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Canadian government sets up working group to study investment in the country’s airports – part two
'Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose' (the more things change, the more they stay the same), wrote the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849, and it could be the French-Canadian motto where airport ownership is concerned.
Nothing has changed since a national airports system came into being in the early 1990s, after which the main Canadian airports came under the auspices of non-shareholder, not-for-profit stakeholder boards.
To be fair to that arrangement, the vast majority of those airports are quite happy with the status quo and rebuffed a 2017 Trudeau government investigation into privatising them, even before it got off the ground.
But the strange thing is that Canada is home to half a dozen very large municipal pension funds, which invest, in some cases quite heavily, in foreign airports. They do have limited opportunities to do so domestically, but have not really had any incentives.
Now a 'working group' will be set up, by way of a Federal Budget mandate, to identify (inter alia) opportunities for investment in the country's airport infrastructure by Canadian pension funds.
That might also lead to enhanced co-operation between the two parties for foreign investment, but that is not part of the philosophy yet.
This could be a turning point for both the funds and the airports, but there is a long way to go - and 30 years of inertia to break.
This report also contains an overview of the funds and their foreign investments.
This is part two of a two-part report.
The Eurovision Song Contest final takes place in Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, on 11-May-2024. The event marks 50 years since the contest launched Swedish super-group Abba to Europe-wide and worldwide success.
It is also the first final of easyJet's three years as Official Airline of the Eurovision Song Contest. The LCC does not fly to Malmö, but happily it does serve Copenhagen Kastrup in Denmark, from where the Swedish city is easily reached via the Öresund Bridge.
Nevertheless, comparison of easyJet and other leading European low cost airlines indicates that it lags Wizz Air and Ryanair in the number of countries it serves, and in its post-pandemic capacity recovery.
The Official Eurovision Airline's vision of Europe stops short of the panoramic clarity of its leading rivals.
Canadian government sets up working group to study investment in the country’s airports – part one
'Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose' (the more things change, the more they stay the same), wrote the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849, and it could be the French-Canadian motto where airport ownership is concerned.
Nothing has changed since a national airports system came into being in the early 1990s, after which the main Canadian airports came under the auspices of non-shareholder, not-for-profit stakeholder boards.
To be fair to that arrangement, the vast majority of those airports are quite happy with the status quo and rebuffed a 2017 Trudeau government investigation into privatising them, even before it got off the ground.
But the strange thing is that Canada is home to half a dozen very large municipal pension funds, which invest, in some cases quite heavily, in foreign airports. They do have limited opportunities to do so domestically, but have not really had any incentives.
Now a 'working group' will be set up, by way of a Federal Budget mandate, to identify (inter alia) opportunities for investment in the country's airport infrastructure by Canadian pension funds.
That might also lead to enhanced co-operation between the two parties for foreign investment, but that is not part of the philosophy yet.
This could be a turning point for both the funds and the airports, but there is a long way to go - and 30 years of inertia to break.
This report also contains an overview of the funds and their foreign investments.
This is part one of a two-part report.
This regular CAPA - Centre for Aviation report provides a summary of major developments in the aircraft interiors sector, supported by data from the CAPA - Centre for Aviation Aircraft Interiors Database and CAPA - Centre for Aviation News.
This edition covers Mar-2024 and Apr-2024 and features:
- Keeping connected - SpaceX hits major development milestone with airBaltic ground test;
- INTERIORS INSIGHT - Airbus: get ready for the first wave of A350 retrofits;
- Latest global interior updates.
Regional recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be of concern - especially in the case of Asia Pacific.
But as a CAPA - Centre for Aviation report pointed out right at the start of it, it is small island airports throughout the world that stood to lose the most from the unprecedented event, on account of their exposure to critical supply issues and the loss of tourism revenue.
Malta and Cyprus are two small independent island states in the Mediterranean Sea, with a combined population of less than two million and where tourism was a substantial part of their GDP.
The impact could have been crippling, but both survived, and both tourist numbers and passengers are close to the 2019 level - or have surpassed it.
The question now is where do they go from here? Both have had 'hub' ambitions in the past, and today Cyprus is probably a little better placed to achieve that to any degree.
But for either to have a chance, they really need stronger national airlines - as they previously had.
This is part two of a two-part report.
Regional recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be of concern - especially in the case of Asia Pacific.
But as a CAPA - Centre for Aviation report pointed out right at the start of it, it is small island airports throughout the world that stood to lose the most from the unprecedented event, on account of their exposure to critical supply issues and the loss of tourism revenue.
Malta and Cyprus are two small independent island states in the Mediterranean Sea, with a combined population of less than two million and where tourism was a substantial part of their GDP.
The impact could have been crippling, but both survived, and both tourist numbers and passengers are close to the 2019 level - or have surpassed it.
The question now is where do they go from here? Both have had 'hub' ambitions in the past, and today Cyprus is probably a little better placed to achieve that to any degree.
But for either to have a chance, they really need stronger national airlines - as they previously had.
This is part one of a two-part report.
When an airline already has nearly 1,000 aircraft on order, the addition of another 30 may not sound all that noteworthy. But Indian carrier IndiGo's latest deal is very significant, because it highlights the LCC's ambitions to expand its range into new markets.
IndiGo announced a firm order for 30 Airbus A350-900s on 25-Apr-2024 - a move that had been widely expected for several months.
These will be the first new widebodies operated by the airline. IndiGo currently bases its business model on Airbus narrowbody aircraft, with a few leased Boeing 777s.
Deliveries of the A350s are expected to begin in 2027, and the airline has also secured purchase rights for a further 70 of these aircraft.
IndiGo has long talked of its plans to channel more of its growth into international since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a sensible strategy, not only because of the massive potential of the Indian travel market, but also because the domestic market is already fiercely competitive.
European airports struggle to claw back passengers; reductions at 56% of airports in 2023 vs 2019
An intriguing presentation by Airports Council International (ACI) at a recent airport conference in Europe is examined in this report, together with some further research undertaken by CAPA - Centre for Aviation.
It reveals what the airport sector would prefer not to acknowledge in what was supposed to be a post-pandemic recovery year: namely, that more than half of European airports that are members of ACI-Europe experienced a continuing shortfall in passenger traffic in 2023 compared to the benchmark year of 2019.
The CAPA - Centre for Aviation research, which measures the Top 5 European airports by passenger numbers against three smaller airports in each of their countries, suggests that in most cases it is, perhaps surprisingly, the primary gateway/hub airports that are struggling to regain even the pre-pandemic status quo, while small regional and especially low cost airports are (in the main) doing quite well.
There are, at the very least, pointers here as to how the air travel business will continue to develop in Europe in the next few years.
Norse Atlantic's new London Gatwick-Cape Town link in northern winter will help reduce summer skew
Norse Atlantic is to launch a three times weekly route from London Gatwick to Cape Town at the start of northern winter 2024/2025, deploying Boeing 787-9 aircraft.
The UK-South Africa market, a duopoly between British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic Airways since South African Airways (SAA) withdrew at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, will once more experience three-way competition.
Norse Atlantic's entry provides fresh dynamism in a market whose recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has been weighed down by SAA's exit and lower capacity offered by BA.
For Norse Atlantic, Gatwick-Cape Town will be only its second route outside its core North Atlantic market. The service will be operated by its Gatwick-based subsidiary Norse Atlantic UK, which is scheduled to fly more seats than the parent airline in 2024.
It will help a little in smoothing out the group's heavy reliance on the summer for its scheduled operations.
With Australian airline Bonza halting flights and considering its survival options, the LCC may never get the chance to prove whether its niche business model could have been successful in the longer term.
After struggling to secure enough aircraft to carry out its plans, and making significant network cutbacks, the airline grounded its fleet on 30-Apr-2024 and entered voluntary administration.
As of now, it is unclear whether Bonza will be able to restructure and continue in some form. It certainly faces some major hurdles if it is to do so.
Bonza said that "discussions are currently underway regarding the ongoing viability of the business". The airline said that it was "working as quickly as possible to determine a way forward that ensures there is ongoing competition in the Australian domestic market".
According to local media reports, some of Bonza's five Boeing 737 MAX aircraft have been repossessed by their lessor.
A major question is whether Bonza's current owner - US-based 777 Partners - had the resources, or the appetite, to adequately fund Bonza through its first years of development.
With any newcomer like Bonza, investors have to take the long view and accept a period of weak financial results while it builds to break-even point.
While it was unclear what that break-even point would be for Bonza, the airline is obviously nowhere near the fleet size that would provide the economies of scale to be profitable.
Bonza faced complications in gaining additional leased aircraft, which caused disruptions to its existing and planned network.
This was a major reason behind its current predicament.