Air Serbia adjusts network, fleet to recovering demand

Frankfurt Hahn operator declares insolvency

Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn GmbH, the operator of Frankfurt Hahn airport, has filed for insolvency at the Bad Kreuznach district court, but has since vowed to continue operating for the time being.

Provisional insolvency administrator Markus Plathner told the German news agency dpa that all of the airports' employees would continue to receive wages through insolvency protection funds. The airport will also continue to service passenger and cargo traffic as planned while the administrators investigate its financial situation and draw up a business plan for the future.

The insolvency filing also includes four subsidiary companies: JFH Jet Fuel Hahn GmbH, HNA Airport Services GmbH, HHN Airport Technology GmbH and HHN Aviation Security GmbH.

The airport is 82.5%-owned by China's HNA Group. The conglomerate acquired the stake from the government of Rhineland-Palatinate, the state in which the airport is located, during a global spending spree in 2017. The remaining 17.5% stake is owned by the government of neighbouring Hesse, in which Frankfurt is located. Although Hahn has branded itself as a secondary airport serving Germany's financial centre,...

Etihad bondholders file Air Seychelles winding-up petition

Bondholders at EA Partners II, a Netherlands-based special purpose vehicle belonging to Etihad Aviation Group, have filed a winding-up petition against Air Seychelles (HM, Mahé), a bond market filing has revealed.

A committee of creditors at the Etihad Airways (EY, Abu Dhabi Int'l) parent company’s SPV continues to insist that the state-owned Seychellois carrier repay a debt of USD71.5 million in full, but Air Seychelles said in May that it could pay no more than USD20 million of the sum, citing insolvency or liquidation proceedings as the only alternatives.

The noteholder committee said in the disclosure, filed on August 25, that two months previously it had instructed the notes’ security trustee “to file and serve a petition for the winding-up of Air Seychelles in respect of all amounts outstanding under the facility agreement dated 26 May 2016 and made between Air Seychelles as borrower [...] together with an affidavit in support of such winding-up petition.”

Subsequently, on August 19, a lawyer acting on behalf of the security trustee had filed the...

Editorial Comment: Added final para on reaction in Seychelles - 27.08.2021 - 07:35 UTC

Pošta Srbije flags Air Serbia for Far East flights

Air Serbia (JU, Belgrade) is set to launch flights to unspecified destinations in the Far East in 2022, according to PoštaSrbije, Serbia's national postal operator.

In a press release announcing a new partnership between the Serbian and North Macedonian postal services, Pošta Sribije's acting director, Zoran Djordjevic, said the flag carrier was planning to begin the services to the Far East "soon". While he did not name any specific destinations, he said the airline would play a pivotal role in PoštaSrbije's strategy of becoming the "regional centre of logistics and postal services".

Air Serbia currently operates a single widebody aircraft, an A330-200, which it deploys on the Belgrade-New York JFK route. And while it does not operate any services to Asia, including short- and medium-haul flights to the Middle East, it has been touting eastward expansion for a while. In May, on taking delivery of the new A330-200, which replaced another unit of the same type, Chief Executive Duncan Naysmith said the airline was interested in entering China, as well...

Air Serbia repays $64mn debt to Etihad bondholders