Singapore Airlines (SQ, Singapore Changi) will operate five B777-Fs for DHL Express under a recently concluded Crew and Maintenance (CM) agreement.
Based out of Singapore’s Changi Airport and serving DHL’s South Asia Hub there, the freighters, which will sport a dual DHL-SIA livery, will be operated by Singapore Airlines’ pilots on routes to the United States via points in North Asia. Singapore Airlines will also oversee the maintenance of these aircraft.
The initial agreement is set for more than four years with the opportunity for an extension. As part of the agreement, the first aircraft will arrive in July 2022, with the second in October 2022. The remaining three aircraft are planned for delivery throughout 2023.
“With the deployment of five Boeing 777 freighters, we can expand our express service linking the Asia Pacific region with the Americas," Travis Cobb, executive vice president for global operations and aviation at DHL Express, said. "Following the pandemic, we see good prospects for strong growth in trans-Pacific trade lanes. By collaborating with Singapore Airlines, we see a unique chance to establish a long-lasting relationship with a longtime partner who shares common values and operates at the highest standard.”
Singapore Airlines is an existing B777 operator with twenty-six B777-300(ER)s in its current fleet alongside six parked B777-200(ER)s. Its freighter fleet, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows, consists of seven B747-400FSCDs. For its part, following the addition of six last week, DHL has twenty-eight B777-Fs due from Boeing. It currently has five B777-Fs in service with Kalitta Air, one with DHL Air, eight with Atlas Air, and twenty with its AeroLogic joint venture.
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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