Information reaches these offices that Airbus will announce the A330Neo at Farnborough and with it a number of initial orders including a rumoured order from Intrepid if terms can be finalised over the next few days.
Meanwhile yet another IPO has been pulled, this time David Neeleman’s Azul, Brazil's third-largest airline withdrew its plans for an initial public offering (IPO) yesterday.
Azul had filed for a $100m IPO in May 2013 with hopes that in the event this figure would have been at least doubled. The question is whether Azul needed to go through with the IPO in any case? Sources at the airline simply state that it would have been nice, but it is not essential right now. This is backed by growth at the airline. Azul has taken 13% market share in Brazil, but not from the other airlines, it is generating new passengers, much in the same way that Spirit does in the USA. However 2017 may prove to be a crunch time as aircraft pre-delivery payments start to come through and as these new Airbus aircraft are delivered the company wishes to use the same to break into the international market – all of this will need serious amounts of capital in hand.
Also happening at this time, the president of Philippine Airlines has stated to press that a foreign airline is poised to acquire a stake as majority-owner LT Group seeks to offload its entire holding, which is 51%. Rumours put ANA in the frame for the purchase, but this is one story that we are all going to have to look out for as PAL is desperate not to have any deal scuppered through leaks.