Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Lufthansa Group, and William A “Bill” Franke, the co-founder and managing partner at Indigo Partners, took the top honours today at the 2019 Airline Strategy Awards, which recognises individuals, airlines and companies supporting air transport that have demonstrated dynamic leadership and clear vision. 14 JULY, 2019 SOURCE: FLIGHT AIRLINE BUSINESS BY: AIRLINE BUSINESS LONDON
Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Lufthansa Group, and William A “Bill” Franke, the co-founder and managing partner at Indigo Partners, took the top honours today at the 2019 Airline Strategy Awards, which recognises individuals, airlines and companies supporting air transport that have demonstrated dynamic leadership and clear vision. Spohr received the 2019 Executive Leadership Award to recognise his success in guiding the Lufthansa Group to a dominant position in its key home markets of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Franke received the prestigious Airline Business Award to recognise two decades during which he has left an indelible mark on the industry by spearheading the development of ultra-low cost carriers. The full list of 2019 winners, by category, were:

Executive Leadership: Carsten Spohr, chief executive, Lufthansa Group

Low-Cost Leadership:The Leadership Team, Jetstar Group

Sector Leadership: Martin Gauss, chief executive, Air Baltic

Finance:Delta Air Lines

Marketing:WestJet

Digital Innovation: EasyJet

Diversity in Leadership: Air Canada

Source: FlightGlobal

Norwegian expects the continuing grounding of the 737 Max will impact its 2019 results by some NKr700 million ($81 million), a sharp increase on previous estimates. It is still unclear when the jet will be allowed to fly again, although Norwegian said today its estimate was based on an expected return to service in October. The budget carrier, which had 18 737 Max jets in service at the time of the global grounding of the aircraft, had in April said it expected to incur costs of Nkr300-500 million due to the type being out of service. That was based on the jet not being back in service until August.
"The 737 Max grounding has affected both demand, operating expenses and production negatively," Norwegian says in a second-quarter results statement, adding that short-haul bookings going into the third quarter are behind expectations.

Source: FlightGlobal

Emirates has made this announcement:

Emirates’ passengers bound for the US will soon be able to enjoy Wi-Fi, mobile service connectivity and Live TV broadcast, even when flying 40,000 feet over the North Pole and Arctic circle. Emirates has led the world with inflight connectivity, with every aircraft connected for Wi-Fi, voice and SMS services. However on its flights to the US, which often travel over the polar region, passengers can find themselves without connectivity for up to 4 hours. This is due to the fact that most satellites that connect aircraft are geostationary, located over the equator, and aircraft antennae cannot see the satellite when in the far north, due to the earth’s curvature. Emirates partner Inmarsat will soon solve this problem with the addition of two elliptical orbit satellites, thus providing coverage over the North Pole by 2022.

Source: World Airline News