Content about airline

DHL Express leads the market in global express delivery services, and continues to hone and improve its performance. Joerg Andriof talks to Gay Sutton about managing this complex and extensive network and returning the company to profit.

Botswana has transformed itself from a sleepy African country to a vibrant democratic economy and as Alan Swaby learns, its national airline is trying to emulate the country’s progress.

It’s an understandable aspiration that developing countries want to be represented on the larger international stage through their own national airline carrier. Understandable, but fraught with danger—at least of the economical kind—as many African countries have discovered to their cost.

Norwegian Air Shuttle has signed an agreement with both Airbus and Boeing for delivery of a total of 222 new aircraft—the largest such deal in European aviation history.

The order includes 100 new Boeing 737 MAX8s and 22 Next-Generation 737-800s, making Norwegian the European launch customer for Boeing’s new aircraft. The Airbus order—Norwegian’s first purchase from the company—includes 100 Airbus A320neos. The orders include additional purchase rights of 150 aircraft from both manufacturers.

International Airlines Group (IAG) and Germany’s flag carrier Lufthansa have reached a binding agreement for IAG to acquire UK-based airline British Midland Limited (bmi).

IAG will pay £172.5 million for bmi, which consists of three distinct business units—bmi mainline, bmi regional and bmibaby.

Boeing has secured its biggest ever commercial aircraft deal with a 230-plane, $21.7 billion order from Indonesia’s Lion Air.

The airline is ordering 201 737 MAXs and 29 Next-Generation 737-900 ERs (extended range), with the deal also inclusive of purchase rights for an additional 150 airplanes, valued at more than $14 billion if exercised at list prices.

Managing director Paul Craig talks to Vincent Kielty about how a local Ghanaian company has forged a reputation for excellence in a challenging marketplace.

Top-down strategy is dead. Modern strategy is middle-up—involving cross-functional teams and interactive workshops. Paul Christodoulou, a strategy leader with 22 years’ experience in blue-chip companies and a Sainsbury Management Fellow, discusses this new approach to strategy development that can tap the hidden strategic ideas within your senior team to constantly refresh your competitive advantage (whilst saving a fortune in consultancy fees).

The UK’s largest airline, easyJet, has announced that it will open a new base at London Southend Airport from April 2012.

The base will open with three A319 aircraft and over 150 employees, with around 800,000 passengers expected to fly in the first year.

Seventy easyJet flights per week will operate to around 10 different European destinations including Barcelona, Faro and Ibiza. Tickets will go on sale at the end of July this year.

The new base will be easyJet’s eleventh in the UK.

MIDEX AIRLINES has grown rapidly to become the largest charter airline in the Middle East and Europe. Dr Issam Khairallah tells Ruari McCallion how it was done.

The year 2007 may have begun by looking like a good time to start an airline; but the emergence of the banking crisis and the global downturn in trade may have caused some air entrepreneurs to think that it could have been a better idea to have sat on their hands. But not Dr. Issam Khairallah, president of MIDEX AIRLINES.

This South African-based specialist in aircraft seating made from composite materials is well-placed to take advantage of the international effort to reduce the weight of airliners.

AAT Composites is a specialist in the manufacture of high-tech, high-specification composite carbon and glass fibre seating components for the airline industry. The company was founded near Cape Town, South Africa, in 1983 as Aerodyne Technology, later becoming Aerodyne Aviation Technology.

Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways has expressed “top level interest” in the UK airline Virgin Atlantic, according to reports.

According to the Sunday Times newspaper, the chief executive of Etihad has written to Deutsche Bank, who Virgin Atlantic hired last year to examine the aviation market and identify growth opportunities, to express his interest in acquiring the airline.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad has so far refused to comment on the reports.

Businesses can protect their reputation and boost their chances of survival by tightening up the supply chain, as John Kinge, head of Risk at Exor Management Services (EMS), explains.