http://www.albawaba.com/
Etihad Airways increases Abu Dhabi – Cairo flights to four-a-day
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, today
announced an increase in capacity between Abu Dhabi and Cairo with
the introduction of a fourth daily scheduled flight, effective 27 March
2016.
The route has grown to become one of the most popular in Etihad
Airways’ network, building on strong commercial ties between the
capital cities of the UAE and Egypt. With a large Egyptian population
in the UAE, more flights provide greater options for expatriates
travelling back home for work or holiday.
Etihad Airways’ services are conveniently timed to offer enhanced
travel options for business and leisure travellers between the UAE and
Egypt with greater choice of flights across the day. Additionally,
passengers travelling between Egypt and the GCC, South and North
East Asia, and India will benefit from increased and better connecting
options over the airline’s Abu Dhabi hub. To India, Etihad Airways and
its strategic equity partner Jet Airways offer more than 250 weekly
flights across 15 destinations.
Over two million guests have flown on the Cairo route since its launch
in 2004, becoming a key market among the 116 global destinations
served by Etihad Airways.
Kevin Knight, Etihad Airways’ Chief Strategy and Planning Officer,
said: ―Etihad Airways is focused on offering guests more choice. The
introduction of a fourth daily flight to Cairo demonstrates our
commitment to a market that has shown strong growth in passenger
and freight traffic since the route was launched almost 12 years ago.
―Attracting both commercial and leisure business, the additional flights
linking Cairo and Abu Dhabi with connections beyond will help cater
for the growing demand on one of our most popular North African and
global routes.‖
Birdwatch News ArchiveThe world celebrates its wetlands
Tomorrow is the annual World Wetlands Day, which marks the date of the adoption of the Ramsar Convention
on Wetlands by encouraging people to get outdoors and enjoy their nearest watery habitat.
The Convention on Wetlands was instituted on 2 February 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of
the Caspian Sea. Each year since 1997, the Ramsar Secretariat has provided materials to help raise public
awareness about the importance and value of wetlands.
Events will take place on every continent except Antarctica, including photo contests, guided walks and
presentations including at least 380 in Britain and Ireland, and many hundred more aroun the world. You can
.World Wetlands Day websitefind out what's going on near you to help you join in the event by visiting the
The Convention on Wetlands is popularly abbreviated as the Ramsar Convention and is an international treaty
to conserve the world's most important wetlands and manage them sustainably. It recognises the economic and
.their ecological necessitycultural importance of these prolific habitats, as well as
With its corporate sponsors, the day is dedicated to supporting this sustainability by drawing the public's
attention the plight of wetlands and the humans and wildlife which depend on them. Several businesses
dependent on a free-flowing supply of water also fun the habitats' maintenance, flying environmental field
workers, scientists and educators across the global Ramsar network to further knowledge, skills and
understanding of major environmental issues and initiatives, and to help conserve some of these unique
habitats.
Star Alliance has partnered with UNESCO-Man and the Biosphere, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and
Wetlands youth IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and have sponsored the prize for the
, a chance to win a free flight to a famous wetland.photo contest
Livelihoods from fishing, rice farming, travel, tourism, and water provision all depend on wetlands, and they
host a huge variety of life, protect our coastlines, provide natural sponges against river flooding and store
carbon dioxide to regulate climate change. Unfortunately, they are often viewed as wasteland and more than 64
per cent of our wetlands have disappeared since 1900. Enabling people to make a decent living and at the
same time ensuring that wetlands can still provide their essential benefits do not have to be conflicting goals,
says the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.
You can help spread awareness about the importance of wetlands by joining in a World Wetlands Day 2016
World on Twitter and see more at theWetlandsForOurFuture#WorldWetlandsDay#hashtagsevent. Use the
.Wetlands Day website
http://www.anna.aero/
Air China becomes fourth carrier to serve Ibaraki
Air China on 30 January began twice-weekly
flights (Saturdays and Sundays)
between Hangzhou(HGH) and Ibaraki (IBR) in
Japan. The 1,968-kilometre route will be flown
by the Star Alliance carrier’s A319s. No other
carrier serves this route. Ibaraki Airport, located
less than 100 kilometres from Tokyo, is
currently served by local carrier Skymark
Airlines, as well as Spring Airlines and China
Southern Airlines. Air China thus becomes the
airport’s fourth carrier, with a fifth, V Air, set to
arrive in mid-March.
But low-cost rival Ryanair served a warning on Tuesday that Europe's
legacy carriers will be unable to reap the full benefit of that windfall.
Fuel is one of the biggest expenses for airlines -- accounting for 40
percent of Ryanair's costs -- so the benefits of cheaper fuel are real, as
long as they can be retained.
Airlines hedge the bulk of their fuel costs and European carriers are
forced to purchase fuel in costly dollars, limiting some of their
gains. Lufthansa and Air France have hedged a smaller proportion of
their fuel costs than Ryanair, meaning they stand to benefit more from the
falling cost of jet fuel.
After a year marred by terrorist attacks and employee
strikes, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa might have expected
that falling jet fuel prices would mean a better 2016.
Fuel Costs Tank
The price of jet fuel has fallen almost 40 percent in the past year
But unlike the U.S.'s oligopolistic industry, Europe's
airline market remains fragmented. So Lufthansa and
Air-France should be worried by Ryanair CEO Michael
O'Leary's prediction on Monday that air fares could fall
this year as airlines pass on some of their fuel savings
to customers.
Ryanair CFO Neil Sorahan noted that because
Ryanair's cost base is much lower than rivals, the
company is better placed to win a price war, should one
materialize.
Lagging Profitability
Europe's airline industry is far less lucrative than that of the U.S.
With Ryanair and low-cost rivals all adding lots of new capacity, that
seems a distinct possibility. Ryanair forecast fares would decline 6
percent in the fourth quarter (in part due to the falling pound).
Lufthansa's also aware of the risk. It expects earnings growth in
2016 but told investors this month that yields, a measure of average
ticket prices, would keep falling.
Ryanair's unit costs excluding fuel are expected to drop 2 percent
this fiscal year, even though the airline has been expanding into
more costly primary airports, as opposed to those miles away from
the passenger's final destination.
Ryanair expects passenger numbers to jump 26 percent in its fiscal
fourth quarter from the year-earlier period and reach 106 million for
the year ending in March, slightly more than previous guidance of
105 million.
With Ryanair expanding fast in its German home market, Lufthansa
is trying to respond with a lost-cost service of its own: Eurowings.
But the need to cut costs doesn't seem to have sunk in with
workers, who went on strike repeatedly last year.
Air France was forced to scale back plans to expand its Transavia
low-cost arm in 2014 and in October employees ripped the shirts off
the backs of management over proposed job cuts, suggesting they
aren't entirely convinced of the need for change either.
Ryanair's projection that its passenger numbers will increase by
more than two-thirds by 2024 haven't gone unnoticed by investors,
however.
Taking Off
Ryanair shares have outperformed other European legacy carriers
The stock trades at more than 15 times estimated
earnings for the fiscal year ending in March, three
times Lufthansa's valuation. With some 350 Boeing
737s on order, Ryanair's premium could prove rich if
the industry enters another cyclical downturn.
Iata noted in December that historically the airline
industry profitability cycle lasts between eight and
nine years from trough to trough. Ominously, the low
point of the last cycle occurred in 2009.
Ryanair's balance sheet offers some protection. The
company had 350 million euros ($381 million) of net
cash at the end of December, and felt confident
enough to announce an 800 million-euro share
buyback on Monday.
Contrast that with Lufthansa, which scrapped its
dividend last February and which had 9.2 billion euros
in net debt and pension liabilities at the end of
September.
If the airline industry again encounters turbulence,
Ryanair looks better-positioned to ride it out.
http://www.bloomberg.com/
Lufthansa Shakes Up Management After Split Into Two Airline Arms
Deutsche Lufthansa AG has shaken up its management as part of
a push to save 500 million euros ($543 million) by consolidating
operations under two airline divisions.
Sadiq Gillani, former head of strategy across the group, will move
to the Eurowings discount arm with responsibility for developing its
network and fleet. He’ll be succeeded in his old role by William
Willms, who previously worked in finance at the company’s
maintenance unit.
Wolfgang Kohlhagen, who was in charge of Lufthansa’s Frankfurt-
based cabin crew during their most disruptive strike ever in
November, takes charge of health management, to be replaced
by Kai Duve, the former head of internal audit. Raimund Mueller
becomes chief pilot after previously running Munich flights, with
incumbent Werner Knorr returning to the cockpit.
The changes, revealed Monday by spokesman Andreas Bartels in
response to questions from Bloomberg, are aimed at speeding
decision-making and reducing complexity.
They follow the reorganization of the group into two units: one
formed of Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines and run by Harry
Hohmeister, the other comprising businesses being brought under
the Eurowings brand, led by Karl Ulrich Garnadt. The process will
involve 150 job cuts as the number of management layers is
reduced to three from four.
Nico Buchholz, who managed the groupwide fleet and has joined
Bombardier Inc., won’t be replaced, Bartels said. His duties will
instead be part of the remit of Detlef Kayser, who took over a wider
fleet and strategy role on Jan. 1.
Five foreign authorities inspected security measures at airport: official
Chairman of Cairo International Airport Company Mohamed Saeed Mahrous
said that five authorities affiliated with five western companies have
inspected the airport's security measures.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Mahrous said a committee from the
Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, which visited Egypt earlier, requested
inspecting five checkpoints including passengers traveling or arriving,
luggage, fences and shipping of cargo. The outcome of the inspection will be
announced next week.
Authorities of German, British and Kazakhstani aviation as well as a
Canadian company on behalf of US aviation also inspected the security
measures followed at the airport.
The Civil Aviation Ministry, according to Mahrous, signed an agreement with
a company affiliated to a supreme security authority to secure the airport
fences at the cost of LE28 million during the first phase, which includes
installing 11 cameras. The second phase includes a system to monitor
movement in parking lots at the airport. AVIT, affiliated to the Egyptian
Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation, will carry out the necessary
measures. It is supposed to fix around 140 cameras to cover the parking lots
in four months.
The searches come as many countries halted flights to Egypt following the
crash of a Russian passenger plan in October in Sinai, which was claimed by
ISIS although has been denied by Egyptian authorities until investigations
are completed.
http://atwonline.com/
EASA seeks views on two-people-in-the-cockpit policy
two to assess the effectiveness of maintainingonline surveyhas launched anEASA
Germanwingsin the wake of the recommendedflight, asduringcockpitin thepeople
tragedy.
On March 24, 2015, a Germanwings Airbus A320 was on a scheduled flight from
Barcelona to Düsseldorf when it crashed, killing all 150 people aboard. A preliminary
report revealed that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, alone on the flight deck, switched the
selected altitude from 38,000 ft. to 100 ft.—the minimum value possible on an Airbus
fatal intentionalansetting in motionand increased the speed of the aircraft,—320A
descent into the French Alps.
that two crew recommended, EASA2015, 27Just three days after the crash, on March
members, including at least one qualified pilot, should occupy the cockpit during flight, or
that the operator should implement ―equivalent measures,‖ however this is not a
requirement.
This recommendation was based on the technical investigation performed by France’s
Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) and was maintained by the July 2015
report.Task ForceGermanwings
EASA is now seeking feedback from ―operators, pilots and cabin crew, authorities and
other interested parties‖ to assess the effectiveness of the two-person-in-the-cockpit
as the 11 and has set March 1 on Feb. online surveyrecommendation. It launched an
closing date for submissions. EASA asks for contact details to be provided, but all
responses will be aggregated and kept confidential.
―By April 2016 the agency [EASA] will publish on the EASA website a summary of the
answers/comments received, following an evaluation of the answers received. The
summary will be followed by an agency proposal on how to implement the
recommendations of the Germanwings taskforce,‖ EASA said.
In the US, there is no explicit rule requiring two crew members to be in the cockpit during
flight; however, this has evolved as an FAA-approved standard operating procedure for
US carriers.