Corporate Travel News

Queenstown Airport noted (19-Sep-2017) strong international passenger traffic growth in Aug-2017 due to several events and the availability of night services. The first three Saturdays during the month achieved record international passenger arrivals in one day. Night services also contributed 11% of total passenger traffic in Aug-2017. [more - original PR]

CAPA - Centre for Aviation, in a report entitled: 'Etihad's Abu Dhabi hub: more partners stop service, shifting Etihad's outlook to a boutique airline', stated (15-Sep-2017) Etihad Airways and Abu Dhabi International Airport are shifting from an expansive network involving multiple partners to a smaller footprint centred around Etihad. Equity partners airberlin, Air Serbia, NIKI and Virgin Australia have suspended Abu Dhabi services and Air Seychelles has reduced capacity. Air Seychelles, Alitalia and Jet Airways will be the only remaining partners in Abu Dhabi from Nov-2017. Jet Airways, Etihad's largest partner in Abu Dhabi, is reducing its presence as it favours a new partnership with Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines and shifts operations from Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam and Paris. Jet Airways is critical to the remaining partner capacity at Abu Dhabi and to Etihad's India strategy. Etihad's partnership strategy has been an expensive failure that will take time and surely more costs to resolve. [more - CAPA Analysis]

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA and Ryanair confirmed the parties ceased discussions for feeder services onto Norwegian's long haul network (Reuters, 19-Sep-2017). Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary commented: "given our concerns over Norwegian's financial viability, I think we have brought to an end the discussions with Norwegian. We're focusing now on our discussions with Air Europa and Aer Lingus". As previously reported by CAPA, Norwegian partnered easyJet instead to allow passengers self connect between services at London Gatwick Airport.

Air Corsica executive board member Hervé Pierret confirmed interest in launching new service to either Germany, Austria, the UK or Scandinavia (L'Aérien, 18-Sep-2017). He said the next destination to be launched has been narrowed down to "four or five" choices. "However, the German speaking markets are more complex and time is needed", he said, adding UK and Scandinavian routes are more likely. He concluded: "We expect sales to begin in October for launch in 2018".

Air Peace chairman and CEO Allen Onyema said: "Nigeria is the harshest operating environment for any airline, especially the domestic airlines" (Punch, 17-Sep-2017). He stated: "There are so many challenges including multiple taxation, high cost of acquiring aviation fuel, high cost of procuring spare parts and bringing them into the country, and our Customs officers not understanding what it means to support airlines" and added: "Besides these, we have poor airport infrastructure, poor understanding from the passengers, and the poor governance structure of some of the airlines could also be a challenge. Another major problem is multiple designations being given to foreign airlines in Nigeria, while Nigerian airlines are not being encouraged at all". Mr Onyema also commented: "There is a dearth of qualified aviation personnel in Nigeria, especially in aviation engineering". He concluded: "The major problem with aviation in this country is government policies. Majority of the policies do not support the growth of the industry; that is the major problem".

Bogota El Dorado International Airport confirmed (18-Sep-2017) Turkish Airlines could consider the deployment of larger aircraft or increasing frequency in Colombia upon continuing growth in demand. As previously reported by CAPA, the carrier launched three times weekly Istanbul-Bogota-Panama service in May-2016. [more - original PR - Spanish]

American Samoa Attorney General's Office notified that citizens of 38 countries, that are not required to secure an entry permit before entering American Samoa, will be required to pay a USD20 arrival fee at Pago Pago International Airport (Radio NZ, 19-Sep-2017). The 38 countries on the list are Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and United Kingdom.

Air New Zealand stated (18-Sep-2017) it is continuing to experience disruptions to its services following the temporary shutdown of Refining New Zealand's pipeline into Auckland that is restricting the volume of fuel available to all airlines to 30% of normal usage. To date the airline has cancelled four trans Tasman and 14 domestic services, but given its operations are not yet meeting the 30% target further schedule changes are now necessary. Further domestic jet, regional and trans Tasman flight disruptions can be expected over coming days. In addition to this, most longhaul services departing Auckland will be required to undertake refuelling stops at Pacific or Australian airports. [more - original PR] [more - original PR - II]

Air Niugini stated (18-Sep-2017) the migration to its new Sabre Passenger Service System (PSS) will take place on 30-Sep-2017. The Air Niugini Project Team on the new PSS has been working with relevant partners and stakeholders to ensure a smooth migration although there will be disruptions in accessing seat availability and bookings on the day of migration. Air Niugini's new Passenger Service System will be live and operational on 01-Oct-2017. [more - original PR]

Air New Zealand announced (18-Sep-2017) CFO C Rob McDonald will be leaving the company at the end of 2017. Jeff McDowall, currently group general manager corporate finance, will succeed Mr McDonald as at 01-Jan-2018. CEO Christopher Luxon noted that Mr McDonald signalled his intention to take up non-executive appointments from 2018 almost two years ago which allowed the airline to put in place a robust succession planning process. [more - original PR]