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BIZ & FINANCE SATURDAY | JULY 18, 2026

China’s top airlines brace for heavy losses

SpaceX aborts Starship launch seconds before liftoff WASHINGTON: SpaceX’s Starship rocket aborted its 13th flight test just seconds before liftoff from its launch site in Texas on Thursday after several of its 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite during the final countdown. CEO Elon Musk said the company was assessing the issue but expected to make another launch attempt early next week, provided the necessary checks were completed. Shares of SpaceX, which went public last month, fell about 3% in aftermarket trading following the scrubbed launch. The stock ended at US$131.11 on Thursday, closing below its IPO price of US$135 for the first time since listing. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,“ Musk said in a post on X, without disclosing the number of engines on the Super Heavy rocket that did not start. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed & replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” The launch abort came less than a second before Starship’s planned liftoff from Starbase, SpaceX’s company town in south Texas, at 5:45pm CT (2245 GMT). The rocket’s engines ignited but cut off shortly after. “We did trigger a hold on the booster that aborted our liftoff as we were starting to light those Raptor engines,“ said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot, speaking on the company’s live stream after the launch was scrubbed. – Reuters something? Way too early to tell – but we can’t take it off the board yet,“ Bedford said. Southwest said Thursday it has completed the work on approximately 80% of its affected planes and was ahead of schedule to meet the FAA’s July 2028 deadline. Ryanair uses CFM56 engines from manufacturer CFM International on all of its Boeing 737 NG models. The NG is the 737 version that preceded the current MAX generation. – Reuters

The third quarter is traditionally the most profitable period for Chinese airlines, supported by strong summer holiday demand. However, aviation data firm Flight Master expects passenger traffic on domestic and international routes to fall 3.6% from a year earlier to 142 million travellers in July and August, which would mark the first peak-season contraction since 2022. Early traffic data also points to a weak start to the summer travel season. From July 1 to 14, average daily flights fell 2.2% from a year earlier, with domestic flights down 1.8% and international flights declining 3.6%, according to Flight Master. Economy-class fares averaged 831 yuan during the period, down 1.2% year on-year and 6.1% below 2019 levels, suggesting airlines have had limited scope to raise ticket prices despite higher operating costs. China’s domestic passenger demand contracted 6.2% in May from a year earlier, according to the International Air Transport Association, marking the weakest performance among the world’s major domestic aviation markets. It was also the first monthly decline in China’s domestic air travel since the pandemic that was not attributed to shifts in the timing of the Lunar New Year holiday. The three biggest Chinese airlines, which generate about 30% of their revenue from international services, initially benefited from a surge in demand on European routes after the Iran conflict disrupted flights through major Middle Eastern hubs. However, Flight Master data shows those gains are beginning to fade as Gulf carriers gradually restore services and lure passengers back with lower fares. – Reuters Reuters in an interview: “I don’t think the early indications are that (the recent Ryanair problem) mimics what the Southwest incident was.” After the Southwest incident, the NTSB called on Boeing to redesign the fan cowl structure on 737 NG planes, and the FAA issued an airworthiness directive in 2023 to be completed by 2028. Bedford said the ongoing investigation is prompting a full reevaluation of the FAA response to the 2018 incident. “Did we miss

meaning even modest airfare increases risked dampening travel demand. “Rising ticket prices are hurting demand and encouraging more people to switch to high speed rail, especially for shorter journeys,” Jain said. He added that adverse weather and a smaller school-age population were also weighing on summer travel demand, but stressed that higher airfares remained the biggest factor. “The single largest reason for weaker demand is the increased ticket prices,” he said. HSBC analysts expect China’s three largest airlines to record combined losses of about 16.8 billion yuan in 2026, a sharply more pessimistic forecast than the current market consensus, which points to a combined profit of around 1.3 billion yuan. The wide gap reflects growing concerns that weak passenger demand, elevated fuel costs and pressure on ticket prices will continue to weigh on the carriers’ earnings. Air China said in a stock exchange filing that elevated fuel prices had “drastically squeezed” airline profit margins. Unlike many of their Asian rivals, Chinese airlines hedge only a small portion of their fuel purchases, leaving them more vulnerable to the surge in oil prices triggered by the Iran conflict. Although jet fuel prices have retreated from their second-quarter peak, they remain about 50% above pre-war levels, continuing to put pressure on airline operating costs. “Given that jet fuel normalization will take time, weak demand conditions are likely to remain the key concern heading into the summer peak season,” Bank of America analysts said in a note.

HONG KONG: China’s biggest airlines are entering the peak summer travel season facing a tougher outlook after warning of heavy first-half losses, as weakening passenger demand and persistently high fuel costs cast doubt on their ability to return to profitability during the industry’s busiest travel period. Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines all warned on Tuesday that they expected combined first-half net losses of up to 9 billion yuan (RM5.4 billion), marking a sharp reversal from their combined first-quarter profit as stronger Lunar New Year travel demand faded and rising fuel costs squeezed margins. The expected losses underscore the dilemma facing Chinese airlines: raising fares to offset higher fuel costs risks further weakening passenger demand, while keeping ticket prices low forces carriers to absorb the additional expense, putting further pressure on already thin profit margins. Parash Jain, HSBC’s global head of transport and logistics research, said a “negative wealth effect” was reshaping Chinese consumer behaviour as slower economic growth made households more cautious about spending, o Weak demand and higher fuel costs threaten profits during the peak summer travel season

US to lead investigation into Ryanair engine failure WASHINGTON: The US National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it will lead the investigation into an incident in which a passenger was partly sucked out of a Ryanair Boeing 737’s broken window over Greece last week. The NTSB said Greece had delegated the lead role to the agency in the probe. (FAA). The plane, headed to Germany, lost pressure and made an emergency landing. Fellow passengers held on to the person pulled out of the window, Serbian national Ljubisa Karovic. He was injured and hospitalized. The event had similarities to problems on two prior Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 NG flights in 2016 and 2018. In the latter, a passenger died after being partially sucked out of a window damaged by a broken fan blade. But FAA administrator Bryan Bedford told A piece of engine broke off the Boeing 737 NG and smashed the window shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki in Greece on July 10, according to video and the Federal Aviation Administration

Education retains its importance in the Malaysian landscape for parents, students and stakeholders. The changes are fast paced with new developments in new fields of study such as cybersecurity, data protection, augmented and virtual reality, machine learning in education, digital education and artificial Intelligence. Leading the way are universities, who are invited to showcase their latest programmes, curriculum and content in our Education Focus for 2026.

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