Airline Finance News - Europe

AirGuide Business, July 7, 2008

7/7/2008

Denmark's National Consumer Agency on Thursday published the names of six European airlines it said were still using illegal marketing practices, despite warnings from the European Commission after a review last year. The Danish Consumer Ombudsman Henrik Oe said the Internet booking sites of Ryanair, Air Berlin, Air Baltic, SkyEurope, Aer Lingus, Brussels Airlines as well as that of Internet travel agent Seat24, contained incorrect information or made use of misleading booking procedures. Of the 13 airlines carriers and ticket selling sites checked in Denmark in September last year, five have corrected the information stated on their web sites and one carrier no longer operates air services to Denmark, the Consumer Agency said in a statement. European Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva said in a statement she welcomed the publication of the names of the airlines. "Europe's consumers are being let down by the airline industry. There are serious and persistent problems with ticket sales throughout the airline industry as a whole," she said. 7/4/2008

It is unclear whether a data-sharing agreement between the U.S. and EU will allow EU citizens to sue the U.S. for mishandling personal information. The agreement would allow the EU and U.S. to share credit card information, travel history internet browsing information and other data. 7/2/2008

TMCs are giving airlines an easy ride on delays and cancellations according to new compensation service EUclaim. "TMCs are refusing to challenge because they all have deals with airlines," says EUclaim founder Hendrik Noorderhaven. The Netherlands-based claims service, which has launched in the UK, said individual passengers and TMCs were equally reluctant to pursue claims when things went wrong." Business people who don[sup.1]t pay for their own ticket also don[sup.1]t ask for their money back," says Noorderhaven, principally because they don[sup.1]t pay for their own tickets. Noorderhaven, an ex-software company chief and former regular business traveler says he set up EUclaim after being repeatedly fobbed off by carriers. EUclaim has systems that enable it to track flight departures worldwide and check slot times, weather conditions and individual aircraft registrations, allowing EUclaim to trace the movement of an individual aircraft. 7/2/2008

Europe last week took two steps toward greening its skies, as it made further strides in singularizing air traffic infrastructure and followed through on its plan to cap airline emissions beginning in 2012. Though the international aviation community applauded the European Commission's second package proposal for a "Single European Sky", updated from 2004 regulations, organizations were less than pleased with Europe advancing a cap-and-trade plan. 7/1/2008

Air France KLM

Air France KLM on Monday responded to soaring fuel costs by scaling back its capacity growth expectations for this winter and next summer, although it's still faring better than many of its U.S. and European rivals. 7/3/2008

Air France KLM

Air France KLM flew 17.83 billion RPKs in May, up 6% from the year-ago month. Capacity rose 5.8% to 22.48 billion ASKs, lifting load factor 0.2 point to 79.3%. 6/30/2008

Alitalia

Alitalia's sale adviser said on Thursday it was too early to say how many jobs the ailing carrier will be forced to shed but warned that salvaging the airline would be no easy task. "Alitalia is in a very difficult situation and everything needs to be done to find a solution," Intesa Sanpaolo Chief Executive Corrado Passera told reporters after meeting EU officials in Brussels to discuss the carrier's fate. His bank has been appointed by Italy's new government to draw up a fresh plan to salvage the carrier after a planned sale to Air France KLM fell apart earlier this year and an auction to sell the airline collapsed last year. Italian media have speculated that the airline would have to cut 4,000 to 7,000 jobs out of its nearly 19,000-strong workforce as part of the plan being drawn up by Intesa, but Passera called such talk "premature". 7/4/2008

British Airways

British Airways' load factor, a measure of how well it fills planes, fell 3.8 percentage points to 76.7 percent. British Air raised ticket prices via a fuel surcharge last month, and Stinnes said the group would not rule out further increases despite the impact on passenger volumes. "In a period of two months brent crude oil prices have risen from USD$110 per barrel to USD$147. Surcharges don't cover the full increases but we have to try to cover costs," he said. He added that there was too much capacity across all markets as the industry faces the twin threats of high fuel costs and slowing demand, and that British Air was close to announcing details of cuts to its winter schedule. 7/4/2008

British Airways, London Heathrow

British Airways' robust response this week to the UK Conservative party leader[sup.1]s comments on London Heathrow throw an interesting spanner into the works. The UK gateway has been the whipping boy this year of politicians, businesspeople, passengers and every Tom, Dick and Harry with an ounce of an opinion, who has boldly stepped forward in front of the cameras to denounce it in the strongest possible terms. Clearly, much of this vitriol is justified and the T5 nightmare that provided such juicy copy the world over simply exacerbated an already complex problem. But assertions that building a third runway at Heathrow would only add to the airport[sup.1]s burgeoning transfer business has provoked British Air CEO Willie Walsh's ire. "This suggestion is extremely insulting to the millions of UK residents in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, who regularly fly to Heathrow to catch connections to distant parts of the globe to win or maintain business and jobs for Britain," said Walsh. 6/30/2008