Financial

Southwest Airlines’ Board of Directors authorized a new share repurchase program to acquire up to $500 million of the Company’s common stock. Based on yesterday’s close price of $12.08, this represents approximately 41 million shares of common stock.

Safran reported 2007 consolidated sales of 12 billion euros, up 5.9% over 2006. At December 31, 2007, net debt stood at 160 million euros, a sharp reduction over the year-end 2006 figure of 419 million euros.

Mesa Air Group reported fourth quarter losses from continuing operations of $62.2 million on gross operating revenues of $327.8 million. This compares to earnings from continuing operations of $5.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2006 on gross operating revenues of $348.8 million. Net loss for the quarter was $68.2 million versus $4.8 million net

GA Telesis, LLC reported the closing of a $270 million warehouse credit facility (

Rolls-Royce announced a further stage in the Group

Pinnacle Airlines Corp. has purchased its Class A Preferred Share from Northwest Airlines Corp. at a purchase price of $20 million. The purchase is in accordance with the Airline Service Agreement between Pinnacle and Northwest agreed to a year ago. “This is the last step in the process of becoming independent that began with our

TAM signed a loan agreement with the BNP Paribas bank to finance up to $ 117.1 million in pre-delivery payment (PDP) operations for 30 Airbus aircraft contracted with the French company, with confirmed purchase orders and deliveries scheduled for the period 2008 to 2010. TAM’s fleet plan forecasts that it will close 2008 with 123

Panta Holdings B.V., owner of VLM Airlines, has reached an agreement on terms for the sale of VLM Airlines to Air France-KLM. VLM Airlines is one of Europe’s leading regional carriers catering principally for business travellers. The company operates a fleet of 18 Fokker 50 and one BAE 146. London City Airport is the hub

Transat A.T. Inc. announced the final results of its offer to purchase for cancellation up to $125 million of its Class A Variable Voting Shares and Class B Voting Shares. Based on final reports from CIBC Mellon Trust Company on the response to its offer to purchase, Transat takes up 1,780,797 Class A Variable Voting

Gulf Air and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) have finalized the terms for the provision of a three-year syndicated term loan facility of USD 75 million that will be used to finance ongoing investment and growth in 2006. The deal will be signed in early January.