Singapore Airlines (SQ, Singapore Changi) has taken delivery of the first of five B777-200Fs due to be operated under a CM agreement with DHL Express.
9V-DHA (msn 67140) was ferried directly from Everett to Singapore Changi on August 3, 2022, but has yet to be deployed into revenue service.
The five Boeing dedicated freighters are due to be based out of Singapore and used on routes to the United States via points in Asia. A second aircraft is scheduled for delivery in October 2022, and the remaining three in 2023.
Singapore Airlines’ in-house cargo fleet comprises seven B747-400FSCDs. The partnership with the Singaporean flag carrier is DHL Express’s second South-East/East Asian venture. It was a 40% joint-venture partner in Air Hong Kong (LD, Hong Kong Int’l) only for the carrier to be fully acquired by its other shareholder, Cathay Pacific (CX, Hong Kong Int’l), as of January 1, 2019. However, it continues to operate exclusively on behalf of DHL Express. Thailand’s K-Mile Asia (8K, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi) also operates two B737-400(SF)s, one B737-400(F), and one B737-800(BCF) on behalf of DHL Express.
Despite a rapid recovery in passenger demand, pandemic related lockdowns in China drove Singapore Airlines’ cargo revenue for the April-June 2022 quarter down 1.5% to SGD1.096 billion Singaporean dollars (USD794 million).
"While cargo demand from Asia has been recovering, this is being offset by seasonally slower air cargo activity during the summer," it said. "Yields are expected to remain higher than pre-Covid levels in the near to medium term as air cargo capacity remains tight on key trade lanes to and from Asia, particularly between Europe and Asia, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Changes to the Covid-19 situation in China may also impact the ongoing recovery in the country’s export volumes."
Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad Int’l) will continue to retire its A380-800s as soon as feasible, seeing no long-term future for the giant jet in its fleet, according to Group Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker.
Speaking to Simple Flying, he reiterated he still considered the A380 his “biggest mistake”.
Al Baker’s comments coincided with several airlines returning the A380 to service following a massive travel rebound this summer and slot capacity constraints at major airports. There is also a lack of wide-body capacity amid production issues with the new A350, an issue that has escalated into a USD1 billion legal battle between Qatar Airways and Airbus.
However, Al Baker said spare parts for A380s were challenging to get. “Out of the eight that we commissioned to fly, we only fly seven. We keep one spare because today, you have difficulty getting spares for them because of the supply chain. [Airbus] stopped producing them, so there is no more incentive to make spares.”
“Due to the grounding of the A350s…
Aircalin (SB, Nouméa La Tontouta) is in discussions about adding a third A330-900, which would allow it to launch in-house services to Paris CDG, Chief Executive Didier Tappero told the Aviation Week Network.
“We are working with Airbus to eventually order a third widebody aircraft. We want to have the capacity to fly Paris to Nouméa La Tontouta, but it is still a project we have to work on,” Tappero said.
The New Caledonian carrier currently relies on its codeshare and interline agreements to connect the French collectivity in the Pacific Ocean with the metropole. It operates two A330-900s, which it deploys to Papeete, Sydney Kingsford Smith, and Tokyo Narita, and has just added Singapore Changi to its network. It has a codeshare agreement with Air France on routes from Paris CDG to Narita and Singapore, and an interline agreement with Singapore Airlines on the Singapore-Paris route.
Tappero said Aircalin was hopeful that Singapore would become an important connecting hub. The airline currently serves the…
Uzbekistan’s civil aviation authority (O’zaviatsiya Agentligi) has emphatically denied rumours that have been spreading online about the emergence of a new airline in the country by the name of Panorama Airways (Tashkent Islam Karimov). Online sources had claimed that two A320-200s were already in Tashkent undergoing pre-delivery maintenance while an ex-Singapore Airlines B777-300 – ER-77739 (msn 32327) – was being prepared in Bishkek.
“Reports in the mass media about the creation of a new airline in Uzbekistan, Panorama Airways, and its imminent performance of flights on Airbus A320 and Boeing B777 aircraft is not true,” the authority said on June 29.
It stressed that “in order to carry out any activities related to the use of aircraft in civil aviation, the requirements of Article 44 of the Air Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan and [regulations] approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, any legal entity or individual must obtain an air operator’s certificate from O’zaviatsiya Agentligi in the prescribed manner.”
“The organisation calling itself Panorama Airways has not…
Jakarta has confirmed Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) free of bankruptcy, prompting the Indonesian government to immediately start the search for new investors, deputy minister for state-owned enterprises Kartika Wirjoatmodjo told reporters. The ministry has been in talks with several foreign airlines and financial investors, he added.
Such investors will have the resources to aid the flag carrier’s new business plan, the minister said after the airline managed to gain creditor support to restructure its IDR142 trillion rupiah (USD9.5 billion) worth of liabilities, the Indonesian news agency Antara reported Kartika as saying. Garuda has managed to halve this debt, through court-led negotiations and in out-of-court settlements, to USD5.1 billion, he said.
Garuda Indonesia has also cut aircraft leasing costs in negotiations that began more than two years ago. To accommodate new shareholders, the government said it was prepared to cut its shareholding to no less than 51%, inject a further IDR7.5 trillion (USD500 million) into Garuda’s capital this year, and conduct a rights offering in the fourth quarter to raise additional cash.
Among the…
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