Flight International - 5 June 2018

THIS WEEK

flightglobal.com 5-11 June 2018 | Flight International | 11

EBACE 2018

Show Report P

T

he US Air Force has delayed

the award of a contract to

replace its Bell UH-1N utility

helicopters until the fourth quar-

ter of this year.

Previous plans had called for

the service to select a successor

during the third quarter of fiscal

year 2018, but a protest over the

control of particular intellectual

property rights filed with the US

Government Accountability Of-

fice by Sikorsky has delayed its

decision, the USAF says.

The GAO on 22 May an-

nounced that it had rejected the

action mounted by the Lockheed

Martin-owned manufacturer fol-

lowing the release of a request for

proposals which it alleged did not

treat potential suppliers equally.

Sikorsky is bidding its HH-60U

Black Hawk against the MH-139: a

militarised version of the Agus-

taWestland AW139 proposed by a

Boeing/Leonardo team, and a

Force Hawk upgrade to the

UH-60L created by Sierra Nevada.

The replacement programme

will deliver a successor for the

USAF’s remaining UH-1Ns,

which support operations at nu-

clear missile bases in Montana,

North Dakota and Wyoming. The

service plans to acquire 84 heli-

copters under the deal. ■

G

ermany’s competition watch-
dog has concluded that a
trend of rising domestic airfares
following the collapse of Air Ber-
lin has been reversed by EasyJet’s
entry into the market, removing
the need for a full investigation.
The Bundeskartellamt says
that, prompted by competition
complaints to investigate the ef-
fect of Air Berlin’s collapse in Oc-
tober 2017, it compared the ticket
prices offered by Lufthansa, its
Eurowings subsidiary and their
competitors on 13 German do-
mestic routes in autumn last year
with those of February 2018.
The watchdog concluded that
for a few months Lufthansa had a
“monopoly position” on some do-
mestic routes, causing ticket pric-
es to rise by an average of 25-30%,
and “much higher” in some cases.

But the “considerable” price in-

crease does not justify an “abuse

proceeding”, says the Bundeskar-

tellamt, noting EasyJet’s arrival in

January on routes previously

served by Air Berlin led “immedi-

ately” to a fall in airfares.

The regulator says it took into

account the fact that Air Berlin’s

exit brought a “strong decline” in

capacity, and that this would have

been reflected in price rises even if

competition had remained intact.

Air Berlin filed for insolvency

in August 2017 and its assets

were sold to EasyJet, Lufthansa

and Thomas Cook. Its Austrian

regional subsidiary, Niki, was

subsequently reacquired by its

founder, Niki Lauda. The watch-

dog says it will continue to “close-

ly monitor” developments in the

German domestic market. ■

PRICING

Fare rises after Air Berlin

collapse now ‘reversed’

REQUIREMENT GARRETT REIM LOS ANGELES

Sikorsky complaint

delays decision on

Huey replacement

US Air Force pushes back award of contract to replace its

UH-1N fleet amid protest over intellectual property rights

US Air Force

Service had planned to select successor for type in third quarter

AirTeamImages
Regulator observes insolvency led to a “strong decline” in capacity

MONTERREY