News in brief

Emirates to ground 20 planes for runway work

DUBAI: Dubai’s Emirates flagship airline plans to ground 19 or 20 planes from May because of runway construction work at Dubai International Airport, the airline’s president Tim Clark said yesterday. That number of planes represents roughly 10 percent of the airline’s fleet of about 200 planes. The work is expected to be finished by July 20, Clark told reporters. “It’ll have an impact on the revenue. We will have to learn how to manage this,” he said without elaborating. Passenger flows through the airport, which is an important source of economic growth for Dubai, jumped 15.2 percent to a record 66.4 million people in 2013. The impact of the runway work on Emirates suggests growth in traffic may temporarily slow. Egyptian inflation eases in January

CAIRO: Egypt’s annual urban inflation rate slowed slightly to 11.4 percent in January from 11.7 percent in December, the official statistics agency CAPMAS said yesterday. The core annual inflation rate, announced by the central bank, fell to 11.7 percent in January from 11.9 percent in December. Annual inflation hit a four-year high of 13 percent in November. Egypt’s economy has continued to suffer from investment outflows and a drop in tourism during political turmoil since autocrat President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in an uprising in early 2011. Despite inflows of billions of dollars in aid from Gulf Arab states after the army’s ouster last year of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, economic recovery is limited. The army-backed government introduced a 30 billion Egyptian pound ($4.3 billion) stimulus package in 2013 and said it would follow up with a second package of similar size last month, but details of that package have yet to be announced. Saudia picks adviser for cargo unit’s share sale

DUBAI: Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) has chosen the investment banking arm of Banque Saudi Fransi to advise it on the initial public share offer (IPO) for its cargo unit, it said yesterday. A senior official from Saudia told Reuters last week the IPO of the cargo unit would go ahead this year, with a stake in the maintenance subsidiary sold to the public before June 2015. The cargo unit would be the second of six units - the others are catering, ground services, maintenance, airlines and flight academy - to pursue a stock market listing following Saudia’s decision in 2006 to privatize them. The first of the units to be sold publicly, Saudi Airlines Catering Co, raised $347 million with an IPO for 30 percent of its shares in 2012.