Airline Weekly Lounge Episode 8: Africa's Biggest Airline?

09/23/15 • 21 min

Ethiopian Airlines is growing aggressively—and apparently profitably—while other African carriers are struggling. The airline’s centralized location seems to give it a big advantage over other African carriers. Meanwhile, Ethiopian doesn’t face a lot of competition within Africa. Have its fortunate location and smart business moves made it the biggest carrier in Africa?

In India, where there are way too many seats flying around to easily do business, Indigo is nonetheless making money—perhaps even more than Ethiopian. We also discuss the U.S. Export-Import Bank and, of the world’s 100 biggest airports, which are the fastest-growing and slowest-growing (if not shrinking) ... and why?

Previous Episode

Airline Weekly Lounge Episode 7: Checkmate for United? Not Quite

Can United Airlines’ new CEO overcome the carrier’s inherent challenges? United is big, powerful and, at the moment, very profitable. But it’s also underperforming Delta and American. When United and Continental merged, it was supposed to be “checkmate.” And so far it has been—but for the wrong team. Does it matter that the new CEO is not an airline guy? He’s not the first CEO with a railroad background, but still, all the other U.S. carriers have industry veterans at the helm.

Plus, in this week’s Airline Weekly Lounge, we look at “hybrid” airlines, we digest our quarterly earnings scorecard and we discuss why Delta and American are—surprisingly—ending their interline agreement.

Next Episode

Airline Weekly Lounge Episode 9: A New Frontier

Posting a $54m profit in its second quarter, Frontier Airlines has joined the ranks of America’s most profitable airlines. Frontier and America’s other ultra-low-cost carrier, Spirit, are both highly profitable and have big growth ambitions. As long as oil prices remain low, they should go far. Meanwhile, Norwegian is taking a stab at the low-cost longhaul game in the transatlantic market. Is this for real this time, or is Norwegian simply riding a tailwind of cheap fuel and a robust U.S. economy?

Meanwhile, European carriers are bullish about their current quarter and the next one. And with the economy continuing to slide in Brazil, what does it mean for Azul’s longhaul ambitions.