Corporate Travel Analysis Reports

Romanian national carrier Tarom is to push ahead with the acquisition of up to three widebodied aircraft to support its long-haul network development. The formal Request for Proposals (RFP) confirms a CAPA - Centre for Aviation exclusive story from the start of June when the airline's CEO, Eugen Davidoiu, told The Blue Swan Daily that the recent arrival of Boeing 737-800s was just the first stage of a fleet renewal plan both to facilitate network growth as well as to replace older generation equipment.

CAPA's latest six monthly update of its world airline industry operating margin model increases its forecasts to 2018 relative to the CAPA Jan-2017 update. 2016 was probably a cyclical peak, but the current outlook is for a more sustained period comfortably in excess of previous peak margins of around 6% - whereas previous peaks were usually followed by rapid downturns.

The growing popularity of internet shopping is driving demand for parcel delivery services, and like other European postal groups, Deutsche Post is expanding its business and investing in new technology and services to meet this demand. With declining letter delivery volumes the lucrative B2C parcel delivery market is now the sweet spot for logistics specialists and Deutsche Post's 'United Parcel Nations of Europe' strategy will - it believes - enable it to fight off increasing competition.

Scoot has boosted sixth freedom traffic from Sydney since rescheduling three weekly frequencies to improve connections with and India and is planning to introduce a similar schedule change for Melbourne.

An index of economic activity in non-industrial growth industries has shown that central and western Chinese cities are leading the way in attracting new growth. The latest edition of the monthly Mastercard Caixin BBD China New Economy Index (NEI) highlights the central and western cities are becoming magnets for growth, partly supported by increasing visitor arrivals at expanding airports across the region.

Latin American LCC group Viva is considering the launch of new affiliates after placing an order for 50 A320 family aircraft. The 15 A320ceos and 35 A320neos will be used to expand in Colombia and Peru, as well as to support potential start-ups throughout Latin America.

Qatar Airways will offer Canberra-Europe passengers a generally faster transit time than Singapore Airlines despite Qatar's decision to serve Canberra with a stop in Sydney. Qatar will also likely offer aggressive fares from Canberra to Europe, driving down average fares after it launches services to Canberra in Feb-2017.

Paypal has found a way to tap into the lucrative China market by partnering with search giant Baidu. The move will give Paypal access to an additional 100 million users currently registered on Baidu Wallet, while Chinese online shoppers will have access to PayPal's 17 million international e-commerce sites.

We are still on a high from the 2017 CAPA Australia Pacific Aviation & Corporate Travel Summit in Sydney this week. The event continues to grow every year and produces a variety of unique news opportunities. Take a look below and some of the results from the event and visit centreforaviation.com/events for what's next.

Latest analysis from aviation consultancy RDC Aviation into air fares among Europe's Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) sector shows that average ticket prices are continuing to fall. While great for consumers, it is a very different story for the airlines suggesting that the skies are becoming increasingly competitive, or the move towards high-yield business traffic is weakening.