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Spain’s Air Europa spends €3b on new jets

Majorca-based airline Air Europa said on Thursday it had made a huge order for 14 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners valued at $3.6 billion (€3.0 billion) at list prices.

Published: 15 January 2015 16:42 CET

Spain's Air Europa spends €3b on new jets

An Air Europa Boeing 737-85P departs from Malta. : InsectWorld/Shutterstock

The order — in the largest ever Boeing widebody order from a Spanish carrier —was booked in December and has already been tallied in Boeing's orders, Air Europa said in a statement.

"The first Dreamliners will start to arrive in 2016, this will allow us to grow both the number of flights and destinations we will operate to by around 50 percent," Juan José Hidalgo, the president of Air Europa parent company Globalia, said in the statement.

Air Europa's fleet of 45 planes also includes Airbus and Embraer jets, but the airline now has a combined total of 22 Boeing 787-8s and Boeing 787-9s on order.

"This order speaks to the economic performance of the 787," said Ricardo Cavero, Boeing deputy vice-president who is responsible for European sales.

The 787 Dreamliner can carry between 210 and 330 passengers and it offers features such as large windows, a smoother ride and greater fuel efficiency.

But production costs on the high-tech aircraft have not dropped as quickly as expected and Boeing has struggled with technical problems with the model which was launched in 2011, three years behind schedule.

Regulators around the world grounded Boeing's Dreamliner fleet during several months in 2013 while battery-related problems with the model were investigated.

Air Europa, based in Palma in the Balearic Islands, is one of Spain's largest airlines. It flies to over 40 destinations across Europe and the Americas.

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Norway acts to protect economy from coronavirus impact

Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Finance Minister John Tore Sanner (centre right, far right) making the announcement on Thursday. Photo: Norwegian Government

The government announced it was suspending fees and taxes for the airline industry, and would pay all but the two first days of the salaries of employees temporarily laid off in a bid to improve companies' liquidity.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg said at a press conference that it was “absolutely impossible to make an estimate” of how much the measures would cost the government.

“It all depends on how long this lasts, and how strong the measures we need to have,” she said. “We are put to a major test. The number of people infected is increasing rapidly, and it is affecting our everyday lives, our health care system and our economy.”

The package followed a surprise rate cut on Thursday from Norges Bank, the country's central bank, which reduced its key interest rate to 1 percent from 1.5 percent.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health on Friday reported that there had been 131 new cases of infection int he 24 hours up to midnight on Thursday, bringing the national total to 750.

The country is now ranked second in the world after South Korea in the number of infections per capita according to the Worldometers website, with 165 confirmed infections per million inhabitants.

On Thursday Norway saw its first death from the virus, with an elderly patient dying at a hospital in Oslo.

Finance Minister Jan Tore Sanner said it was fortunate the the Norwegian economy had been in such a good state at the time the virus hit.

“The situation is now affecting many parts of the economy and many industries and companies. Fortunately, the Norwegian economy is fundamentally solid,” he told state broadcaster NRK. “We have a good starting point.”

In a press release accompanying the announcement, the government said it would also remove the three-day waiting period between the point at which companies stop paying employees' salaries and the time unemployment benefits begin, to help keep the income of those laid off stable.

It said it would also change corporate tax regulations so that companies that are loss-making can re-allocate their losses towards the previous years’ taxed surplus. It will also change the tax regulations so that owners of loss-making companies can postpone payments of wealth tax.

Sanner told NRK that the government was considering other changes to employment taxes to make it easier for companies.

“Should the economic situation worsen, we will also consider measures to stimulate the economy more generally,” he said.

Sanner would give few concrete details of the other exact measures the government would propose, but he said they would all fall into three categories.

Immediate measures to avoid bankruptcies and dismissals.
Further concrete measures for industries and companies that are particularly hard hit and for the business community as a whole.
Broad measures to maintain activity in the economy if necessary.

The measures announced received a relatively lukewarm reception from the crisis-hit aviation and travel industries.

“The measures presented today are still not sufficient given the very special emergency situation in the airline industry,” John Echoff, press officer for the airline SAS, wrote to NRK.

“Taken as a whole, this will turn out to be too little as this crisis continues developing,” said Kristin Krohn Devold, chief executive of the Norwegian Hospitality Association. “More needs to come in the days ahead.”

“We are very clear that this is not enough to avoid a bankruptcy wave across the entire travel and airline industries. But it is a signal that they are willing to listen.”

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