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EgyptAir Duty Free issues request for design consultancy proposal

EgyptAir Duty Free )EADF( is inviting international design consultants with extensive experience in large travel retail projects to submit their interest for the design and development of the existing EADF retail areas.

EADF said it aims to significantly enhance the customer experience across all 24 branches spread throughout the Egyptian airports. Key to this mission is developing a world-class modern design while maintaining the local and corporate identity.

Prospective consultants’ expertise in the duty free and travel retail field should include the ability to provide design from concept through to detail, including generic furniture and display units designs.

All interested parties are invited to submit their pre-qualification documents to chairman-tourduty@egyptair.com

Pre-qualification documentation should contain:

– Past travel retail project experience with location, size and photographic references verified by the relevant stakeholders;

– Team members and experience details;

– Examples of 3D visualisation and executed designs;

– Financial )Balance Sheet( reports for previous two years revised and verified by an auditing company.

Ljubljana Airport set for record charter year

Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport expects to handle over 150.000 passengers on charter flights this year. The number of travellers on leisure routes grew 38% during the first four months of the year compared to the pre-pandemic 2019. During the summer, a total of 39 destinations in 20 countries will be served through charters. Passengers will be able to fly to ten Greek destinations, including Crete, Karpathos, Kefallinia, Kos, Lefkas, Lemnos, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini and Zakynthos. A more varied offer of flights to Spain is available this season, where vacationers can discover Barcelona, Vittoria, Seville, Girona, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and Tenerife. Multiple charter flights per week will also be operated to Egypt )Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh( and Turkey )Antalya(. Flights will also be maintained to Tunisia )Monastir and Djerba(, Malta, Madeira, the Azores, the Cape Verde islands, Porto, Palermo, Morocco, Lourdes, Split, Tivat, Jordan, Manchester, Cologne, Rotterdam, Riga, Rovaniemi and Iceland.

Saudi Arabia’s AviLease to Bundle SAF with Leases

Although a precise timeline for the production of sustainable aviation fuel )SAF( in Saudi Arabia under the kingdom's Vision 2030 development plan remains a work in progress, aircraft lessor AviLease aims to "bundle" the fuel with aircraft leases when the time comes, CEO Ted O’Byrne said in an interview on the eve of the Paris Airshow. The bundling of a lease contract with a separate agreement on the supply of SAF throughout the term of the lease would theoretically ease operators' task of securing access to the fuel over the long term.

“We are talking with several parties within Saudi Arabia as part of this project,” he told AIN. “We, and a number of other industry participants, think that SAF is the only solution for the medium term to decarbonize our industry. We think in particular that synthetic fuels—power to liquids—is a solution that is scalable.”

O'Byrne thinks that the region and Saudi Arabia stand well-placed to become largescale producers of synthetic fuels due to their ample feedstock of the ingredients needed to create SAF.

“We’re saying we are a financier to airlines,” he said. “We are effectively a distribution channel of financial products to airlines; so why not bundle SAF with them, and use our distribution, sales, and marketing network to bundle it with our leases? We have the customer touch points with global airlines to distribute this. We’re now working with the players in the country to come up with the production and business plan.”

O’Byrne wouldn't speculate on a launch date for Saudi SAF production. “I’m not going to pin down dates, because I literally cannot,” he said. “I’m certainly spending quite a few resources on this so that we can go from idea to reality as soon as possible. We have a pretty clear path towards, frankly, being the most advanced leasing company in terms of environmental commitments in the industry. We are going to commit serious capital to this.”

In February, AviLease announced it had signed an MoU with Saudi Investment Recycling Company )SIRC( to launch the production and distribution of SAF to airline customers around the world. Meanwhile, AviLease has committed to the world’s most efficient aircraft, O’Byrne stressed. “Our fleet strategy is focused, although not entirely, on new generation [Airbus] A320neos and A350-XWBs and [Boeing] 737 Maxes and 787s—a real and clear bias towards lower fuel-burn, high-end, lower-emission aircraft,” he said. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 entails a tripling of passenger traffic to about 330 million passengers by the end of the decade and, as of January, passenger traffic was back to pre-Covid levels. Since its launch at Farnborough Airshow last year, AviLease has committed to acquire 32 Airbus A320neos with two local airlines, Saudia and Flynas. It has also started to look at expansion through investments in international airlines and is actively working to extend fleets with international operators. O’Byrne, who would like to see his firm grow into a place among the top 10 largest lessors by 2030 with a fleet of 250 to 300 aircraft, aims to create a feedback loop into the local economy through lower cost of debt, know-how, and attracting the right talent pool. “We need to be a global-scale player,” he said. “Scale matters in our industry; with scale comes diversification. You can diversify the number of credits and airlines you do business with and assets you own.”

City Pairs And New Routes

Regionally and globally, AviLease has entered discussions with a number of airlines. “We are talking about Asia,” he said. “I just came back from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Manila. I’m going to go back to India soon. I will go to Japan and China. We’ll do some business in Europe, Latin America, and North America. A lot of new entrants—domestic and international, as well as many regional, airlines—are starting to fly into Saudi Arabia. We need more city pairs for Saudi Arabia. Last year there were 28 new routes flying into the country. You can expect to see plenty more of these city pairs.”

O’Byrne declined to talk about the fleet composition of new Saudi airline Riyadh Air. “I can’t talk about [its] business plan,” he said. “I can only tell you what they have obviously announced already on the Boeing 787. We are certainly very interested in looking into this aircraft type. We like the aircraft. We think that this is going to be the cornerstone of Riyadh Air, but also many other airlines’ fleet strategies.” The March announcement of Riyadh Air's launch accompanied a memorandum of understanding covering 39 Boeing 787-9s.

Experienced Team

O’Byrne claims deep OEM know-how within his management team, both from Airbus and Boeing sides. “We know how to manage OEM backlogs; we also know how to take aircraft out of fleets and remarket them elsewhere and that’s a pretty powerful tool to reorient airlines’ fleets,” he said. “That is a big differentiator between us and any other leasing company in the world. The other key differentiator for us is our approach to sustainable aviation. Our SAF project is something that is very unique in the marketplace. I don’t think anyone else in the industry is thinking about doing this or committing that level of capital to that product. “We are a fast-growing lessor with global ambitions,” he said. “By July, we will probably have closed a number of other transactions. We are absolutely a global leasing company, but our core DNA is industrial, and our mandate is to help develop the Saudi aviation ecosystem.”

Amadeus invests in sustainable aviation fuel innovator CAPHENIA

Amadeus has acquired a minority stake in CAPHENIA, a future producer of synthesis gas, the feedstock of sustainable aviation fuel )SAF(. The German-based company has developed an innovative approach to produce SAF in a more affordable and scalable way. The decision is part of a wider commitment on behalf of Amadeus to support the industry on its journey toward sustainable travel. The investment will offer Amadeus enhanced visibility into the challenges of the SAF sector, allowing the company to further explore the role it can play in this key element of the industry’s journey to net zero by 2050.

CAPHENIA, currently in an advanced stage of development, has established an innovative approach to produce synthesis gas from a mixture of biogas, CO2, water, and electricity. This can be used to produce a variety of renewable fuels, with up to a 92 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions compared to the fossil reference value. The company has secured patent protection for its Power-and-Biogas-to-Liquid )PBtL( process in all relevant core markets worldwide, with a total of 203 granted patents. Dr. Mark Misselhorn, Chief Executive of CAPHENIA, said: “Our process is affordable – using one sixth of the electricity needed for alternative SAF production methods – and scalable. We have an ambition to offer large scale production by 2028, aiming to fill the gap between anticipated SAF demand and current supply.”

Misselhorn continued: “For airlines, sustainable aviation fuel is the practical long-term alternative to conventional aviation fuel. The technology of cost-effective, producible SAF means the greatest potential for CO2 savings and an important element that, in combination with others, may help in meeting net zero targets.”

According to the IATA Net Zero Emission initiative, SAF has the potential to account for 65 per cent of the reduction in greenhouse gas )GHG( emissions required for the aviation industry to reach net zero by 2050. New technology is also a key component in contributing to the journey ahead, including electric and hydrogen powered aircraft )13 per cent(, carbon offset and capture )19 per cent( and operational efficiencies )three per cent(.

To reach the 65 per cent reduction in GHG emissions, production capacity of 449 billion liters annually is estimated as needed globally. To provide perspective, SAF production in 2021 stood at just 125 million liters – or less than 0.1 per cent of the required estimated production capacity. CAPHENIA has plans to commence production next year and is forecasting to produce 10 million liters of SAF by 2027, planning to increase to over 100 million liters by 2030 and over one billion liters before 2035.

Suzanna Chiu, Head of Ventures, Amadeus said: “At Amadeus, we are committed to supporting the move to sustainable travel. We monitor industry trends and developments to determine the most effective ways we can fulfill this ambition and are delighted to act today with the investment in an innovative SAF company. The transaction represents a step forward in our sustainability strategy, taking the perspective from a different part of the value chain in the industry. As the industry moves toward its goal of reaching net zero by 2050, we are taking concrete steps to accelerate the process.”