Africa’s cash-based economy has largely protected it from the financial meltdown. Trade is often based on face-to-face transactions and most conferences are government-sponsored, meaning travel budgets have remained intact. Ethiopian Airlines chief executive Girma Wake says: “Africa is in a slightly better position than the rest and therefore the mood is not as bad among […]

The going really got tough last year for this region’s carriers which swung to an eye-watering operating loss of $4.5 billion in 2008 after reporting a relatively healthy profit of $7.3 billion the year before.
Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, which represents 17 major carriers in the region, […]

For European airlines profitability figures for 2008 made painful reading. While revenues among European carriers in the World Airline Rankings grew 9% across the year to $176.5 billion, essentially putting them on a par with North American carriers as the largest region, volatile fuel prices across the year and collapsing demand in the final quarter […]

Our analysis of Arab carriers last year was entitled Crisis: what crisis? At that time, the region’s airlines were riding high, with strong revenue growth of 11% and traffic rising even faster at 17%. There was also a net profit of $1.5 billion.
In 2008 the region’s carriers managed to sustain their momentum, despite the […]

US Airways has become the latest North American carrier to sign on as a customer for Aircell’s Gogo in-flight broadband system.
Gogo will initially…