newstodate.aero
Dec 21, 2018 (newstodate): With one Airbus A321 already on the tarmac in Sweden, the country's coming new ACMI carrier ScanBlu still remains stuck on the ground.
Hopes for obtaining its AOC has been revised repeatedly since the first bid on April 2018, and with early December 2018 as the latest target - but the process is still drawing out..
-We are now eyeing mid-January 2019 as the target date, but while all paper work has been successfully completed and the aircraft is now close to registration after completion of maintenance and inspections by the Swedish regulator Transportstyrelsen, the issue of financing has unexpectedly become the bottleneck, says Bo-Goran Svensson, ScanBlu Flight Operations Manager.
-The Swedish authorities' reading of the pertinent requirements for issuing an operating license has changed to the effect that while we so far budgeted for financing to cover all fixed costs plus reserves to cover up to three months of operations, demands are now to be able to present budgets also proving actual operational income from day one - which is in our views contradictory as we are of course unable to sign ACMI contracts with customers without actually having the AOC and the aircraft on our hands.
-We are thus required to reconsider the financing of the project, but while this is of course a challenge given the short notice we remain fully confident that we will launch ACMI operations later this winter - and well in time for the next summer seasons, says Mr Svensson.
Hopes for obtaining its AOC has been revised repeatedly since the first bid on April 2018, and with early December 2018 as the latest target - but the process is still drawing out..
-We are now eyeing mid-January 2019 as the target date, but while all paper work has been successfully completed and the aircraft is now close to registration after completion of maintenance and inspections by the Swedish regulator Transportstyrelsen, the issue of financing has unexpectedly become the bottleneck, says Bo-Goran Svensson, ScanBlu Flight Operations Manager.
-The Swedish authorities' reading of the pertinent requirements for issuing an operating license has changed to the effect that while we so far budgeted for financing to cover all fixed costs plus reserves to cover up to three months of operations, demands are now to be able to present budgets also proving actual operational income from day one - which is in our views contradictory as we are of course unable to sign ACMI contracts with customers without actually having the AOC and the aircraft on our hands.
-We are thus required to reconsider the financing of the project, but while this is of course a challenge given the short notice we remain fully confident that we will launch ACMI operations later this winter - and well in time for the next summer seasons, says Mr Svensson.