Europe

Starlux Airlines, a Taiwanese airline, has ordered 10 additional Airbus A350 long haul jets. The two companies announced this at the Paris Airshow. Cirium Ascend's estimates of aircraft prices suggest that the deal could be worth $1.85 billion. Starlux CEO Glenn Chai stated that deliveries of new A350-1000s are expected to begin in 2031. Chai, a reporter, said that the aircraft was a perfect match for their long-haul strategies. The airline operates a fleet of 28 Airbus aircraft consisting of A350-900s for trans-Pacific routes and A330neos, A321s, and A321s for regional ones. Chai said that the airline expects to begin...

Iberia plans to expand its fleet of long haul aircraft from 45 to 70 by the middle next decade. The Spanish airline announced this in a strategy plan published on Wednesday. Iberia, owned by International Consolidated Airlines (Ica), plans to invest 6 milliards d'euros ($6,90 billion) in the plan. Iberia CEO Marco Sansavini said to reporters that 70% the investment required for the expansion of its fleet will be funded by the company's own cash flow. He said that the company would also be adding four short-haul aircraft in 2026-2027. Sansavini stated that "all our fleet will be Airbus aircraft,...

International airlines have stopped flights to certain Middle East destinations following Israel's attacks against Iran. Here are some airlines that have canceled flights from and to the region. AEGEAN AIRLINES Aegean Airlines, a Greek airline, has cancelled all flights from and to Tel Aviv, including the early morning flight of July 12. It also canceled all flights from and to Beirut, Amman and Erbil, up until the morning arrivals on June 28. AIRBALTIC AirBaltic, a Latvian airline, has announced that it will cancel all flights from and to Tel Aviv up until the 23rd of June. AEROFLOT After Israel's attack...

The biggest airshow in the world was set to end with a quiet finale on Wednesday after the owner and operator of AirAsia - a budget airline that is often the source of drama at the last minute - played down the prospects of plane deals expected with Airbus or Embraer. The delegates were prepared for a low key Paris Airshow, after Boeing made huge deals on President Donald Trump's trip to the Middle East. The U.S. firm then reduced its presence at the Paris Airshow to focus on the investigation into the deadly crash of a Boeing 787 by...

Tony Fernandes - CEO of Capital A Group, said that AirAsia's owner is in discussions to purchase 50 to 70 Airbus A321XLR aircraft in the coming months. However, the priority for the group is to complete its restructuring. In an interview, he said that the Asian low-cost airline is still in negotiations to purchase 100 regional aircraft from Airbus A220 and Embraer E2. However, there will be no announcements on orders made at this week's Paris Airshow. "I don’t think an order will be placed at this airshow." We are still working with Airbus, and other manufacturers ).... Fernandes stated...

Israel started flying citizens home stranded overseas on Wednesday. The country launched a phased airlift after its surprise military strike against Iran left tens and thousands of Israelis stranded overseas. El Al, the national airline, brought passengers back to Ben Gurion Airport in the early morning hours of Wednesday. The flight was operated by El Al and flew from Larnaca Airport, Cyprus. Israel's Transport Ministry estimates that over 50,000 Israelis have been stranded abroad and are attempting to return home. El Al announced that repatriation flights have already been scheduled to Athens Rome Milan and Paris. Arkia, Israir and other...

Airport sources and flight tracking websites showed that flights left for Israel from Cyprus on Wednesday, ferrying Israelis home who were stranded overseas during the conflict with Iran. Israel's airspace is closed after the two countries started trading attacks on Friday. Tens of thousands were stranded when their flights to Tel Aviv cancelled. Israel announced Tuesday special flights to repatriate its citizens. Arkia operated a flight from Cyprus's Larnaca Airport at 7:25 am (0425 GMT). The flight was bound for Tel Aviv. Sources at airport operator Hermes confirmed that nine more flights were scheduled to leave Wednesday, with about 1,000...

The United States to Europe airfares have fallen to levels not seen before the pandemic. Travelers from Western Europe are leading a decline in travel to America that is expected continue until at least July. According to preliminary data released by the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, overseas arrivals in the United States decreased 2.8% from a year earlier in May. Travel from Western Europe dropped 4.4% in may, while travel from Eastern Europe increased 4.6% during the same period. According to OAG Aviation (an analytics firm), forward bookings indicate that a...

Sean Duffy, the U.S. Transportation secretary, said that he wants civil aviation to go back to a zero-tariff agreement from 1979 but added that it was part of broader talks on trade. Duffy, speaking at the Paris Airshow said that the White House is aware that the U.S. has a large aerospace export market, but that it faces a complex tariff situation. Airline companies, plane manufacturers and other U.S. trade partners are lobbying Trump for the restoration of the tariff-free regime that was established under the Civil Aircraft Agreement in 1979. This agreement has resulted in an annual surplus of...

Tufan Erginbilgic, CEO of Rolls-Royce, said that it was "even truer" on Tuesday that the British jet-engine maker would love to re-enter narrow-body aircraft market. He claimed that he described the single aisle market as a business opportunity in the past and this was "even truer" now. He told reporters attending the Paris Airshow: "We're talking to many parties and they're also talking to us. We obviously engage with Airbus, because they are the ultimate customers and they welcome this." He said that a successful move into narrow-body vehicles could be the biggest boost for Britain's economy. Rolls-Royce and Pratt...

Airbus and VietJet, a budget airline, struck a deal for up to 150 single aisle jets on the second day of the Paris Airshow. The U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy gave a boost to industry hopes that tariff-free trade would return. Duffy stated that he would like to see the civil aviation return to the 1979 zero-tariff agreement. This is one of the most clear signs to date that the Trump Administration might be in favour of such a move. Duffy said that, while the White House is aware that the U.S. has a large aerospace export market, they are...

Wizz Air, a low-cost European carrier, announced on Tuesday that it had selected RTX Pratt & Whitney to be the engine supplier of 177 Airbus A321neo jets ordered. Wizz Air has shown its commitment to Pratt & Whitney GTF engines, despite the fact that issues with Pratt & Whitney GTF engines forced several airlines to ground aircraft. Wizz Air's total order of GTF-powered aircraft now stands at 453. The low-cost airline, which runs an all-Airbus-fleet, was forced to choose between Pratt & Whitney, its current supplier, and CFM, a joint-venture between GE Aerospace, France's Safran SA.PA>, and GE Aerospace. A...

Separate findings have been released by the Spanish government and the grid operator regarding the causes of the massive blackout that occurred in Spain and Portugal, on April 28. The blackout caused gridlock and thousands were left stranded in trains and elevators in cities across the Iberian Peninsula. What caused the blackout? In a report published on Tuesday, the Spanish government stated that the grid operator Redeia had miscalculated how much energy was needed in the system. The Spanish government blamed some thermal power plants that use coal, gas, and nuclear for not maintaining an appropriate voltage. As a result,...

Redeia, the Spanish grid operator, disputed findings in a report by the government that claimed that the operator's failure to calculate the right mix of energy led to the massive blackout that occurred on April 28, both in Spain and Portugal. Concha Sanchez, the Redeia operations director, also said at a press briefing held on Wednesday that the company's own investigation revealed anomalies with the disconnections of power plants from the system on April 28, despite the fact that the voltage was within the legal limits. It also found an anomalous increase in demand for transport services. She said that...

The National Electricity System Operator of Britain said that it expected to have enough supplies this winter and gave an early forecast for the balance between supply and demand. There is more power available due to the growth of battery storage on electricity networks, the availability of more gas-fired energy generation, the use of renewable energy, and the commissioning the Greenlink electricity link between Ireland and Wales. Deborah Petterson is the director of resilience and Emergency Management at NESO. She said, "Our early outlook for the winter shows a good outlook with enough margins to last through the colder months."...

Finland banned the use of electric skateboards by children younger than 15 years old on Tuesday. Scooter rental companies must now obtain municipal licenses in order to continue providing their services. The legislation approved by the parliament on "micromobility" last month is part a larger ramping up on regulations for e-scooters, whose use has increased rapidly in Europe in recent years. Italy, for instance, requires that riders of e Scooters wear helmets and have insurance. Authorities in Paris and Madrid also banned the rental of e Scooters. Lulu Ranne is Finland's Transport and Communications Minister. She said: "This situation has...

Sara Aagesen, Spain's energy minister, said that the Spanish grid's inability to control grid voltage led to a chain of events that caused the massive blackouts that struck Spain and Portugal April 28. A detailed report of the investigation will be released on Tuesday. It found that power plants required by law, to regulate the voltage on the grid, failed to do this in the moments leading up to the blackout. Aagesen stated in a press briefing held in Madrid that "the system did not possess sufficient dynamic voltage control capability". The power plants "should have been able to control...

Calculations based on data from traders showed that the price of Russia's Urals crude rose above the $60 limit set by Western nations, as the Brent price surged last week due to rising tensions in Middle East. The oil prices rose on Friday, and ended 7% higher after Israel and Iran exchanged air strikes. This fueled investor concerns that the conflict could disrupt Middle East oil exports. As part of a wide range of sanctions, the U.S. and other Group of Seven nations, including Australia, imposed a price cap on Russian oil exports by sea in late 2022. According to...

Uganda forecasts its economic growth will accelerate to about 7% in the coming year, indicating that officials do not plan on large-scale production of energy in the next twelve months. This year, growth was projected at 6.3%. The latest government estimate was that crude production would begin in the middle of the year. However, this date has been pushed back repeatedly due to disagreements between the government of President Yoweri Museeveni and international energy companies and the slow progress of building critical infrastructure. Companies including France's TotalEnergies, China's CNOOC and China's TotalEnergies are developing Uganda's oilfields near the border with...

Khnatsakh residents are anxious at nightfall. Locals claim that every evening, around 10 pm, Azerbaijani soldiers fire into the night skies from their positions high above. Villagers say that bullets have been hitting houses regularly, but no one has been injured so far. Azerbaijan has denied that its troops are firing across the border and accused Armenian forces of violating ceasefire. Karo Andranyan (66), a retired mechanic, said, "It is very tense at home because we have children, little ones and elderly." Azerbaijani flags and a military position on a hillside are only 100 metres away from his door. This...

According to industry sources and calculations, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium has reduced daily oil production in May from April by 6% to 5,906 million metric tonnes (1.51 millions barrels per day). CPC, the company that carries over 80% of Kazakh oil exports connects Tengiz in western Kazakhstan, and other fields, with the CPC terminal at Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka in Russia, near Novorossiisk. Sources said that Kazakh exports of oil via CPC dropped to 5.386 millions tons in may from 5.523 in April, while Russian oil supplies via CPC reached 0.52 million tonnes in May compared with 0.57 million in April. The...

The European Commission's proposal to lower the price of Russian oil to punish Moscow for the war in Ukraine would not help stabilize the global energy market, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday. The European Commission proposed on Tuesday to lower the price cap of the Group of Seven Nations on Russian crude oil from $60 to $45 per barrel, in an attempt to reduce the country's revenue. Peskov, when asked about the EU proposal he called Western sanctions such as these illegal. Peskov said that such actions "do not contribute to stabilising international energy markets or the oil...

Sara Aagesen, Spain's Minister of Energy, urged private electric companies to share information faster to determine the cause of the worst blackout ever to strike Spain and Portugal. The cause of the power outage that left 60 million people without electricity in two European countries has not been determined, and the blame-game has increased. Aagesen, who was in Nice, France for a U.N. Conference, told reporters that information arrived quickly at first. "Now, information is arriving in bits and pieces much slower." She admitted that the information needed was more detailed, and at times more complex. She said, "But I...

According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the 18th package against Russia has been proposed. It targets its energy revenues, banks, and military industry. The new package proposes to ban transactions with Russia's Nord Stream Gas Pipelines as well as banks who engage in sanctions-circumvention. Von der Leyen said at a press conference that "Russia will only understand the language of strength" if it imposes the rule by force. In an effort to reduce Russia's revenues from energy, the Commission also proposed that the price cap for Russian crude oil be lowered to $45 per barrel. It was...