airberlin, Norwegian make gains, Aer Lingus continues to fall
Standard & Poor's reiterated its opinion that the UK banking system is no longer one of the most stable and low risk, due to the country's poor economic outlook. The FTSE (-1.4%), France's CAC (-1.3%) and Germany's DAX (-1.0%) were all down. As a result, the majority of European airline stocks were down at the end of trading.
Aeroflot proposes to take over terminals at Moscow Sheremetyevo
Aeroflot (+0.6%) gained slightly on news it has reportedly proposed to take over management of Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport's Sheremetyevo-2 (Terminal 2) and Terminal E, as its newly opened Sheremetyevo-3 (Terminal 3) does not have enough capacity. The carrier expects to handle 12 million passengers in Moscow this year, while Terminal 3 only has capacity for 9 million passengers p/a. The airport is reportedly against the proposal and plans to offer the carrier management of Sheremetyevo-3. The Russian Transportation Ministry is currently discussing the proposals.
In other Russian news, Russia's Federal Aviation Agency reported financial highlights for Dec-2009 and FY2009, available in today's Europe Airline Daily, your one-stop-shop morning briefing on European airline developments.
Also gaining on Thursday were Norwegian (+6.6%) and airberlin (+1.9%).
Aer Lingus continues to fall
Aer Lingus (-0.4%) continued to drop, despite CEO, Christoph Mueller, stating during trading the media has exaggerated the carrier's financial issues and currently has enough cash to last until 2014 or 2015 without making any profits. Mr Mueller added the carrier is now working towards moving back into the black, and reported a "small profit" for 2H2009.
Austrian Airlines (-2.7%) and SAS (-2.4%) also fell on Thursday.
Europe selected airlines daily share price movements (% change): 28-Jan-2010