jet fuel expenditure ahead of its fleet modernization programme.

The national carrier of Israel announced on Wednesday it had earned $16.4 million, thats £12.7 million, in the second quarter of the year, down from 35 million a year earlier.

The airline says overall expenses rose by 5 percent, due mainly because of higher wages, while jet fuel costs grew by 6.2 percent.  In December the carrier signed a deal with its pilots to end a year of protests that led to flight cancellations, delays, higher costs and angry passengers. Which cost the airline dear and they have reported losses in the two previous quarters. 

Will Lufthansa Buy 100 Air Berlin Aircraft? Ryanair's Not Happy. Could IAG be Interested? The Air Berlin Gossip Bubble

Lufthansa is in negotiations to buy a majority of Air Berlin's aircraft, with the backing of the German Government, which is, according to local media, looking for an aviation 'champion' to come to the rescue.   The German flag carrier may take upto 100 of the 140 Air Berlin fleet some analysts are predicting.  No comment on that theory yet from the German airline, although it is a possibility - with nothing being ruled out at this stage.   

Air Berlin's collapse may be a god send for Lufthansa and the other airlines in its group, if they takes up the chance to acquire slots at busy airports such as Berlin Tegel and Duesseldorf. The German national carrier is keen to defend its domestic position against the expansion of the low-cost carriers like Ryanair.  

Manila - Auckland Non-Stop For Philippine Airlines

Philippine Airlines will be making a major change on flights to New Zealand's 'City of Sails from December this year.  The airline is to start a direct non-stop flight to Auckland from Manila from 6th December on on of its Airbus A340 aircraft. 

The non-stop service will operate three times a week - Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday - departing Manila at 11.15pm, arriving Auckland at 2.05pm local time the following day.  The return leaves Auckland every Friday, Saturday and Tuesday at 12.30 local time and touches down in Manila at 5.45am.

955 More Jobs to go at Iberia

The Spanish airline Iberia, aims to cut up to 955 jobs as part of a fresh round of redundancies outlined to unions, a spokesperson for the company said on Thursday.

The Spanish carrier, which is  part of International Consolidated Airlines Group who also own British Airways, Vueling and Aer Lingus, has already been through two major rounds of redundancies in times. So far they have axed around 4,500 employees and its hoped this latest round of 955 would mostly come from voluntary redundancies and some early retirement plans.

Iberia are also planning more job cuts next year to further streamline the Spanish operation despite huge profits for IAG, it is expected they will be announced in February or March.

Has MH370 Been Found?

Could the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been found at last?  After years of searching, the  Australian authorities believe they have finally found the crash site of the missing jet.

Photo: Byrne Guy/Geoscience Australia

Australia has released satellite images it claims show 12 “probably man-made” objects floating in the sea near the suspected crash site of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. The images were taken two weeks after MH370 disappeared on 8 March 2014, these images have been analysed by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and enabled their researchers to suggest a new potential location for the impact site, an area of 1930 sq miles just north of the former search zone.

In a report issued this week, the Australian's state the detected objects appeared to be in clusters, rather than being  scattered randomly across the sea.  Researchers have a “high degree of confidence” that their in depth and complex drift models of the items indicated a probable impact site within that area, which is in a section of the Indian Ocean that has not yet been searched.

Big Half Year Losses For Cathay Pacific

The Hong Kong based Cathay Pacific has reported a net loss of over 2 billion Hong Kong dollars, that over $268 US dollars for the first half of this year alone. 

For the first six months of last year the airline made a profit of HKD$353, compared to this years loss and the airline has confirmed it expects the losses to continue for the full year.  

The Hong Kong flag carrier cites issues such as the price of fuel, hedging losses and greatly increased competition on a number of markets for the steep losses.  Also a number of other 'one off' item affected the half year figures including a fine from the European Commission over a cargo price collusions case and a dilution of shares in Air China from 20.1% to 18.1%. 

Air Force Two Forces United Flight Diversion

A United Airlines flight was forced to divert after running low on fuel waiting for US Vice President Mike Pence to take off. 

The US Secret Service often throw up temporary flight restrictions when the President aircraft - Air Force One is arriving or departing an airport, however last Friday evening they did the same at Indianapolis for Air Force Two, that's the code name for any aircraft carrying the VP. 

United Express 3633 was heading to Indianapolis International Airport  from Chicago when they were told of the TFR, which meant they couldn't land at the airport, not until Mike Pence the US VP had departed.  

Traffic up for JetBlue

JetBlue Airways  has just reported its preliminary traffic results for July 2017.  The popular airline saw traffic in July increased by 5.1 percent over July 2016, on a capacity increase of 5.9 percent.

Load factor for July 2017 was 87.1 percent, a decrease of 0.7 points from July 2016. JetBlue’s preliminary completion factor was 97.5 percent and its on-time (1) performance was 63.5 percent. JetBlue continues to expect third quarter revenue per available seat mile to range between (0.5) percent and 2.5 percent compared to the third quarter of 2016.

New Summer Routes For AirBaltic As More CS300's Arrive

The Latvian airline Air Baltic announces its first destinations for the summer season of 2018, starting on March 27, 2018. Next summer airBaltic will have more than five new destinations added to its route map.

Wolfgang Reuss, Senior Vice President Network Management of airBaltic: “So far 2017 has been an excellent year for airBaltic – already seven brand new Bombardier CS300 aircraft have successfully joined our fleet as we are serving a growing family of customers. We are delighted to share the first glimpse of forecast how our 2018 is going to look, by announcing a wider selection of destinations that our customers have demanded for the next summer. Network expansion is a key part of our Horizon 2021 business plan that enables us to further improve connections between the Baltic region and the rest of the world.”

See the new routes and more - 

Codeshare for Avianca and Singapore Airlines Plus More Euro Expansion.

Avianca and Singapore Airlines  have signed a codeshare agreement which will allow both airlines to codeshare their flights from and to Barcelona and London Heathrow from next month.

The new agreement will offer Avianca’s passengers many more options to connect to the vibrant gateway to Southern Asia - Singapore.  And from there, passengers will be able to fly to dozens of destinations from the impressive Changi International Airport, with Singapore Airlines.

Avianca will include its ‘AV’ code on flights operated by Singapore Airlines on the London – Singapore – London and Barcelona – Singapore – Barcelona. Likewise, the Asian airline will add its ‘SQ’ code to flights operated by Avianca on the London – Bogota – London and Barcelona – Bogota

Upto Six a day for Loganair Glasgow to Manchester.

The Scottish Airline - Loganair has announced an increase on the number of scheduled flights the local carrier operates between Glasgow and Manchester.

From 04 September 2017 Loganair is all set to double the number of flights between the two cities it operates, making a total of six each day.

The new flight schedule is aimed to offer passengers better flexibility with greater choice and is in response to strong and growing customer demand for the route - 42,548 people traveled between Glasgow and Manchester last year, both business and pleasure.

More details and book direct at  Loganair. 




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