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Air Southwest: In a brief statement on 14th July, Air Southwest announced that it is to cease all operations at Plymouth and Newquay. This followed an earlier announcement on the 6th July advising that due to the Plymouth Military radar service being unavailable for the whole period between 29th July and 29th August is was unable to operate its Plymouth flights and would transfer them to Newquay airport during this time and it would operate a complimentary ground transport for all affected passengers. The Sutton Harbour Group which owns Plymouth Airport had already announced that it would close the airport in December, citing the economic downturn and "challenges for the UK regional aviation market". Air Southwest was planning to operate while Plymouth Airport remained open, however according to the statement its “forward bookings are significantly lower than required and the level of demand is not financially viable”. It has now taken a decision to cease all its Plymouth services from 14th September. As a consequence, the Newquay flights were “reviewed at length”, but according to the airline “are not viable on their own without the association with Plymouth”. Four Newquay routes (Glasgow, Guernsey, Jersey and Manchester) will be terminated on the same date. Services to Cork and Dublin as well as to Aberdeen, Bristol and Leeds Bradford will end on 30th September which will be the last day of Air Southwest branded flights.

British Airways (BA): After a dispute which lasted for almost two years and saw 22 days of strikes last year, British Airways cabin crew have backed the deal first announced on 12 May, to end their long-running dispute with the airline. The Unite union said 92% of its members voted in favour of the deal, which it said was an ‘honourable settlement’. The hard task now will be to restore moral and trust in the airline and BA's new chief executive, Keith Williams seems the man for the job. Looking to the future, the airline is restructuring its flight operations unit into Airbus and Boeing divisions moving away from the former long-haul and short-haul divisions that have been in place since the merger of BOAC and BEA in 1974. It is in line with the airline’s view that aircraft type and flight deck philosophy have now become more important to operations than route structure and flying style. However, until the Airbus A380 enters service, Boeing aircraft form the backbone of the long haul fleet. However, despite ordering six Boeing 777-300ERs, it is considering the A350-1000 as part of its future large-twin fleet. Meanwhile BA and Iberia’s parent company International Airlines Group (IAG) saw its premium traffic jump by more than a quarter in June compared to the same month last year, while its economy passenger numbers grew by an impressive 6.7%. Combined domestic traffic in both the UK and Spain however saw a drop of more than 15% year on year.

British Midland International (Bmi): Bmi’s traffic fell 6.6% between January and June 2011, compared to the first half of 2010. In that period, the number of passengers fell from 3,457,000 to 2,753,000. Load factor stayed consistent however at 74.2%, a 0.2% increase on the first half of 2010. Apart from the effects of the recession in its home markets, unrest in the Middle East has caused difficulties for the airline, with its newly launched route between London and Tripoli dropped within one day of its launch. The airline has also been forced to reduce the number of flights between London and the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Cello Aviation: Cello Aviation the private UK charter company based at Birmingham Airport whose BAe 146-200, or Avro Business Jet G-RAJJ was used for the State visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland is celebrating its first 12 months since it started flying in July 2010. In its first year, Cello has grown to 22 staff and has already generated a loyal client base. The company are also planning on increasing their fleet, with the addition of another aircraft later in 2011 and this will generate another 10 to 15 local jobs, both directly with Cello, and indirectly with caterers, brokers, and other services to the airline.

easyJet: easyJet chief executive Carolyn McCall has revealed the airline's ambition to become ‘Europe's preferred short-haul airline’ over the next 10 years by increasing the volume of business travel with its higher yields. Currently some 18% of the airline's passengers are travelling on business and easyJet is keen to differentiate itself from its competitors such as Ryanair, much like Aer Lingus has attempted to do. In mid June, easyJet announced that it will begin operating from London Southend Airport from April 2012. The airline will open its newest base with three A319 aircraft, over 150 employees and expects around 800,000 passengers to fly in the first year. The base will support 70 flights per week and passengers will have a choice of around ten different European destinations. Ms McCall has said that the decision to set up the base had been made for "very good, sound commercial reasons". Commenting on the announcement Graham Doyle, CEO at Waterford Airport said, “This really is fantastic news for the South East (of Ireland), it offers a huge scope of onward connections directly accessible from the South East region and it also opens the corridor to the South East from London Southend airport for inbound passengers.” Meanwhile, easyJet's largest shareholder, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, wants to force a shareholder vote over the airline's plans to buy new aircraft from Airbus, resuming a long-running dispute with the company he founded. In January, easyJet confirmed an order with Airbus for 15 A320 aircraft with options on a further 33. In an 11-page letter sent to Chairman Michael Rake this week, Haji-Ioannou, said the board should have sought shareholder approval for the order and investors should vote on the deal before any further payments are made to Airbus. He argues that the profits per aircraft are half what they used to be and the list price of the aircraft that the company is now buying has doubled meaning that the returns are on average about one quarter of what they used to be. easyJet said it has complied with all relevant regulations, adding that the commercial value of the deal is substantially less than the current Airbus list prices for the aircraft. It said the latest order, although treated as a new transaction for regulatory purposes, was still part of the 2002 Airbus contract it signed. The aircraft will not be delivered until the latter part of 2013 at the earliest, with the majority of deliveries being in 2014 and 2015, primarily to replace existing aircraft that will be retiring from the fleet at that time. The airline added it intends to hold the size of its fleet at a maximum of 204 aircraft in winter 2011 and winter 2012.

Flybe: Flybe made a £4.3 million (€4.9 million) pre-tax loss for the year to March 31, compared with a £24.6 (€28 million) million profit the previous year. However, the loss was expected and was due to costs linked to its stock market flotation last December and losses on the hedging of fuel and foreign exchange compared with gains the previous year. Underlying figures showed a pre-tax profit of £22.3 million (€25.4 million) on a turnover of £595.5 million (€678.63 million) compared with £570.5 million (€650.3 million) in 2010. The airline said it now controls 27% of the domestic market in the UK. It has sold three Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 aircraft to Rand Merchant Bank of Johannesburg, South Africa, which will lease them to South African Express. One of these aircraft G-JECS arrived in Dublin as the BEE031P for painting into South African Express colours by Eirtech. She departed as the BEE031M on the 15th July. The Q400 aircraft were bought new from Bombardier by Flybe in 2007 and have been in service with the group since then. The sale transaction price provides a modest profit above the aircraft book values. Flybe is currently in negotiations regarding the sale of a further four Q400 aircraft. Delivery of its first Embraer EMB175-200STD, G-FBEO however, has been delayed to mid July, with the second aircraft G-FBEP to follow a few days later. Flybe and Finnair have also announced the acquisition, subject to competition clearance, of Finnish Commuter Airlines (FCA). The acquisition of FCA will take the form of a joint venture, to be split 60% Flybe and 40% Finnair, with Flybe taking over the day-to-day operation of the airline from 1st August. Flybe chose FCA as an acquisition target as its economics make it a viable base from which to expand into the Nordic and Baltic States region, maintaining this competitive advantage will be a key facet of the future strategy. In the UK Flybe has launched a new Student Baggage Discount product on 1st June allowing passengers possessing a valid student ID to carry two bags weighing up to 40 kg in total for the price of only one standard hold bag when travelling to and from Belfast, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey to other points in the UK.

Monarch Airlines: Monarch Airlines which offers seasonal services to Faro, Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Reus, Tenerife-South and Zakynthos from its Dublin base has announced a new emphasis on full service scheduled service UK to holiday destinations. After years operating mainly in the IT charter market it has decided to compete with Ryanair, easyJet and BA on quality. By next summer it expects 80% of its business to be scheduled compared with 20% five years ago. Monarch is also planning to expand its fleet by at least a third. Currently, Monarch has 30 aircraft, but its chief executive, Conrad Clifford, has said he will look to increase this by at least 10 over the next five years.

Suckling Airways: On 8thJuly, Loganair, Scotland’s Airline, announced that it was acquiring Suckling Airways, the Cambridge-based charter specialist. Suckling, which operates a fleet of five Dornier 328-100s is to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Loganair upon completion of the deal at the end of July and will continue to trade as a separate airline which holds its own licences and approvals. Loganair was founded in 1962 and now operates a fleet of 20 aircraft and employs 440 staff throughout Scotland to deliver a network of scheduled and charter services. It operates its scheduled flights under its franchise agreement with Flybe. Merlyn Suckling, Suckling Airways’ co-founder and Managing Director, has agreed to remain with the company until the end of the year.