subject: Flight News On Airlines Growth & Fleet Expansion And The Safety & Training School In Africa [print this page] Flight News On Airlines Growth & Fleet Expansion And The Safety & Training School In Africa
There is a lot in October air news to be reported on airlines and aviation industry progress as below,
Strong Demand Continues
The International Air Transport Association announced its latest International scheduled traffic statistics recently which showed continued strengthening of demand for both cargo and passenger traffic during July.
Compared to July 2009, international passenger demand was up 9, 2% while international scheduled freight traffic showed a 22, 7% improvement.
These year-on-year comparisons for July were less than the June growth data showing 11,6% and 26,6% increases for passenger and cargo traffic,respectively.The apparent slowdown was entirely due to the fact that by July 2009 traffic was already starting to recover. After adjusting for seasonality, the improvement in demand was faster month-to-month in July than it was in June.
It is clear that the recovery has entered a slower phase. During the second half of 2009, demand was rebounding at an annualized rate of 12% for passenger and 28% for cargo. In the year to July, the annualized growth rates had dropped to 8% for passenger and 17% for air freight. However, this is still considerably above the industry's traditional 6% growth trend.
African airlines are now benefiting significantly from the economic and travel upturn, outperforming the industry with 13% growth in passenger demand in July, which is consistent with the year-to-date improvement of 13.1% .Capability is quickly coming back into the market with a 10,4% increase in July.
Middle Eastern carriers continue to add the largest amount of capacity (12,8% in July and 13,2% over the first seven months of the year).The regions carriers have managed to increase demand at even higher levels(16,8% in July) and 19,4% in the first seven months of 2010.
RwandAirs Second Boeing 737-500
With the recent delivery of its second Boeing 737-500 Rwanda Air is set to start operations into Kinshasa and Dubai via Mombasa and with daily flights now being possible to Johannesburg.
The two class configuration aircraft (12 Business Class and 90 Economy) is the second to be acquired by the national carrier on dry lease agreement from leading aircraft lesser, General Electric Capital Aviation Services (GECAS). Its arrival marks the end of the initial stage of Randers fleet acquisition.
The airline serves all East African community capital cities with daily flights and it currently fly to Johannesburg five times a week. In addition to the two B737-500s the airlines fleet also consists of two Bombardier CRJs and a Dash 8 with two Boeing 737-800s due to be delivered in 2011.
The carrier is aggressively growing its fleet to cater for its network expansion plans that will see it fly to more regional and intercontinental destinations.
EgytAir A330-300
Egyptian has received its first Airbus A330-300 aircraft from the Airbus facility in Toulouse, France, the aircraft joining the carriers existing Airbus fleet of 17 A320 family aircraft .seven A330-200s and three A340-200S.
Powered by Rolls Royce Trent 700 engines, the aircraft seats 301 passengers with 265 in Economy class, and 36 in Business class.
It is the first Egypt Air aircraft to feature onboard communications technology, enabling passengers to benefit from in flight mobile phone services and WI-FI internet access.
DTM Now Part 109 Certified
Bebela Training and Management, based near Lanseria International Airport, Johannesburg, has become a certified Aviation Security Training Organization (ASTO).
This means that DTM is now able to offer courses for the new part 109 Civil Aviation Regulation which became effective earlier this year.
Part 109 relates to aviation security and stipulates that everybody who works on an airfield has to undergo aviation security training.
The new course offered by DTM covers eight sections, including: the general aviation industry, universal threats, general security practices, and access control, the threat of unauthorized access, disruptive passengers and airport emergency procedures.
These new security courses now go hand-in-hand with the safety management systems (SMS) courses already offered by Debela.
Tariff Increase Looms
Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) recently announced at a press conference that it had recorded an operating profit of R1, 95-billion for the financial year ending March 31, 2010 almost one billion rand more than at the end of the previous year, namely, R995-million.
Total group revenue was 12% higher at R3, 53 billion. If the sale of a property adjacent to the new King Shaka International Airport, Durban, for R821-million is factored into the numbers, net profit surged to R901-million.
The past financial year marked the end of ACSAs R-17-billion Capital expenditure program me, but despite these figures it was described as a year "in which almost everything was against us," said ACSAs Managing Director,Monhla Hlahla,adding : " Gross domestic product growth was down, passenger numbers were down and while we have seen some relief, the debt markets remained largely stagnant".
ACSA, as well as the aviation industry, still faces uncertainty over an increase in tariffs,with the airport regulator earlier this year proposing an increase for below that expected by ACSA. The company is waiting the outcome of a review by a task team set up by Transport Minister, Sbu Ndebele, to decide the latest tariff increase. The regulatory framework is also under review.
During the year under review ACSA said it invested R5, 24 billion in infrastructure developments. Finance director Priscilla Mabelane said that ACSA remained resilient amidst a challenging operating environment, "which was characterized by a decline in passenger numbers, inflationary pressures, increases in operating requirements associated with the new infrastructure, 2010 FIFA World Cup operational readiness, reduced liquidity and increases in borrowing costs".
Discussing passenger numbers Mabelane said that domestic passenger traffic declined by 2,1% regional traffic grew by 1,3% and international passenger numbers declined by 0,9%.
"The strong low-cost carrier market continued its momentum, resulting in a growth of 3% ,while the full service carrier market declined by 4%" she said."An upward trend was evidenced during the latter part of the financial year, reflecting a positive growth of 4,2% during the last quarters performance. Domestic passenger traffic comprised 70% of the segmented market, regional 3%, with the international share equaling 27%.
"On the international market, the Johannesburg London route declined by 2, 6% to 890 000 passengers, while the Johannesburg Dubai route dropped 2,1% to 550 000 passengers," said Mabelane.
"Non-aeronautical income was led by retail at R601-million, property rental at R411-million and R155-million in advertising revenue. The retail numbers were driven by an increase in retail space at our airports and rental escalations. Advertising revenue also continued to grow as we focused on higher yielding digital advertising", said Mabelane.
With regards to the King Shaka International Airport fiasco, no comment was made as the case was still under review at the time of writing and ACSA was still waiting for the final report.
