The Lufthansa group's July results

14.2 Million people flew with Lufthansa group in July 

In July 2018, the Lufthansa Group of airlines welcomed around 14.2 million passengers across its vast network, that's an 8.2 percent increase over July 2017. The available seat kilometres were up 7.0 percent sales were up 7.0 percent and the load fact was pretty stable at 86.3 percent. 

Air Italy extend Miami service.

The Italian airline half owned by Qatar Airways, Air Italy has announced it is extending its recently launched service between Milan and Miami. The scheduled service will now complete the entire forthcoming winter season. 

The airline only launched the route on the 8th of June and demand has proved to be strong, Neil Mills, Air Italy Chief Operating Officer said, "Thanks to a great response from our customers and increasing demand, we are opening up our winter inventory for our Milan-Miami flight, as we are already running at a load factor of over 80%. This expansion is a testament to our business plan and product offering, and is simply a response to the great support which we have been receiving from our customers," 

Copa sees a big drop in income during 2018 second quarter

Copa announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18) yesterday and increased fuel costs were blamed for a massive drop in both operating and net income. The airline also confirmed it was in discussions with United and Avianca on a joint venture operation.

Copa reported net income of US$49.9 million for 2018 second quarter whereas it managed US$58.6 million in the same period in 2017. Operating income for 2Q18 came in at US$57.1 million, representing a 27.3 percent decrease over operating income of US$78.6 million last year. 

The carriers load factor increased slightly to 83.5 percent and the airline managed to achieve a very respectable on time performance of 89.9 percent and a flight-completion factor of 99.8 percent, maintaining its position among the best in the industry.

What's on your British Airways 747 to New York?

The UK contingent of IAG has just released some, supposedly revealing, data of what it carries on one of the airlines medium haul flights. 

A Boeing 747 operating from BA's London hub of Heathrow to New York's JFK airport is loaded with over 7,000 items they tell us. Many of those have to be unloaded and re-loaded before each flight. Included in the inventory are 101 full bottles and 388 quarter bottles of wine, 293 headrest covers - which is a little odd as BA has three different configurations of 275, 299 and 345 seats, the average of which could be 306, so some folk won't be getting a headrest cover! 

Worry not, no matter what configuration there 747 has, there will be enough pretzels to go around as BA carry 350 bags of the salty snacks. 78 toilet rolls on the flight as well as five first aid kits and up to around 800 items of bedding, including the new Club World White Company bedding, which has been recently introduced. 

The airline says that 47 percent of us are travelling solo, while 27 percent travel as a pair. Around 70 percent are travelling for leisure purposes and 28 percent are flying for business and who knows what the other 2 percent are travelling for.  

To help us visualise the figures, British Airways has created a patronising cartoon infographic of the results of its research, because we're all too stupid to know what a 747 or a control tower look like. 

London City Airport has busiest ever month

London City Airport is celebrating after experiencing its busiest ever month, exceeding all existing records since it opened in 1987. 

In July 471,519 passengers departed or arrived at the east London airport, that's up 15.7 percent year-on-year compared to July 2017.   It is the third month in a row that the airport has broken existing records, May saw 422,593 passengers pass through its door and in June some 441,519 people flew in or out of the Docklands airport.

In addition to its busiest ever month, Monday 16th July was the airports busiest single day ever, with some 20,115 passengers using the airport. That's the first time in its history that over 20,000 have passed through the airports terminal in a single day. 

Air China's first A350-900.

At a special ceremony in Toulouse, France on Wednesday 8th August, Air China took delivery of its first A350-900.  The national flag carrier is the first Chinese mainland customer to order and take ownership of the world’s newest and most efficient twin-engine widebody aircraft.

Air France - KLM group releases July figures

The Air France - KLM group released its July results this week which showed as a whole 8.1 million passengers travelled with the group during July 2018, an increase of 1.5 percent over the same month last year.  The average load factor was  0.1 percent higher than 2017 to 90.1 percent, while the groups capacity increased by 1.4 percent.  The group had hoped to see bigger increases, however, growth was hampered by temporary rostering changes caused by pilot training backlogs following the recent strikes. 

KLM carried over 3 million passengers during the month but following a period of uninterrupted growth, load factor saw a slight drop for the first time in five months to 91.3 percent (-0.3 percent from last year). The decrease is the result of greater capacity in seat kilometres compared to traffic growth in passenger kilometres. The drop in load factor was most visible to North, Central, and South American destinations.

"The growth in traffic figures continued in July. Passenger numbers were well in excess of three million during this busy holiday month. The fact that we were able to welcome so many passengers on board is a great achievement on the part of the KLM staff, certainly in the face of rising summer temperatures." Said Pieter Elbers - KLM President & CEO.