Mexicana ! MX ! MXA

MEXICO CITY (Dow Jones)--La compagnie aérienne Mexicana a indiqué lundi qu'elle prévoyait de rejoindre l'alliance Oneworld le 10 novembre.
Mexicana a précisé dans un communiqué que sa compagnie à bas coûts Click Mexicana et la compagnie régionale Mexicana Link rejoindraient également l'alliance. Iberia (IBLA.MC) parraine l'entrée de Mexicana au sein de Oneworld.
L'alliance Oneworld réunit notamment American Airlines, filiale d'AMR Corp. (AMR), British Airways (BAY.LN) et Iberia.
L'autre principale compagnie aérienne mexicaine, Aeromexico, est membre de l'alliance SkyTeam, qui comprend entre autres Delta (DAL), Air France (AF.FR) et Continental (CAL).
-Anthony Harrup, Dow Jones Newswires

Mexicana Eyes Fleet Modernization Moves

Nov 13, 2009



Adrian Schofield adrian_schofield@aviationweek.com



Mexicana hopes to place an order next year for either Airbus A350s or Boeing 787s as long-haul fleet replacements, and the carrier is also already looking at options to replace its new Boeing 717 fleet once leases expire.

Group CEO Manuel Borja said Mexicana will probably need a half-dozen A350s or 787s, and is in discussions with both manufacturers. These will eventually replace the four 767 -200s and -300s and the two A330-300s that the airline leases for its long-haul routes. These include the transatlantic flights it added this year to Madrid and London Gatwick, as well as Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.

Before it can make a long-term replacement decision, Mexicana will have to arrange temporary replacements for the 767-300s, since their leases expire at the end of next year. The carrier will probably opt for -200s or A330-300s, Borja said.

The carrier is in the process of taking delivery of 25 717s, which it will use to replace Fokker 100s in its MexicanaClick subsidiary. The leases are through Boeing Capital Corp., and the aircraft were formerly operated by Midwest. So far Mexicana has taken delivery of 11, with another arriving by yearend and 13 in 2010. The carrier could potentially add another 5-10 of the 717s, Borja said.

While the 717s are "a very good solution" for Mexicana until their leases expire in seven-to-eight years, the airline will look at other long-term options for its 100-seat jet fleet, said Borja. It is interested in Bombardier's CSeries, and is in discussions with the manufacturer. However, if Mexico's domestic market develops sufficiently, Mexicana may also opt for a next-generation narrowbody from Boeing or Airbus to replace the 717s.

The other aircraft entering the carrier's fleet are Bombardier CRJ200s, which are flown by the MexicanaLink subsidiary. It will have 15 by December, and another five will be delivered next year. These will mainly operate routes out of Guadalajara and the new hub Mexicana is establishing in Cancun.

The backbone of Mexicana's mainline fleet are the 55 A320 family aircraft which it uses for short- and medium-haul international routes. This fleet is about right size for the near future, said Borja. Mexicana's mainline fleet is mostly leased, and it only owns 10 A320s. Borja believes the airline should raise the ratio of owned aircraft significantly.

Mexicana is currently a privately-owned carrier, but it does intend to initiate a public share offering in the future, Borja said. However, he stresses the carrier will need to return to solid profitability before it goes to the financial markets.

While Mexicana doesn't release detailed figures, Borja said it will be in the red this year, after essentially breaking even in 2008. Revenue will be about flat this year, even though capacity has increased. Domestic yields have improved year-on-year, although international yields are down in the 10%-15% range.

elmer a écrit:Il fallait s'y attendre : Mexicana se met sous protection contre les faillites.

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINN0315249420100803

Aviation: le groupe Mexicana racheté par des investisseurs mexicains

MEXICO — Un consortium d'investisseurs mexicains a repris 95% du capital du groupe de la compagnie aérienne Mexicana, actuellement placée sous administration judiciaire, les 5% restants demeurant propriété du syndicat national des pilotes, a-t-on appris samedi des nouveaux actionnaires.
Le groupe Tenedora K a été constitué spécialement pour "capitaliser" et "sauver" Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, la holding contrôlant non seulement Mexicana, mais les deux compagnies "annexes" Mexicana Click et Mexicana Link, a indiqué le consortium dans un communiqué.
Le montant de la transaction n'a pas été précisé, mais le principal actionnaire de la holding, le groupe hôtelier mexicain Posadas, avait annoncé vendredi la vente de sa participation de 30,4% au capital "pour une valeur symbolique", selon la Bourse de Mexico.
Tenedora K compte notamment la participation des groupes mexicains Omega (infrastructues, construction) et Arizan (assurances), a précisé le groupe d'investisseurs.
Mexicana, une des deux plus importantes compagnies aériennes du Mexique avec Aeromexico, qui transportait 22.000 passagers par jour sur 220 vols, avait obtenu début août d'un juge mexicain la protection contre la faillite, une forme juridique protégeant contre d'éventuelles actions en justice des créanciers et permettant de continuer à fonctionner.
Mexicana Click et Mexicana Link n'étaient pas concernées par cette procédure, et Mexicana avait suspendu depuis nombre de ses vols, dont ceux vers Londres, Madrid et Montréal.

The new owners of Mexicana’s parent company will close the entire operation by week’s end if the mainline carrier’s flight attendants fail to accept new contract terms.
A spokesman for the company’s new owners, holding company Tenedora K, says the airline’s successful restructuring requires new labor contracts and the resolution of unspecified terms with the Mexican Government.
“Talks with the pilots and ground personnel are going well, but not so with the flight attendants,” notes the spokesman. “This must be resolved within the next few days,” he adds, warning that failure to reach agreement with all three labor groups will jeopardize the company’s future.
This warning came just hours after Tenedora K named Alejandro Rodriguez, a former bank director, as administrator to coordinate the “possible rescue” of the company.
In a release Rodriguez and the investor group praised pilots for a “historic agreement,” and say ground personnel and non-unionized staff have made progress in negotiations. But they lamented the status of talks with the flight attendants union, which they contended is making demands that would make a rescue “inviable.”
The group says a closer examination of Mexicana’s financial records shows that labor cost disparity between Mexicana and its U.S. competitors is more serious than the investors believed before they took control of the company on Aug. 20. But the group argues Mexicana is competitive with U.S. carriers when comparisons are made without labor costs, which makes new labor agreements critical to a rescue.
Rodriguez is the former director of investment banking at BBVA Bancomer, where, according to Tenedora K, he obtained extensive financial and corporate knowledge and experience in mergers, acquisitions and restructurings. He also has served on more than 30 company boards.
The group’s spokesman says Rodriguez will only serve as an administrator. He also dismisses local media claims that a new CEO has been named to replace Manuel Borja, who left the company once the takeover was completed.

A major overhaul of Mexicana’s route network could see the carrier resume much of its North and Central American services by the end of November under a restructuring plan revealed to The DAILY.
The plan, which is only now being formulated, will however drop all domestic mainline services, as well as Mexicana’s European flights, and with it the long-haul Airbus A330s and Boeing 767s operated by the airline prior to its bankruptcy early last month (DAILY, Aug. 4). The carrier is also constrained by the FAA’s recent downgrade of Mexico’s safety rating, which prohibits the transfer of any service rights to another Mexican carrier.
This revelation comes a day after a Mexican bankruptcy court formally granted Mexicana court protection similar to the Chapter 11 process used in the U.S. The court and the Mexican government, which now has the authority to oversee the carrier’s reorganization, also appointed the carrier’s senior legal counsel, Javier Christlieb, administrator for the airline’s restructuring.
Importantly, Mexicana’s owners are also seeking bankruptcy protection for the airline’s two affiliates, Click and Link. These applications do not intend any immediate return to service for either division, which were grounded Aug. 28 by owners Tenedora K after they failed to gain concessions from the mainline carrier’s flight attendants.
These bankruptcies should be formalized in a month.
A source with intimate knowledge of Mexicana’s reorganization says the plan will have to be filed with the Mexican bankruptcy court within the next two weeks to offer any chance of survival. Any later, and the court will not have time to approve the plan, and the carrier will be unable to sell a sufficient quantity of tickets before the busy winter season starts in December.
In the interim, the company is surviving on a small amount of late paid debt, including tickets already sold to government departments.
The plan is contingent on many variables, primarily access to aircraft. According to the source, Mexicana appreciates that it will need a smaller fleet than it operated pre-bankruptcy, and is in talks with lessors, such as International Lease Finance Corp. and GE Capital Aviation Services, to review their contractual obligations.
Several of the carrier’s lessors have already been granted the right by a New York bankruptcy court to repossess all their aircraft, but few have been released by the airline, which has cited legal restrictions associated with court orders filed by its unions. In the past few days, though, some of these limitations have been lifted, and ILFC, for one, was able to take possession of five Airbus A319s and one A320.
Mexicana’s fleet relies heavily on Airbus narrowbodies, which included 18 A318s, 25 A319s and about 25 A320s prior to its bankruptcy. The vast majority is leased, as are the Boeing 717s operated by low-cost division Click and Link’s Bombardier regional jets.

The latest, and possibly last, attempt to revive Mexicana involves resuming limited service to the U.S. in mid-January and building a network of high-yield markets across Central and North America within five to six months.

This plan, developed by a group of investors working as PC Capital, has been approved by the airline’s pilot and flight attendant groups, and has the public backing of the Mexican Government and the carrier’s major creditors.

Ground workers are also expected to approve the reorganization plan, but are waiting for the formal approval from Mexicana’s main creditors, which could come in the first week of December.

While there is still the potential for this plan to fail, insiders suggest Mexicana could return to the skies mid-January with as few as six Airbus A320s offering services from Mexico City to Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

The FAA safety downgrade does not affect the resumption of these flights as Mexicana already holds the rights to operate these services. However that same downgrade has stopped rival Aeromexico from assuming these routes during Mexicana’s grounding, a restriction that has boosted interest in PC Capital’s proposal.

The plan, at least tentatively, intends for the lease of up to 24 more Airbus A320-family aircraft by June, and some may even be aircraft that were leased before Mexicana’s bankruptcy. With this fleet of 30 or so A318s, A319s and A320s, the network could grow to include six key domestic markets—Cancun, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Oaxaca, Tampico and Veracruz—the addition of Las Vegas, San Antonio; Texas, San Francisco and Washington to the U.S. schedule, and nonstop services to Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Nonstop flights will also resume between Mexico City and Colombia’s capital Bogota.

Frequencies on all these city-pairs will range from daily to four-a-day, a sharp contrast to the pre-bankruptcy schedule. In total, the revived Mexicana’s capacity will fall 60%.

To attain this, PC Capital had to convince employees that payroll needed to decline at similar levels. And for now it appears to have been successful with a package that pays furloughed staff 20% of their severance in cash, a further 20% after seven years with a 7% annual interest rate, and the remaining 60% in shares in the new Mexicana.

With this deal, the investors hope to reduce pilot numbers from about 780 to around 280 and flight attendants from 1,400 to about 380. Ground workers will not be as affected because PC Capital wants to maintain Mexicana’s MRO operation, so this division’s staff numbers may only fall from 3,200 to about 2,600.

Under Mexican law, a bankrupt company’s reorganization must also be approved by a majority of its creditors, and according to a source, PC Capital has gained the requisite agreements by paying all debts owed to its largest creditor and its fuel supplier, while another creditor, Banco Mercantil Del Norte, gets U.S.-held assets and shares if it approves the deal.

With these approvals, PC Capital will gain the more than 50% creditor acceptance required.

There are even bigger plans ahead, and while the revival of Mexicana is currently focused on returning to service, the new airline intends to keep all the gates at Mexico City’s Terminal 1 used by its now defunct predecessor. But this time it intends to battle new entrants such as VivaAerobus and Volaris, and increased capacity at Interjet, with a cost model akin to these low-cost carriers and not the legacy that ended service in August.

Mexicana de Aviacion could resume tickets sales on Jan. 24 and return to the skies the following month, according to a top Mexican official.

The announcement by Undersecretary of Transport Humberto Treviño to local media confirms a relaunch plan detailed last month by Aviation Week (Aviation Daily, Dec. 13). In that article, sources said flights could resume to the U.S. from Mexico City as early as mid-February with a fleet that could number up to 19 aircraft.

Few details are being disclosed, but Treviño is stressing that the Jan. 24 date marks only the start of ticket sales and not operations. He avoids any mention of fleet size or destinations, but confirms the appropriate creditors have approved the relaunch plan

Mexicana de Aviacion’s revival plan now expects to return the carrier to revenue service Feb. 14 with a fleet of six operational Airbus A320s and one spare.

The much-delayed return of Mexicana took its first solid step forward last week when the airline operated two maintenance certification flights. The revival continued this week with the completion Jan. 25 of a third maintenance flight and the recertification of Mexico City International Airport as the carrier’s hub airport, and will include the certification of Guadalajara Jan. 26 and the first recertification flight Jan. 28.

Ticket sales are scheduled to return Jan. 31, with first flights expected just two weeks later, according to a source with intimate knowledge of the plan. Destinations planned for the first day of operation are Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and San Antonio in the U.S., Havana, Cuba, and Guatemala City, Guatemala.

An expansion plan still under discussion forecasts a fleet of 19 aircraft in time for the busy Spring Break season, which starts in April, and 42 Airbus narrowbodies for the summer schedule. Although the number of destinations is still being debated, the source says Mexicana is focused on building its presence in key city-pairs, with as many as four daily flights serving the higher-yield markets.

Certain destinations, including El Salvador, Toronto and Washington, should, however, return before the summer schedule.

The expansion will be halted at 42 aircraft, the source adds, although it may resume in 2012 once management can gauge market demand.

All the aircraft planned for Mexicana’s return will be leased, and agreements are still being negotiated. These include the seven aircraft planned for the Feb. 14 return (six operational and one spare), which could include aircraft owned by the carrier’s chief creditor, Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (also known as Bancomext), as well as lessors such as Aviation Capital Group and Orix.

Some of Bancomext’s nine A320s are already being used for the maintenance flights, but the bank must negotiate a sale and leaseback agreement with a lessor before it can place any aircraft with Mexicana, says the source. The airline, however, expects eventually to operate all nine A320s owned by Bancomext.

Mexicana’s return could, for now, dampen expansion plans at low-cost operators Interjet and Volaris, as Mexicana intends to keep all the slots it held at Mexico City before its bankruptcy.

This is compounded by the current bilateral air transport agreement between Mexico and the U.S., which restricts operations on any city-pair to two carriers from each country. And according to sources on both sides of the border, the Mexican government has made no indication that it wants to revise that accord.