Lufthansa to lease in Fokker 100 capacity for Summer 2018

Lufthansa extends Condor SPA through mid-2Q22

Tel Aviv Ben Gurion, Israel reopens after rocket fire

Israel’s Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport has re-opened to traffic with a number of flights taking off on Wednesday morning.

The airport was temporarily closed on the evening of March 11, 2021, due to rocket attacks from Gaza on Tel Aviv, which saw flights cancelled, delayed or diverted to Larnaca and Cairo Int'l.

By Wednesday, at least 40 people were reported killed in the region in the worst outbreak of violence since 2014 between Israel and Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that controls Gaza, following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and hundreds of rockets fired on Israel overnight. Videos posted on social media on Tuesday night showed the Ben Gurion airport terminal being evacuated and rockets flying near the airport being intercepted by the Israeli “Iron Dome” defense system.

According to FlightRadar24 and live information from the airport flight board, amongst the airlines which cancelled their return flights to Tel Aviv on Tuesday included flydubai (FZ1549 and FZ1947 from Dubai Int'l), Turkish Airlines Flight TK810 from Istanbul New, and Wizz Air...

Swiss scythes fleet, jobs; blames “structural market change”

Swiss (LX, Zurich) has announced sweeping restructuring plans in response to what it called “structural changes in its markets”, cutting its fleet by a projected 15% and potentially also entailing “forced dismissals for up to 780 ground and flying personnel,” it said in a statement on May 6.

Despite receiving loan guarantees from the Swiss government worth CHF1.275 billion Swiss francs (USD1.4 billion) last year to help it cope with the impact of Covid-19 on demand for air travel, the Lufthansa subsidiary said it now had to align itself with a 20% decline in demand over the medium term.

Last week, the airline admitted that passenger numbers were down 90.4% in the first quarter of 2021 year-on-year, with 83.8% fewer flights, resulting in a CHF201 million (USD221 million) operating loss.

“It has grown increasingly clear that our market is undergoing structural change, and that despite the actions which we were swift to take in response, a restructuring of our company now sadly seems unavoidable,” said chief executive Dieter Vranckx.

Adding that the...

Malaysia Airlines retires A380s, to take B737 MAX in 2024

Malaysia Airlines (MH, Kuala Lumpur Int'l) will try and sell all six of its A380-800s as it sees no place for the quadjets in its fleet going forward.

"We are cognizant of the challenges to sell this aeroplane, but we are still looking at ways and means to dispose of our A380 fleet. At the moment, the management is convinced that the A380 doesn't fit the future plan," Chief Executive Izham Ismail said during a virtual media briefing.

The Malaysian flag carrier's six A380s are nine years old on average, having been delivered in 2012 and 2013. Malaysia Airlines struggled to find appropriate routes for the aircraft even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. It has been reportedly trying to sell them since 2015, planning to eventually replace them with A350-900s (of which it took six in 2017 and 2018).

In 2018, even as all A350s were already in its fleet, Malaysia Airlines announced that due to a lack of buyers, it would convert all six A380s into a high-density all-economy layout and...