Flight International 09Mar2020

AIR TRANSPORT

flightglobal.com 3-9 March 2020 | Flight International | 13

Why Chinese

ban could be

Leap too far

Air Transport P

A

partially crowdfunded Swiss
airline named FlyBair, to be
headquartered in Switzerland’s
capital Bern, says that it has
partnered with regional carrier
Helvetic Airways ahead of begin-
ning services to European vaca-
tion destinations from May 2020.
FlyBair made headlines last
November when it launched a
crowdfunding campaign to raise
money for a carrier that would
connect the Swiss capital to sev-
eral holiday destinations in Italy,
Greece and Spain during the
peak summer travel season.
At present, no commercial air-
lines serve the Swiss capital. Pas-
sengers must instead travel to
airports at Geneva, 93 miles
(150km) to the southwest, or Zu-
rich, 75 miles to the northeast.
“We have found a partner in
Helvetic Airways that represents
the Swiss values that FlyBair also
embodies,” says Urs Ryf, a mem-
ber of the company’s board. All
FlyBair flights will be carried out

by a Helvetic Airways’ Embraer

190, the new outfit says.

In its November announce-

ment, FlyBair called itself a “vir-

tual airline”, since its concept was

to partner with another organisa-

tion that would perform the flights

on its behalf, in order to keep costs

low. Originally, it had picked

German Airways to play this role,

but that deal fell through.

“German Airways let us and

our operating partner Lions Air

know that it was unable to honour

the current contract with FlyBair,

so we were forced to look for alter-

native solutions,” Ryf says.

“We value Helvetic Airways,

which is well-versed in Swiss re-

gional airports,” he adds.

The unconventional funding

call last autumn paid off. Within

30 days of the crowdfunding ap-

peal, the airline had generated

more than Swfr1 million ($1.

million) of its Swfr2.5 million tar-

get, mostly from small donors.

FlyBair says that 1,398 donors

automatically became sharehold-

ers of the airline when it was re-

corded in the country's commer-

cial register on 31 January. The

largest shareholder is Bern air-

port, with a 15.3% holding. ■

A

ir New Zealand (ANZ) has
filed patent and trademark
applications for full-length sleep
pods to be deployed in the econo-
my-class cabin, which it is consid-
ering for its ultra-long-haul routes.
Unveiling the Economy
Skynest, the carrier says it will de-
cide whether or not to install the
product after assessing the perfor-
mance of its upcoming Auckland-
New York nonstop service.
The route has a flight time in
the region of 17h and will be oper-
ated with Boeing 787-9s, config-
ured in a slightly lower seat count
than ANZ’s existing Dreamliners.
Economy Skynest, if fitted, will
have six lie-flat sleep pods, each

around 2m (6ft 6in) long, although

the exact location in the cabin is

still to be determined.

The concept is the result of

“three years of Air New Zealand

research and development, with

the input of more than 200 cus-

tomers”, the carrier says.

ANZ chief marketing and

customer officer Mike Tod says:

“A clear pain point for economy

travellers on long-haul flights is

the inability to stretch out. Econo-

my Skynest is a response to that.”

Nikki Goodman, ANZ’s general

manager of customer experience,

says the idea is for customers to

“book the Economy Skynest in ad-

dition to their seat”. ■

CONTRACT PILAR WOLFSTELLER SAN FRANCISCO

Crowdfunded ‘virtual airline’

taps Helvetic for Bern service

FlyBair partners with regional carrier to connect Swiss capital with holiday destinations
J

apan’s first domestically as-

sembled Pratt & Whitney

PW1200G geared turbofan has

entered flight testing in the USA.

Manufactured by the Aero En-

gines unit of Mitsubishi Heavy

Industries (MHI), the powerplant

was moved last November from

its Komaki facility in Japan to

sister company Mitsubishi Air-

craft’s flight-test centre at Moses

Lake in Washington state.

Mitsubishi used its initial

SpaceJet flight-test aircraft for the

engine test, which took place in

mid-February.

Hisakazu Mizutani, Mitsubishi

Aircraft president, says: “This first

flight with an engine completed in

Japan represents an important

milestone for Mitsubishi Aircraft,

our SpaceJet family of aircraft, and

for the further development of the

aerospace cluster in Japan.”

MHI Aero Engines signed an

agreement with P&W in 2008 for

the production and testing of

PW1200G engines, with assem-

bly of the first unit commencing

in 2017. ■

CONFIGURATION ALFRED CHUA SINGAPORE

ANZ hatches Skynest concept in economy cabin

PROPULSION

ALFRED CHUA SINGAPORE

First Japanese-

built PW1200G

makes test flight

Air New Zealand

Helvetic Airways

Operations will be carried

out using Embraer 190s

Sleep pod allows customers to stretch out on ultra-long-haul flights