Chief Commercial officer has left Vueling Airlines

IAG orders 37 incremental A320neo Family jets

IAG International Airlines Group has placed a new order for thirty-seven A320neo Family aircraft, including 12 converted options with Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) and 25 entirely new commitments. The holding also secured a further 50 new options for the aircraft.

"The firm aircraft will be delivered between 2025 and 2028 and will be used to replace A320ceo family aircraft in the Group's short-haul fleet," the Anglo-Spanish holding said.

IAG clarified that the exact split between the A320-200N and the A321-200N variants would be decided closer to the delivery date. It did not disclose which of its carriers would be allocated the new aircraft.

The ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows that the holding's current A320ceo/neo fleet and backlog comprises:

• British Airways: thirty A319-100s, sixty-seven A320-200s, eighteen A321-200s, seventeen A320-200Ns, and ten A321-200NX in the fleet, as well as a further three A320-200Ns and three A321-200NX on firm order from Airbus,
• Iberia: six A319s, thirteen A320-200s, eleven A321-200s, and thirteen A320-200Ns in the fleet,...

Madrid approves Iberia’s acquisition of 20% of Air Europa

Iberia (IB, Madrid Barajas) will acquire 20% of Air Europa (UX, Palma de Mallorca) by the end of 2022, and “the next step is to try to get 100% of the company,” Iberia CEO Javier Sánchez-Prieto said after receiving state approval for parent IAG International Airlines Group’s EUR100 million euro (USD104 million) convertible loan to Air Europa parent Globalia.

The state-run lending institution (Instituto de Crédito Oficial - ICO) and sovereign wealth fund (Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales - SEPI) gave their blessing to the loan IAG promised Globalia in March to ultimately convert into a 20% stake in the troubled airline. In May, IAG CEO Luis Gallego said he anticipated that the loan would be turned into the shareholding within six months.

The next step is to gain the authorisations of three countries’ competition authorities, Sánchez-Prieto told a news conference in the United States capital on the occasion of the inauguration of a route between Madrid Barajas and Washington Dulles, the Spanish news agency EFE reported.

Spain’s Vueling axes two A321neo, Iberia gains two

IAG firms Boeing order for up to 150 B737 MAX

IAG International Airlines Group says it has reached an agreement with Boeing (BOE, Washington National) to order twenty-five B737-8-200s and twenty-five B737-10s, plus 100 options. Finalisation of the order is still subject to approval by IAG shareholders.

The aircraft will be delivered between 2023 and 2027. The European consortium, whose constituent airlines include British Airways, Iberia, Vueling Airlines, Aer Lingus, and LEVEL, said the incoming jets would be used for fleet renewal but declined to specify where they would be placed. It is recalled that on signing the letter of intent for the order during the 2019 Paris Air Show, IAG said at the time that the jets would be used by Vueling, LEVEL, and British Airways' London Gatwick operations.

At present, according to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, none of IAG's subsidiaries operate any Boeing narrowbody aircraft with all being an Airbus affair. British Airways' in-house fleet entails thirty A319-100s, sixty-seven A320-200s, seventeen A320-200Ns, eighteen A321-200s (all parked),...