Embraer is eyeing opportunities to expand the fleet in Vietnam with “at least 50 aircraft” with a combination of brand new E2s and used E1 jets. Speaking to at Singapore Airshow, Raul Villaron, vice-president and head of Asia-Pacific says he sees “huge potential” to build on its existing presence in the country, which is the brightest market after its strongholds in Australia and Japan. “The market’s there [in Vietnam], and you can do it quickly, let’s say over the next five years,” he says. He cites the nature of airport infrastructure beyond the key international gateways that caps operations to smaller narrowbodies and turboprops. Bamboo Airways is currently the only operator of Embraer jets in the country, with a trio of in-service E190-E1s in the fleet, fleet data shows. Vietnam Airlines and VietJet are not currently operators. Villaron citing airports like Con Dau, where the largest jets it can accommodate are E2s, as routes that Bamboo has deployed the jets, facilitating a direct connection with Hanoi without a stop in Ho Chi Minh City. “We are working with the airlines there to try to convince them to work with us. We have the support in place now,” he adds.

Air New Zealand has warned that rising competition, softer corporate demand and the Pratt & Whitney engine issues will impact its financial performance for the six months ending 30 June. In a filing to New Zealand's stock exchange, the carrier notes its forward bookings profile which indicates that the increased capacity and further pricing pressure from US carriers is expected to more adversely impact the forward revenue performance for the remainder of the financial year. The other issues include cumulative impact of significant inflation on the cost base, ongoing weakness in domestic corporate and government demand and temporary cost headwinds to alleviate operational pressures and customer impacts from the grounding of some of its A320neo fleet due to the geared turbofan inspections. "These total approximately NZ$35 million ($21.5 million) for the second half of the financial year and include the cost of short-term leased aircraft and significant additional contact centre resources," it adds. However, the upcoming interim financial result for the six months ended December 2023 will be consistent with previous guidance of NZ$180-230 million in earnings before tax. For the full year it has given guidance of earnings before tax for the year ending 30 June to be in the range of NZ$200-240 million. The airline will release its interim results on 22 February.

AirAsia is exploring means to tap fifth freedom rights to further expand connectivity between Singapore and India beyond the current 12 points in India. Speaking at a 19 February media event in Singapore, Logan Velaitham, AirAsia Singapore’s chief executive says the push comes as the group is set to commence four new routes from its Kuala Lumpur hub, taking over routes previously operated by its former affiliate AirAsia India. Flights to Trivandrum will launch on 21 February, to Jaipur and Visakhapatnam on 21 and 26 April, respectively, and to Ahmedabad on 1 May. The airline already flies to eight other cities from the hub, including Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Kochi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, New Delhi and Amritsar. The group’s Thai unit Thai AirAsia operates 10 routes to India from its Bangkok Don Mueang hub, largely overlapping on most key cities apart from several northernmost points such as Lucknow, Gaya and Guwahati. “The expansion of the Indian market stands as one of our core focuses as a group this year, driven by popular demand,” says Velaitham. The group is eyeing further expansion to India via its “virtual hub” in Singapore, given it does not have an air operator certificate in the country. It is currently “exploring” means to tap on fifth freedom rights to expand the network from Singapore, subject to government-to-government approval and slots allocations, although Velaitham admits that “Asian carriers have very limited fifth freedom rights”. “From [our] initial information gathering, we found that there are some rights… And [these] have to be onward rights,” he explains. Velaitham also highlights the group’s pending consolidation of its short-haul airline units and longer-haul group AirAsia as an “icing on the cake” in enabling opportunities to tap on existing widebody capacity rather than looking for more aircraft or deliveries of its A321XLRs on order. The widebodies could be used to upgauge from the existing A320-family jets on the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore segment as well as to deploy the type to cities such as Chennai.