Star

LOT majority stake attracts airline interest, but restructuring and potential synergies will be key

Recent legislation allows the government of Poland to sell a majority stake in state-controlled national carrier, LOT Polish Airlines (LOT). According to media reports, LOT has appointed Rothschild as its privatisation adviser and a number of carriers have indicated their interest in investing. A lifeline loan from the government in Dec-2012 has been approved by the European Commission, partly conditional on a new restructuring plan expected in Jun-2013.

With losses for each of the four years 2008 to 2011 and a fifth loss expected for 2012, LOT’s cost base is too high for its revenue-generating capabilities. Moreover, it is inefficient versus the LCCs that compete on short/medium-haul, which accounts for 88% of LOT’s seat capacity and where its ageing 737 fleet needs replacing.

A handful of long-haul monopoly routes are finally benefitting from new 787s, but it is difficult to find many other features for LOT’s advisers to highlight. Interest in buying LOT will depend very much on the pricing and potential synergies a buyer might bring to the table.

Austrian Airlines: a perennial loss-maker undergoing radical restructuring

Austrian Airlines has not made an operating profit since 2007 and has been consistently the weakest Lufthansa Group carrier in terms of margins and passenger growth. It is more exposed than its sister companies to short/medium-haul markets, where price-based competition is fierce, and its long-haul network is relatively light.

However, it has strong market positions on its long-haul routes and is looking to grow this area of its business with an additional Boeing 777, approved by the parent company. Moreover, its recently completed rationalisation of its narrowbody fleet from 11 Boeing 737s to seven Airbus A320 family aircraft will both reduce its exposure to short/medium-haul markets and allow it to serve them more efficiently.

Meanwhile, the centre-piece of its radical restructuring programme, the transfer of flight operations into its regional subsidiary Tyrolean Airways (effective from Jul-2012), and the concentration of administrative operations at Vienna should lead to further cost savings if legal challenges can be repelled.

Singapore Airlines needs more partnerships to complete new long-term strategy

Singapore Airlines (SIA) continues to be on the lookout for new partnership opportunities, including potential equity stakes in airlines from key emerging markets such as China and India. While the SIA Group has undergone a dramatic strategic shift over the last two years, the partnership component of its new long-term strategy remains largely unwritten.

Close tie-ups with Virgin Australia, which includes an equity stake which was recently increased to 19.9%, and SAS could be followed by new partnerships with Asian carriers. The SAS and Virgin Australia partnerships, both of which have come under the leadership of SIA Group CEO Goh Choon Phong, are noteworthy but neither carrier serves Singapore or operates from a growth market.

SIA needs a larger portfolio of robust partnerships. But it can make a difficult bedfellow. Forging the right partnerships could prove to be the most challenging aspect of the new SIA strategy.

After 'engine change in-flight' bmi Regional looks to re-grow partnerships – and profitability

bmi Regional is a familiar name now undertaking a very different strategy after what management terms an “engine change in-flight” when the carrier was sold off from IAG and had to migrate to its own IT systems, new office, IATA code and BSP in a matter of weeks.

During that time the focus was to keep the carrier operational, and with the transition settled down, bmi Regional is now looking to re-establish partnerships, grow its network focused on point-to-point traffic rather than the approximate quarter of traffic it received from Star Alliance, which it is no longer a member of. The carrier is viewing an open future across Europe, not just the UK, where sub-100 seat services are needed. A320 and 737 operations are not its focus, at least for now.

CAPA Airlines in Transition report, Part 1: The natural history of airline alliances

From the first US Open Skies agreement with the Netherlands in 1992, and the subsequent granting of antitrust immunity to the KLM-Northwest joint venture in 1993, the evolution of airline alliances has been rapid and far reaching. Bilateral codeshares, immunised JVs, multilateral branded global alliances, the Etihad equity alliance: why are there so many models? In the first of a series of reports based on CAPA’s recent Airlines in Transition conference in Dublin, we examine the history and evolution of airline alliances and partnerships.

After decades of strict regulation of international traffic rights post WWII, which controlled destinations, capacity, frequencies and prices, a campaign for more liberal air services agreements (ASA) between nations began to gather pace in the US from 1977. In the words of Jeffrey Shane, General Counsel, IATA and a former senior US aviation regulator, any attempt to modify an ASA was characterised by a "highly calibrated, tit-for-tat mode of negotiation".

Radial Alliances and Virtual Airlines. Reshaping the partnership model in a new world

The constraints of national ownership requirements and a deep rooted preference for protectionism to promote national flag carrier interests have for decades moulded the ungainly shape of an inefficient and largely unsustainable airline industry. It is a model designed for the conditions of post-war 1945, yet it has somehow survived for 70 years with only modest changes.

That it has been perpetuated for so long is the product of the network of bilateral agreements that, like a cobweb produced by hundreds of spiders, is beyond the power of one or two willing parties to change.

The meticulous construction of this unwieldy but impenetrable fabric over decades has effectively meant that individual states cannot change it. The only solution was through multilateral agreement and the few modest attempts at that have invariably resulted in failure.