Vol. 7 No. 135                                              WE COVER THE WORLD                                                      Friday December 5, 2008

Austrian Mayrhuber Buys Austrian

     Austria’s 1957 formed national carrier Austrian Airlines (AUA) will lose its independence this Friday by joining German heavyweight Lufthansa. Yesterday, Lufthansa’s supervisory board paved the way for the take-over by deciding to purchase 41.5 percent of the Vienna-based airline from state run Austrian holding ÖIAG (Oesterreichische Staatsholding).
     Today (Friday) the ÖIAG board members will sit together to finally seal the deal. Depending on AUA’s upcoming financial results during the next months and the performance of Lufthansa’s own shares, the German carrier will pay at minimum €366,000 euros with a performance trigger upwards for the 41.5 percent.
     Parallel, AUA minority stakeholders will be offered a sum to sell their widespread shares to LH. Finally the German airline expects to possess a total of 75 percent in the Alp’s carrier with the Vienna government holding the remaining 25 percent.
     “It’s a perfect pact because now both players are finally becoming Austrian,” commented an AUA manager ironically by referring to Austria-born Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber (pictured right).
     AUA is the newest member joining Lufthansa’s orbit after the carrier announced the take over of Sabena successor Brussels Airlines (SN) and UK-based bmi beginning next year. Stronghold of the airline is Russia and the eastern European markets where AUA offers a bright variety of routes and frequencies.
      Further, LH has just shaped a ‘Lufthansa Italia’ named airline to offer short and medium-haul scheduled flights out of Milan’s airport Malpensa commencing next February. Six Airbus A319s will be based there to connect the thriving northern Italian city with places like Barcelona, Paris, London or Budapest.
     AUA’s Executive VP Cargo Franz Zoechbauer (pictured left) favors a Swiss WorldCargo model for his air freight division under the German crane’s wings giving his entity a great deal of autonomy. “Similar to Swiss we are a pure belly-hold capacity provider with no single freighter in our fleet.” To add to that “our strategy is to offer our clients quality instead of mass.”
     By collaborating with Lufthansa Cargo, he expects synergies on flights to and from Eastern Europe as well as on long haul routes. “Especially time critical express shipments and our new ‘cool’ product that we intend to launch next January.”
     Next to come are mutual project groups to closer define the many tasks both carriers have put on their flip charts.
Heiner Siegmund

 

Shanghai Exclusive—In a major effort to support the troubled cargo carriers and promote the development of international cargo business in this difficult time, South China’s Guangzhou local government has established the financial support fund at the end of November to subsidize international cargo routes.
     All carriers in service from January 2008, and all newly launched international cargo routes commencing from Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, one of the three major airports of China, under the plan are eligible receive annual fiscal subsidies of no more than RMB10 million per aircraft for base airlines and RMB8 million for non-base airlines.
     Similar measures were issued in 2007 by Guangzhou’s neighbor city, Shenzhen; and offered RMB20 million to Donghai Airlines and Jade Cargo International at the end of 2007 to subsidize their new cargo routes from Shenzhen Airport.
     Guangzhou Baiyun Airport currently operates seven international all-cargo routes, flying to Tokyo, Seoul, Frankfurt, Paris, etc., all of which are on the list.
     In total, around ten carriers operating on these routes will benefit from this plan, with UPS and Air France taking the largest part.
     Both airlines and Baiyun airport welcome this plan, expressing its positive effect on helping carriers maintain and expand international cargo routes at Baiyun Airport.
     Affected by the ongoing world economic recession, China’s civil aviation ended its years’ double-digit growth in the first ten months of 2008, however both passengers and cargo and mail grew less than 5 percent year on year. And some international routes, showed even negative growth.
     Profits of the entire China civil aviation industry turned to negative in the first ten months, with airlines losing over RMB6 billion in the third quarter as massive losses for the year continued.
David

Cathay Slows Down Terminal

      Cathay Pacific Airways may stall the construction of its HK$4.8 billion Hong Kong air cargo terminal, the third for the city.
     Construction was started in September this year and was scheduled for completion in the latter half of 2011, with designed capacity of 2.6 million tons per year. .
     However, a sharp downturn in cargo demand and the global economic problems have given the airline cause to rethink their plans.
     "Cathay Pacific has made it clear that in the face of the global economic downturn it is considering a number of options to ensure that it maintains a strong balance sheet," said Cathay Pacific spokeswoman Carolyn Leung. "The timing of all capital expenditure is therefore under scrutiny."
     She said the airline "remains fully committed to building and operating the terminal" but as yet has no clear idea of when it will be completed.
David

Picture Picure At SkyCargo

     So how do you overcome the challenge of securing a picture of two people but can’t gather them at the same time?
     You take two pictures of course.
     In the photo left Emirates cabin crew flank Ram Menen, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President Cargo, Heiner Sass, Managing Director, Globe Air Cargo, and Prakash Nair, Emirates Manager Network Cargo Sales Development.
     Globe Air Cargo is a European Cargo Service (ECS) company that specializes in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
     Emirates said that Mr. Sass & Co. now head up Emirates SkyCargo’s sales effort in Romania and Bulgaria.
     In the photo right, the other guy is Wolf Maria Taborsky, Globe’s Managing Director Eastern Europe.
     Prakash Nair, said:
     “Globe Air Cargo can leverage significant opportunities available to us in Central Europe where we operate an extensive trucking network throughout the region, transporting cargo from offline points to stations we serve directly.”
Geoffrey