Matt

Singapore Airlines will fly from Western Sydney at 11:55pm. Not a coincidence. They already fly from Sydney's main airport. Last departure: 7:10pm. Curfew. That's it. This flight could not exist anywhere else in Sydney. It arrives Singapore at 5am. Morning connections to Europe, South Asia, beyond. Most new airports beg airlines to come. Western Sydney has a structural reason. Watch the load factors. @SingaporeAir @WSIAirport_

What do you think of this deal?

Australia is moving to sell its airport firefighting fleet to a private investor, then lease it back. 100+ specialist fire trucks. 27 airports. All of it. The seller is Airservices Australia, the government agency that guides aircraft through Australian airspace and responds when emergencies happen on the ground. The preferred buyer is QIC, a $135 billion Queensland government investment fund. The deal would avoid $2 billion in upfront costs. Fleet repair and replacement costs are forecast to nearly quadruple from $6 million to $24 million by 2026-27. All federal departments have been told to find 5% budget savings. Sale-and-leaseback is standard in commercial aviation. Airlines do it with aircraft constantly. Applying it to public safety infrastructure is different. The unresolved question: can leased trucks respond to bushfires and emergencies beyond their airport role? That has not been guaranteed. Australia is moving safety-critical assets into private hands to solve a budget problem. Pragmatic or short-sighted? That depends entirely on what the lease says.

Who will win the TAP process?

TAP Air Portugal just reported a 92% drop in profit. That headline is misleading. The decline was driven by a €42m one-off tax accounting charge. Strip it out and the underlying business remains stable. Revenue up. Passengers up. EBITDA up. Margins slightly improved. Four consecutive years of profit. Growth is modest and cost pressure remains, but core operations are intact. TAP is also adding two new Brazil routes, taking its network there to 15 destinations. Air France-KLM and Lufthansa have both submitted bids for a 44.9% stake as part of a partial privatisation. This doesn’t change the strategic rationale. The asset is not deteriorating operationally. The seller knows it. @TAP_Portugal

How long can this hold?

Australia secured fuel supply guarantees from Japan, South Korea and Singapore this week. South Korea is one of Australia’s largest jet fuel suppliers, but it imports roughly 70% of its crude through the Strait of Hormuz, now under severe disruption. Its own airlines have asked the government to redirect export-bound jet fuel back into the domestic market. @SydneyAirport alone burns around 9 million litres of jet fuel per day. As its CEO put it, supply depends on global shipping lanes, refining capacity and geopolitical stability. South Korea reports about 208 days of strategic reserves under IEA standards. But after recent releases, government-controlled stocks cover closer to 26 days of actual consumption. In other words, headline reserves look comfortable. Usable supply is tighter. A guarantee from a country managing its own supply crisis is not a guarantee of continued exports. The question was never whether fuel flows today. It is how long before exports are the first thing to be cut.

Would you book now or wait it out?

O’Leary’s take on the Strait of Hormuz threat: “There’ll be far more disruption from French air traffic controllers not showing up to work.” With a potential Strait closure threatening fuel supply to European airports this summer, is this just noise?

Who do you think wins this?

Air France-KLM has just submitted the first bid for @TAP_Portugal. But this is not a normal auction. Portugal is selling 44.9 percent. It is keeping 50.1 percent. Price alone will not decide this. The most politically acceptable bid will. Here is why that matters. IAG has reportedly withdrawn. They have said they need a clear path to full control to hit their target margins. Portugal’s structure makes that impossible. There was never a deal to be done. That leaves AF-KLM and a Lufthansa group still mid-way through integrating ITA Airways. AF-KLM has already made their pitch: preserve the brand, preserve the jobs, keep Lisbon as the hub. It is exactly what Portugal wants to hear. The structure of this sale filtered out IAG. The race is now AF-KLM’s to lose.

@Cubasmum @Qantas @Cubasmum Singapore Airlines added capacity on Asia-Europe in March as Gulf hubs closed. If they stay constrained, assume that continues through northern hemisphere summer. Bloomberg reported Sydney-London fares are up 429% this month. Expect elevated prices in May.

@InFlightMatt @Qantas Matt, how’s Singapore airlines looking for a mid May flight from Aus to Europe?

Oil is above $100 a barrel. United Airlines has cut 5% of its flights. @Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson this month: “We have not had to cancel a single flight due to fuel supply concerns.” That’s what having 81% of your jet fuel costs locked in through 30 June 2026 buys you. Among the best positioned carriers globally. But the real question is what happens when the cover expires. As it rolls off progressively through late 2026 and into 2027, watch for the calculus to change.

At what point do the flight cuts start?

@alexvalente @SingaporeAir Totally fair - the red eye slot is something SYD can’t offer.

@InFlightMatt @SingaporeAir I would take a late night flight out of Western Sydney airport for business if the timing was better for other flights and jet lag etc. I take the 11:55pm flight out of SF regularly which wouldn't be available in Sydney!

People are saying business travellers won't use an airport 44km from the city. That’s probably true. But there's a market here that plays right into @SingaporeAir's strengths. Western Sydney has one of Australia's largest South and Southeast Asian diaspora populations. Especially those travelling to regional cities, markets not typically served by point to point budget carriers. These are destinations Singapore Airlines serves comprehensively. A global network of 120+ destinations, with deep coverage across South and Southeast Asia. 3 million underserved passengers on their doorstep, that now don't need to cross the city. By being first, they have a window to capture passengers currently flying Cathay or Malaysia Airlines out of Kingsford Smith. Carriers not yet at Western Sydney.

@alexvalente Appreciate it mate.

@InFlightMatt good analysis Matt. top twitter page for flight boffins

Singapore Airlines will fly from Western Sydney at 11:55pm. Not a coincidence. They already fly from Sydney's main airport. Last departure: 7:10pm. Curfew. That's it. This flight could not exist anywhere else in Sydney. It arrives Singapore at 5am. Morning connections to Europe, South Asia, beyond. Most new airports beg airlines to come. Western Sydney has a structural reason. Watch the load factors. @SingaporeAir @WSIAirport_

@satvikrsharma Big year for SQ so far!

@InFlightMatt Singapore airlines causally copping W after W

What does this mean for Sydney’s main airport long term?

“Grounding planes is a distinct possibility.” That’s the President of the Philippines. Today. But the real story isn’t the headline. Philippine airlines are now carrying fuel for both outbound AND return legs of international flights. Most people read that and think: expensive. Wrong framing. Every kilogram of extra fuel requires more fuel to carry it. That extra fuel adds weight, which burns more fuel, which adds more weight. It compounds across every single flight. On long haul returns, that’s not a surcharge problem. That’s a fundamental unit economics collapse. Meanwhile the domino sequence is already running: Vietnam cutting 23 flights weekly from April. China and Thailand halting jet fuel exports. Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi significantly disrupted. We’ve spent years debating fuel price exposure. Turns out the bigger risk was always fuel access. The difference matters. You can hedge price. You cannot hedge unavailability.