Air France KLM slide in profits

Air France-KLM reported a steep slide in profitability in the quarter ended Sept. 30, as passenger traffic was insufficient to offset a higher fuel bill, and set a three-pronged recovery plan to get the airline back on an even keel.

The airline issued a profit warning for the full year, saying it now expects to report an operating loss in the year's last quarter, as well as for the 12 months through Dec. 31, compared with previous guidance of a higher operating profit.

Air France-KLM is changing its financial year to the calendar year from a year that ended on March 31.

Net profit for the three months ended Sept. 30—the second quarter of the current financial year that exceptionally will be for only nine months—was €14 million ($19.4 million), compared with €290 million a year earlier.

WSJ

Airbus ends A340 production

 Airbus SAS has ended production of its four-engine A340 aircraft after the jet with the company’s longest fuselage lost out to Boeing Co.’s twin-engine 777 model.

Airbus, the world’s largest maker of commercial aircraft, announced the end of the program today as parent European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. reported earnings. Terminating the program will lead to an operating gain of 192 million euros ($261 million), EADS said, without explaining why it’s concluding production of the jet that started service in 1993.

“In an environment where the fuel price is high, the A340 has had no chance to compete against similar twin engines, and the current lease rates and values of this aircraft reflect the deep resistance of any airlines to continue operating it,” said Bertrand Grabowski, managing director of the transport group at DVB Bank SE, among the biggest aircraft financiers in Europe.

Kingfisher cancels over 80 flights -

Kingfisher Airlines appears to be in deep trouble,  the airline had cancelled over 80 flights and faces a very uncertain future.  The Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a show-cause notice to Kingfisher Airlines after the latter cancelled at least 80 flights over the past three days, saying it was taking some of its aircraft off flight schedules to add business class seats on them.

Qantas A380 diverts to Dubai after engine problem

An engine fault forced a Qantas Airways A380 plane bound for London to divert to Dubai on Friday, exactly a year since a mid-air engine blowout prompted the Australian airline to ground its entire fleet of A380 superjumbos for nearly a month.

The Airbus aircraft had an "oil quantity defect" in one engine which was switched off according to standard procedure, a Qantas spokeswoman in Sydney said, adding Qantas engineers would investigate the problem.

The plane, with 258 people on board, including English actor, comedian and writer Stephen Fry, landed safely in Dubai.

Singapore 777 over runs Munich runway

The Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 is surrounded by rescue personnel after it slid off the runway at Munich airport.

Munich Airport said a Boeing 777 airliner flown by Singapore Airlines slid off its south runway when landing today, and that no passengers were injured in the incident.'

The 143 passengers and 14 crew members left the aircraft using normal portable stairways following the 12.14pm accident, and no one was injured, Florian Steuer, a spokesman for the airport, said in a phone interview. The runway is closed and the airport operator hopes to reopen it later this evening.

The cause of the accident, which involved a flight from Manchester, England, has yet to be determined, the airport operator said in a statement.

BA may buy BMI

Lufthansa has said it is selling British Midland (BMI) to International Airlines Group (IAG), which owns British Airways and Iberia. No details have yet been given of how much will be paid for the loss-making carrier. The airlines said they hoped to sign a purchase agreement "in the coming weeks" and complete the deal before April 2012. 


The sale still has to be cleared by regulators. BMI, which is based in Castle Donington in Leicestershire, operates flights to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The key issue for regulators will be the extra take-off and landing slots at Heathrow Airport that BMI owns. 


 The acquisition would mean that IAG would have more than half of the landing slots at the UK's busiest airport. Virgin Atlantic, which said it had also made a bid for BMI, is likely to strongly oppose the deal. "British Airways' hold over Heathrow is already too dominant and we are very concerned - as the competition authorities should also be - that BA's purchase of BMI would be disastrous for consumer choice and competition," Virgin Atlantic said. Lufthansa bought the 50% of BMI owned by its then chairman Sir Michael Bishop in 2008, taking its holding to 80%.

China Southern Starts New Zealand Service.

China Southern Airlines has started flying daily to and from New Zealand in a move welcomed as a boost for the economy.

The airline began flying three times a week from Guangzhou to Auckland in April - a service which was yesterday increased to every day.

Auckland Airport general manager of aeronautical commercial Glenn Wedlock said the airport was focused on increasing air services and direct routes, particularly in booming Asian markets.

Lufthansa talks to BA over BMI sale.

German airline Lufthansa is set to enter exclusive talks to sell loss-making carrier bmi by the end of the month, with arch rival IAG , the owner of British Airways, seen as the front-runner, sources said on Tuesday.

"The price won't be substantial, it's mainly about cleaning Lufthansa's balance sheet and getting rid of the debt," one source close to the sales process told Reuters.

Bmi has been a millstone around Lufthansa's neck and by putting it up for sale, the company has admitted efforts have stalled to turn around the unit, which reported losses of 154 million euros ($214.8 million) for the first nine months of 2011.

Thomas Cook sorry for dead dog.

An airline has apologised to the owner of an English bulldog which died on a flight to Gatwick Airport.

The dog, Buster, owned by a member of the armed forces returning from duty in Cyprus, was found dead in a container on the Thomas Cook Airlines flight.

The airline was fined £6,500 and ordered

Singapore Airlines to launch budge airline.

Singapore Airlines is hoping to muscle in on Asia's burgeoning no-frills travel market with a new long-haul budget carrier it's calling "Scoot."

The low cost airline will begin operating by June 2012 with four Boeing 777-200 jets flying by the end of that year, its chief executive Campbell Wilson told reporters Tuesday.

Scoot plans to initially focus on destinations that are five to 10 hours from its base at Singapore's Changi International Airport and fly to four or more cities in Australia and China.

Qantas Back In the Air

Australia's Qantas Airways returned to the air on Monday after grounding its entire global fleet over the weekend in a bold tactic to force the government to intervene in the nation's worst labor dispute in a decade.

Qantas took the drastic step to ground all flights on Saturday, disrupting 70,000 passengers and spurring the government and its labor-market regulator to seek a quick end to hostilities between the airline and unions.

At the government's instigation, Australia's labor tribunal ordered Qantas to resume flights and banned trade unions, which have waged a damaging campaign of industrial action, from staging more strikes while negotiations continued.

"That was the only way we could bring that to a head," a bleary-eyed Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told reporters after 36 hours of round-the-clock brinkmanship.

Later, after being given the all-clear from aviation regulators, Qantas resumed flights from Sydney with an Airbus A330 bound for Jakarta.

EU + US carbon war?

 Twenty-six nations, including the United States, are expected to lodge a formal protest on Wednesday against a European Union law to make all airlines travelling to and from Europe pay for their carbon emissions.

The protest at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) meeting in Montreal, Canada, is likely to escalate transatlantic tension, which has triggered an anti-EU bill in the U.S. Congress.

It declared illegal the EU plan to make all flights buy carbon permits under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) from Jan. 1 to offset their emissions.

The proposed U.S. legislation could mark the beginning of a trade war, analysts and lawyers said. The following looks at some of the issues.

Down at last

Footage shows Boeing 767 landing

A Boeing 767 with 230 people on board has made an emergency landing at Warsaw airport, apparently without its landing gear.

It appears the Polish Lot aircraft, en route from New York, circled the city to burn up fuel and allow emergency crews to gather in preparation for the landing.

LOT 767 Lands without wheels!

A Boeing 767 on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, made a dramatic emergency landing at Warsaw, Poland's Frederic Chopin International airport Tuesday after problems with its landing gear, an airport spokeswoman said.

All the passengers on the flight, from Newark Liberty International Airport to Warsaw, are safe and uninjured, she told CNN. Newark Liberty serves the greater New York area.

The LOT Polish Airlines flight, which had been due to land at 1:35 p.m. local time, circled above the airport for an hour before coming down in a belly landing at 2:40, she said.

"After noticing a central hydraulic system failure the standard procedure for emergency landings at Warsaw airport were implemented," LOT said in a statement, saying emergency crews were in place on the ground to assist.

There were 231 people aboard the flight, 220 of them passengers and 11 crew, the airline said.

The passengers "stayed calm" during the emergency landing and after reaching the terminal were cared for by support staff and psychologists, the airline added.

The shower smiles in a politician.