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Europe
The Netherlands
The government has decided to postpone the opening of
Lelystad Airport for commercial flights with one year to 1
April 2020. The move comes as new noise and environmental
studies need to be done to assess the impact of the expansion
of the airport. The old ones are deemed incomplete and not
correct.
Austria
The successor of Niki, Laudamotion, has started operations a
few weeks ago. For the upcoming summer season the airline
plans to operate a fleet of 21 A320 family aircraft out of
Austria, Germany and Switzerland. During the launch press
conference Niki Lauda said that the airline is also planning
to replace the A320s with new A320neos when the leases of
the older Airbuses expire in three to five years. In other news
it has become known that Ryanair has bought 24,9% of the
shares in the airline and is planning to acquire up to 75% of
the shares once it gets approval from the EU. Ryanair plans
to keep the Laudamotion brand for now and also the fleet of
Airbuses.
Bosnia
Start-up FlyBosnia, which is backed by a Saudi business group,
has applied for its AOC with the authorities. Fleet wise the
new company wants to operate a single jet aircraft and des-
tinations planned are Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Stockholm.
Finland
Finnair is planning to issue an RFP to Airbus and Boeing in
which the airline seeks offers for new narrow body aircraft.
The airline wants to order new planes to replace the older
A319s, A320s and A321s in the fleet. Finnair hopes to take
delivery of the first new plane by 2021 or 2022. The airline has
also accelerated the delivery of its remaining eight A350s on
order. Two A350s will be delivered earlier, one in 2019 instead
of 2023 and one in 2020 instead of 2022. With the shuffle the
eight A350 deliveries are now; one for this year, two in 2019,
two in 2020, two in 2021 and one in 2022.
France
Joon has taken delivery of its first A321s and A340-300. The
A321s will be used from Paris-Charles de Gaulle to Barcelona,
Berlin, Lisbon, Oslo and Rome-Fiumicino. The A340 is being
used to Cairo.
Greece
Airbus and Aegean Airlines signed an MOU for an order of
twenty A320neos and ten A321neos. The airline also took
options on another twelve aircraft, which are flexible
between the A320neo and the A321neo. Aegean is planning
to welcome the new Airbuses between 2020 and 2025.
Italy
Start-up Italian Airways, which is owned by the former
owner of Meridiana and Air Italy, is seeking to lease a single
B777-200ER to start operations from Milan-Bergamo to des-
tinations in North, Central and South America. To feed these
flights Italian Airways is seeking to create a feeder agreement
with Ryanair, which has a base at the Milan airport.
Malta
Air Malta signed a lease agreement with a, yet unknown,
lessor for a single A320neo. The new plane is expected in
April.
Poland
BLUairways is a new ACMI-carrier in the country, which is
based at Krakow. The new company hopes to start operations
in the next quarter of the year using a single A320. At the
start the company will use the AOC from another Polish, cur-
rently unknown, airline, before applying for its own AOC and
expanding the fleet with A321s.
Portugal
ACMI-operator Hi Fly announced that the company has
acquired ten A330-900neos. It is yet unknown if the ten were
bought directly from Airbus, or leased via a lessor. The first
A330-900neo will be delivered June next year and Hi Fly will
outfit the aircraft with 365 seats in three classes. Eventually
the ten planes will replace all of the airline’s current fleet.
S7 Airlines introduced a new colour scheme in 2017. The repainting of their fleet will take place at S7 Technic’s painting shop in Mineralnye
Vody, southern Russia. In terms of material, the main difference between the new livery and the previous one is that the new S7 Airlines’ livery
requires application of enamel with MICA effect. This material is more demanding in terms of the quality of its application and the painting
team’s qualification. It also takes more time to dry between applying different layers. But its advantage is that this new enamel with MICA
effect retains all of its features – for instance, a very beautiful play of colours – up to 7-8 years, not 5-6 years from the old colour scheme. In early
February 2018 S7 Technic’s painting shop redelivered eleven freshly painted Boeings to the airline. Boeing 737-800 VP-BDH is one of them and
is seen here at Dusseldorf on 23 March by Walter Heukensfeld.
