Big news today as Air Asia X has decided to cancel a few of their routes. And they’re big ones too.

Indian Routes:

• Kuala Lumpur <> Mumbai,  CANCELLED from 1st February 2012
• Kuala Lumpur <> Delhi,  CANCELLED from 23rd March 2012

European Routes:

• Kuala Lumpur <> Paris Orly, CANCELLED  from 31st March 2012
• Kuala Lumpur – London Gatwick, CANCELLED  from 1st April 2012

Air Asia are blaming these cancellations on various reason such as:

• Higher and increasing airport charges in India
• Indian Visa Restrictions
• The dreaded EU ETS (Emission Trading Scheme)
• Air Passenger Duty being hiked upwards in the United Kingdom

Air Asia will continue to serve parts of India through it’s mainline branch as opposed to it’s “X” Long-haul branch.

Some of Air Asia X’s pricing has been wild recently – at some points going over Malaysian Airlines own fares by a fair amount. Since companies like Air Asia start at a low price point and work from a Low Cost proposition, increasing fares and charges are one way to drive them out.

Sadly, it proves that Long Haul Asia to Europe “Low Cost Carrier” experiences just aren’t working (although it hasn’t taken the entire company with it – in the case of Oasis Hong Kong Airlines). It also shows the damaging effect of Air Passenger Duty from the United Kingdom – an increasing burden that will go up on the 2nd April 2012…

AirAsia X is beginning it’s push to serve Sydney from Kuala Lumpur LCCT, adding to the served destinations to Australia.

However, there are little completion issues – namley the Malaysian authorities refusing to fly the rote. That privilege has been reserved for Malaysian Airlines.

As one of the bigger cities in Australia, it’s a no-brainer for an airline to launch a route or if they’re in a mood to pound an opponent into the ground – multiple flights a day to Sydney.

AirAsiaX are hoping with the stock-swap between Malaysia Airlines and itself, it should be able to gain access to this route.

In addition, AirAsia X are eyeing up Japan. Already serving HND, and with the growth of LCC’s in Japan, this could be quite a profitable move if AirAsia X put it’s mind to it – but there has to be planning and working out where to milk the Japanese destinaitions. Don’t expect any news for 12 months or so whilst it makes up it’s mind…

It’s Friday again, so it must be time for me to look at the news for the week:

Ryanair takes its balls away…
Ryanair pulls aircraft and services from Manchester – Analysis on here on why O’Liar is talking once again out of his back side.

BBC News, GhettoIFE.com

Korean Air – Profit!

Korean Air posted a net income of 78.5b won ( or about $62.4 million) for Q2/2009 – with their profit comes on the back of exchange rates working in their favour. Loads for cargo are of course still down, whilst passenger loads are static.

Korean air should be able to ride this out – however reliance on currency to make a profit is a bad idea….
(Flight)

SIA – Traffic Down

Singapore airlines are feeling the downturn at the moment with a 13% drop in traffic – From 79.7% from 81%.

Hard times are hitting this proud airline now – what is SIA’s plan for getting out of this mess? With the withdrawal of 747′s, the costs will drop slightly, but they will still need to deliver new capacity to replace these beasts….
(Flight)

Air AsiaX breaths down Eithad and Middle Eastern Carriers – Launches Abu Dhabi Service.

The Longhaul Ryanair of Asia – Air Asia X is extending its reach with a new service to Abu Dhabi commencing 23rd October, 5 times a week with a single A340.

This is an interesting play as it could mark the beginning of the expansion of Air Asia X into a Middle Eastern Virtual Hub. Certainly with the A350 order, they’re starting to turn into a force not to be underestimated…
(Flight)

Qantas Profits 87% down…

But still in profit. Blames the usual suspects (H1N1, Ressesion, Flying Pigs, etc)
(Flight)

Virgin Atlantic considering NOT going it alone – considering Star Alliance Membership

And about bloody time. Whilst the CEO of VS, Steven Ridgway said that Virgin will “fight this right to the end,” while responding to the increased competition, they’re “We know that Lufthansa now owns BMI and it would make a lot of sense to work more closely,” he said.

Virgin are on the brink of being a small fish in a big sea after cherry picking routes. Time to grow up possibly?
(Travel Blackboard via the BMI Diamond Club Forum)

Brown Goes Red… Once only though. Pretty much dumping your date after you’ve… (do I need to go on?)

According to different sources, the Virgin charter of a B747 is for ONE TRIP ONLY. Well talk about shouting out of ones backside. NEXT!

Wizz Air Wizzes into Bratislava – Declares Time up for SkyEurope

Just as Ryanair is decimating the Western European aviation sector, Wizz Air are doing the same in Eastern Europe. After dispatching of LOT’s CentralWings (which is still flying in name, but is being slowly folded back into LOT), it’s now time to deal with Sky Europe.

SkyEurope has been suffering (least of all having some of its aircraft repossessed by the lessor) and is currently in creditor protection. Therefore, WizzAir is going for broke in this sector, and to break the remains of SkyEurope.

Ryanair… WizzAir… The two big bloc controllers of the LCC market?

Ocean Air (Brazil) Comes out of near to nowhere and goes for broke…

Here’s another airline I’ve never heard of – Ocean Air. Based in Brazil and currently running a Foker F100 fleet, they’re branching out into A319′s… and from 2015 – A350XWB-800′s.

A quick look at the colour scheme gives away who owns Ocean Air – Columbian based airline Avianca who will be running 787′s, citing different countries – different aircraft – different missions.

Well variety is the spice of life isn’t it?
Norwegian up, SAS Suffering.

Norwegian is doing very well at the moment with an $11m profit (well for these conditions anything with a plus must be good). SAS on the other hand lost $251m. SAS is trying to recover, but is slowly turning into yet another European basket case airline – and implementing CoreSAS as reported last week.

Cut too close to the Core SAS and you’ll loose it….

JAL Cargo to Merge… what lies ahead?
Japan Airlines s in talks to merge its cargo business Nippon Yusen citing falling cargo loads.

Ominously, there is a warning of further consolidation down the line…
BBC News, Flight

SouthWest – Mass WiFi deployment

Well someone had to do it – and hopefully this will kick start WiFi in the air competition into overdrive. SouthWest airlines is equiping its entire fleet of 737′s (300/500/700′s) – 545 aircraft with Row 44′s KU based BroadBand/WiFi System.

This is very big news as it make the econmics of depolyment very cheap, and hopefully the cost of it to be cheap too.

And if other companies want to go with Row 44, this is simply going to mean the cost will fall for the equipment.
Flight

———-

Right – thats your bite sized news for this week.

I’m not sure there will be news next week as I’ll be 35000ft or so in the air at publishing time – more to come!

Continental: Joins Star Alliance 27th October (Official)

Continental have confirmed they are to leave SkyTeam on the 24th October and formally join Star Alliance on the 27th October.

Expect trouble if things go wrong – and knowing how other airlines have handled integrations before – trouble isn’t fare off.
(Continental)

Ryanair Opens a new base a Jimmy Savile International – I mean Leeds Bradford Airport

The odious little man is doing some good this week, and has announced the opening of a new base at LBA, where 2 aircraft will be based. Estimated 1000 jobs to come in. Whilst this is good for the area (as BMI pulled out earlier this year), this could spell trouble for Jet2 and FlyBe. New routes are: Carcassonne, Malta, Faro, Montpellier, Ibiza, Murcia, Knock, Nantes, Krakow,Palma, Limoges, Pisa, Malaga,Venice Treviso.

Yes, there’s a fare sale, but in Ryanair land – every day is a fare sale!
(BBC News/Ryanair)

SAS… cutting to the core

SAS is going from bad to worse alas, with another net loss of kr1.05bn, and is cutting another 1000 jobs in the process under it’s coreSAS programme. In addition, they’ll be asking for paycuts from crew as well.

At the rate SAS are going, there not be much left to cut soon
(BBC News/Flight)

Gol hits the Goal and in the profit

Brazilian Carrier Gol is doing the impossible and actual has posted a rather tidy R$354 profit in Q2, whilst managing and reducing costs… and selling R$104 million worth of miles to institutions to sell on.

Hey.. that’s the United business model isn’t it?
(Flight)

Asiana – Profit…

Again devil is in the detail, with Asiana selling off their IT unit – with weak numbers all around
(Flight)

Virgin Blue cancels all United Codeshares

Wholey expected as Virgin Blue and V Australia is snuggling up to Delta, and telling UA to find a partner to dance with in Australia to feed into their SYD services. Whilst Virgin Blue is happy to tart with other carriers, it wants no part of a global alliance. UA fliers heading to Australia had better open up a QF OneWorld Account to start throwing those spare miles into….
(Flight)

SouthWest is desperate for some Frontier LUV from the Courts… AND DOESN’T GET IT

SouthWest Airlines is seemingly desperate for Frontier and has upped it’s bid to US$170m for the airline. Cranky has an excellent analysis of what it means, but it does mean an inital fleet reduction to 40 Airbus A320 Series and the possible creation of “SouthWest Express” – as well as the elimination of a competitor.

And in late breaking news, it’s been confirmed that Republic Airlines have won the auction for $150m, citing management of seniority lists.

That’ll set the cat amongst the pigeons… (Flight, Cranky Flier)

Branson Bleets about the AA/BA/IB tieup

See below – Also his minons were out and about on Radio 5 Live. Change the tune please?
(BBC Radio 5, The Telegraph)

Air Asia X debating IFE+C

Air Asia X are to explore options in terms of connectivity for its inbound fleet of A350′s… but the big question is how – it’s a big out of pocked expense initially… so how is it going to be funded? Fun times.

It’s also worth nothing that Air Asia (and its other LCC’s Thai AirAsia and Indonesia Air Asia) have signed with OnAir to provide in flight Telephony hardware (who also provide RyanAir). I’d personally expect a similar deal along the line
(Flight)

Delta goes for Handheld IFE on it’s 747 fleet whilst sticking the words “FOR SALE” on them

Meanwhile Delta 747 fans can start panicking… now. Rather than going for a complete internal refurbishment, Delta is going for Handheld IFE units for all classes. Whilst a great idea for a quick and easy deployment, this translates that Delta are no longer prepared to invest in a major upgrade for the 747 fleet (apart from painting the planes, changing seat covers, added DL product to them. However, its seen as a fill in solution until some more twinjet aircraft are located (777-200LR probably )

Now whilst you’re at it Delta – any chance you can get some spares for your 767 fleet?
(Flight)

—-

More of course next week!

Welcome to yet another review of day to at Paris

… and if we’re blunt, not a lot from those IFE units and suppliers today. However Thales (who are providing the IFE on the new QR birds) seem to have a new weez… Wireless IFE

Of course, wireless seems to be one of those buzzwords, so we’re looking at wireless in terms of Cabin control and systems. Of course – pumping all those bits and bytes across a LAN the size of an aircraft requires cabling.

Neither Thales and Panasonic seem to be new to this as Boeing spec’d it into the 787 – which of course was popped out when Boeing ran into a few little issues.

Here’s a hint: there’s work to be done – least of all bandwidth control. Don’t expect it in your next plane for some time…

However today’s tidbits include a few more orders – one from Air Asia X for 10 A350′s (option of 5), 16 A321′s for Vietnam Airlines, with a pair of A350′s, 5 for Cebu Pacific but more interestingly, up to 20 (10 confirmed, 10 option) ATR-72-600 from Air Nordstrom (who were doing a lot of buying yesterday with their acquisition of CRJ-1000′s)

Obviously someone hasn’t told Air Nordstrom there’s a downturn on at the moment – but as they run CRJ-200′s, ATR’s probably could be considered an upgrade probably.

On the Boeing front (who are strangely quiet – probably all the fun with the 787 due for take off at the end of the month), there seems to discussions regarding either re-winging the 777, moving towards 787-10 or even a clean-sheet design.

There’s logic on all fronts – 777 re-winged means the use of a perfectly good body with fancy new wings, 787-10 (an easy follow-on) or Clean-Sheet (which will give spotters something to wet themselves over) – so it’s down to what is the commercial consideration of working towards these new models – and how does Airbus’s A350-800/900/1000 fit into the picture?

Interesting times as always…

Welcome to GhettoIFE.com!

I’m your host – Kevin – and I’ll be here to guide you through the maze of modern travel, and hopefully add some insightful comment and humour.

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