Emirates and Flynas have signed a memorandum of understanding, expanding their interline partnership into a bilateral arrangement. The UAE carrier says the expanded partnership will enable Flynas passengers to connect across any of its Saudi Arabian gateways to destinations in the east and west Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Europe, via Dubai. It notes that the current interline partnership provides its passengers with enhanced connectivity via four Saudi gateways – Riyadh, Jeddah, Medinah and Dammam – to 15 points in the kingdom.

Flydubai is undergoing a retrofit project to completely upgrade the cabin interiors for the majority of its next-generation Boeing fleet. "The multi-million dollar retrofit project was launched in January and eight aircraft have had a full cabin refresh with the installation of its flagship lie-flat business class seats and the new economy seats from Recaro that mirror the cabin product on its newer aircraft in the fleet," the UAE-based carrier says. Its fleet consists of 29 Boeing 737-800s, 54 737 Max 8s and three 737 Max 9s. The airline will retain an all-economy configuration on some of its aircraft and will upgrade the seats to the new Recaro economy seats with inflight entertainment. Flydubai will also increase the seat pitch on its recliner business class seat product on some of its newer aircraft from 45 to 53 inches. "This project will be rolled out after the summer and is predominantly designed to offer a more comfortable travel experience on shorter to medium-haul flights around the region," it adds. The project is being carried out by both Flydubai's inhouse maintenance team and GMR Aerotech. The airline expects to complete the retrofit programme before the end of the year. Flydubai handled almost five million passengers between 1 January and 28 April, a 13% year on year, mainly supported by additional capacity across its network. Flydubai says it continues to add capacity across its markets with the frequency across its GCC market back to pre-pandemic levels. The carrier has increased its network to more than 125 destinations in 58 countries with the start of operations to five new destinations since the start of this year.

Air France-KLM's chief executive Ben Smith is confident that the carrier's takeover of Scandinavian rival SAS will face less scrutiny from European regulators than Lufthansa’s attempted purchase of ITA or IAG’s acquisition of Air Europa.
This is because the group’s takeover of SAS would not give create dominant position in the Scandinavian carrier’s home markets, which are also not slot-constrained, Smith asserted during the group’s first quarter results on 29 April. This should make the deal relatively straightforward for the European Commission to approve, he adds.
In contrast, Lufthansa’s takeover of ITA would give the combined carrier a huge position at slot-constrained Milan Linate in particular, presenting “quite a challenge” for the Commission, Smith argues, requiring remedies to let the deal go through.“That's at least our sense,” comments Smith. “I think [the dominance at Linate] perhaps could be holding things up, or slowing things down.” He adds that, given ITA’s long-haul network is “quite weak”, a large proportion of Italy’s intercontinental capacity is travelling on a one-stop basis. “That's a new thing for the European Commission to have to figure out a way to keep things in check, because if you look at the long-haul network today of ITA, it's not very extensive.” The problem this presents is that the deal with Lufthansa would therefore place a greater share of passengers onto the Germany-based airline’s hubs, which would be to the “detriment of IAG.” “So that's the other aspect,” he adds. “I think on the medium haul point-to-point [traffic], standard type of remedies are relatively straightforward. It's the long-haul that we're concerned [about], and I think the European Commission has to find a way to ensure that there is a solution ensuring there's market stability and fairness. In March the Commission expressed concerns about the transaction, particularly the impact at Linate, plus the effect on short-haul routes connecting Italy with central Europe and long-haul routes from Italy to the USA, Canada and Japan. Lufthansa has offered up remedies to allay these concerns, saying recently that it expects clearance ahead of the summer. Turning to IAG’s efforts to acquire Air Europa, Smith notes that this would result in the company having a dominant position in Madrid, which could raise regulator concerns. Last month, the Commission said as part of a “statement of objections” that it was worried that such a deal could hurt competition in Spain, leading to higher prices and a deterioration in service quality. As with Lufthansa, it is demanding remedies from IAG to enable the deal to proceed.In contrast, “for us in Copenhagen and in Stockholm, the airports are open and the position that we'll be in, we will not be in a position of dominance,” says Smith. “There'll be obviously some synergies that come out of it, but I don't think it's the same thing as [at] Linate or the huge concentration that IAG and the combination of IAG [and Air Europa would have at] Madrid. So I think they're unique transactions.” In November 2023 a consortium including Air France-KLM disclosed plans to purchase the bulk of SAS once the carrier left Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the USA, which is expected around the middle 2024. Air France-KLM have agreed to buy just under 20% of the company initially, with an option to raise its involvement to a controlling position after two years.