Over the past week, I had the opportunity to speak with several representatives of a young three-year-old growing airline within India, Vistara. The airline is a joint venture between Tata Sons, a large Indian conglomerate, and Singapore Airlines. This isn’t the Tata family’s first go at an airline. Decades ago the family had originally launched the first major Indian airline in conjunction with the government, however that airline was later fully nationalized and is now known as Air India. This…
Located roughly 300 miles from the eastern coast of South America, the Falkland Islands has had its own unique history of transitioning between British, Argentinian, and French control. Now solidly under the control of the United Kingdom, the small island chain of 3,398 people has linked itself to its closest…
TAP Air Portugal received its first Airbus A330-900neo on Monday at a delivery ceremony held at the Airbus Delivery Centre in Toulouse, France. The A330-900neo is the next-generation version of Airbus' popular A330-300 aircraft, a major player in the long-haul market, and is the first of two variants of the…
Belgium’s national airline, Brussels Airlines, has announced its plans for Summer 2019, where it will be increasing the frequency of services to places across Europe and Africa, as well as adding some new destinations. The Brussels-based airline will begin to operate daily flights to Accra in Ghana and Lomé in…
The last British Airways service operated by a Boeing 767 landed at London Heathrow for the final time on Sunday evening following almost three decades of operations for the airline. The 767 was the first wide-body twinjet aircraft designed by Boeing which took to the air in 1981 and was…
Following last week’s news that U.K.-based Flybe is up for sale, Reuters this week reported that Virgin Atlantic is interested in the regional carrier, which has suffered from falling demand, a weaker pound and high fuel costs. In a four-line statement, Virgin Atlantic, which is 49 percent owned by Delta, stated…
Lufthansa Technik (LHT) was originally founded in 1995, as parent company Lufthansa Group split different facets of the business into separate corporations. As a new business, LHT needed to find new ways to increase revenue and reach profitability, as maintenance solely for Lufthansa Group airlines would not provide the figures…
Singapore Airlines announced Thursday that its budget arm, Scoot, will take over several SilkAir routes ahead of SilkAir’s planned merger with mainline Singapore Airlines. Scoot will also be expanding its fleet with this merger, taking over 14 of SilkAir’s Boeing 737-800s. The Singaporean flag carrier has been undertaking a three-year…
Indonesia AirAsia X, a joint venture between Malaysian long-haul carrier AirAsia X and Indonesia AirAsia, has announced that it will be ceasing scheduled operations beginning January 2019. The carrier will still remain in operation but will operate as a non-scheduled commercial airline going forward. Indonesia AirAsia X was intended to…
Benjamin Smith was recently appointed as the new Air France-KLM CEO following the departure of Jean-Marc Janaillac. He assumed the CEO role on Sept. 30, 2018. Just over two weeks into the job, Smith and employee representative unions successfully signed an agreement regarding employee compensation. The unions in the accord…
