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Catriona Henderson

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The Invasion of Low-Cost Airlines

The transatlantic market, typically the most lucrative aviation market in the world, is under attack.

Research carried out by Telegraph Travel in conjunction with OAG, the air travel analysts, has revealed the pressure being put on traditional carriers by low-cost, long-haul disrupters.

Telegraph Travel asked OAG to compare this winter’s transatlantic capacity with 2016/17. In terms of total seats on offer, British Airways remains the biggest player for flights between Europe and North America, but the low-cost airlines are closing in fast.

BA raised its available number of seats by 1.1%. Norwegian, on the other hand, raised its transatlantic capacity by 111.4%, whilst WOW Air has grown by 31.1%.

Other legacy carriers such as Delta, United Airlines and Lufthansa, the second, third and fourth biggest transatlantic airlines, are also treading water having increased capacity by just 3.2%, 2.6% and 2.9%, respectively. Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic has cut its number of seats resulting in a drop of 3.2%.

Nevertheless, a few premium airlines are bucking the trend. Iberia and Aeroflot both increased capacity by more than a quarter this winter. In addition, Emirates added almost 50,000 transatlantic seats, driven largely by the introduction of flights from Italy and Greece to North America.Continue Reading The Transatlantic Battle

What a year it has been! At the start of 2017, Reed Smith had no aviation finance team. We have now established teams in London, New York and Abu Dhabi (and we’re not done yet!). Across the board we have structured and closed a diverse range of transactions for lenders, lessors and operators alike (and we still have one or two to go as we all race for the finishing line that is the Holidays).

Throughout, we have been grateful for the support of our clients who have stood by us during our respective moves, and we are excited to close the book on the first phase of our project as we move into 2018. The new year will see the continued development of our practice and will, we hope, give us the opportunity to form deeper partnerships with our existing clients as well as to establish new partnerships to support additional players in the aviation industry.

Establishing a new practice from scratch is inevitably somewhat turbulent for all involved and this got us thinking about the other turbulence and interruptions experienced on a sectoral basis by the industry this year. With this in mind, it seemed like a good moment for us to pause and take stock of 2017.
Continue Reading Farewell to 2017, and to the 747: An exciting year in review

What to do if you are an aircraft leasing company struggling to lease your aircraft? For one lessor, Dublin-based Amedeo, the answer is to create its own “virtual airline”.

Amedeo has apparently been struggling to attract new lessees for its fleet of Airbus A380s – it currently has 12 under management and a further 20 on order.

They believe the best way to utilise the company’s assets is now no longer to just lease the aircraft to airlines but to operate them directly under what they believe could be a new model for air transport.
Continue Reading Aircraft lessor plans “airline-for-hire” service for its fleet of A380s