“Capital follows confidence” as defence courts private money
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
American Eagle Airlines has reported December 2009 and full calendar year traffic figures for itself and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Executive Airlines.
In December, American Eagle itself generated 581,732,000 revenue passenger miles (RPMs), a 7.2% increase on December 2008’s 542,624,000. Available seat miles recorded went up by 6.2% to 802,558,000 from 755,989,000 for the respective periods.
This resulted in a slight rise of 0.7 percentage points (pp) in Eagle’s load factor, up to 72.5% from 71.8%. The number of passengers boarded in December was 1,296,631, a 7.8% increase on the 1,203,115 carried in 2008.
Executive Airlines recorded 45,300,000 RPMs in December compared with 45,587,000 in December 2008, a 0.6% decrease. ASMs dropped by 1.0% to 80,529,000 from 81,320,000.
The load factor rose by 0.2 pp to 56.3% from 56.1% in December 2008, while passengers boarded numbered 230,713, up 5.7% from 218,211.
For the whole of 2009, American Eagle generated 7,145,639,000 RPMs, 3.2% down on 2008’s 7,382,935,000, while ASMs fell 5.4% to 9,809,580,000 from 10,369,728,000.
The full year load factor for Eagle was 72.8%, up 1.6 pp from 2008’s figure of 71.2%, with the airline carrying 16,012,967 passengers compared with 16,558,248 in 2008, a 3.3% decrease.
In 2009, Executive Airlines recorded 544,747,000 RPMs, slightly down – by 0.4% – from 2008’s 542,444,000. ASMs were up by 2.8% at 947,616,000 from 922,117,000.
These figures resulted in an annual load factor of 57.5%, down 1.3 pp from the 58.8% recorded for 2008. Passengers carried in 2009 totalled 2,735,866, an increase of 7.5% year-on-year over 2008’s figure of 2,544,835.
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
The Department of National Defence expects initial contracts to deliver thousands of uncrewed systems, but has yet to establish the quantities, capability mix or deadline behind Ottawa’s promised tenfold expansion.
The company told Shephard that Ukraine is operating modified Protector weapon stations originally supplied for armoured vehicles, with human operators authorising engagements from hundreds of kilometres away.
A report from the Council on Geostrategy argues the UK should move away from a traditional balanced force and shift investment to naval, air and space capabilities, backed by a larger fleet of attack submarines and deeper AUKUS integration.
At its technology summit in London, attended by Shephard, Thales UK examined the importance of speed to delivery, the growing focus on cross-domain capabilities and how procurement reform could be crucial for future battlefield advantage.
Are all systems ready for the next mission? Have upgrades been applied? Are all assets aligned to deploy together, on time and fully prepared? In modern defence operations, readiness is no longer measured platform by platform. It is measured by how well people, assets, data and decisions move together — across land, sea and air.