American Airlines Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said the carrier needs at least $1 billion in additional annual savings to keep pace with rivals restructuring through bankruptcy and "just to keep even with our costs last year," and has evaluated replacing the JT8D-200 engines on its MD-80 fleet to save fuel.

ARINC and SITA yesterday announced formation of an industry technical work group to define the next generation of business-to-business messaging among air transport operators. The workgroup consists of Northwest Airlines, British Airways, Worldspan, Amadeus, Lufthansa Systems, Sabre, Galileo and Mercator.

Airbus A320, A321 and A319 were given 180-min. ETOPS approval by US FAA yesterday, two years after the same approval was granted by EASA.

South African Airways last week took delivery of the first of two Q400 turboprops. The 74-seat aircraft will operate from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein and George.

Sun Country Airlines plans to retrofit seven 737-800s with Aviation Partners Boeing blended winglets. Royal Jordanian took delivery of its fourth new V2500-powered A321 as part of an order for six A320s/A321s to replace aging A310s and A320s. First A380 destined to enter commercial service with Singapore Airlines took its maiden test flight Sunday in Toulouse. Flight was 2 hr. 15 min. The aircraft will be operated on the London-Singapore-Sydney route. SIA has 10 A380s on firm order with options for 15.

Stung by vocal criticism of its A350 offering from ILFC, Emirates and Singapore Airlines, Airbus is close to announcing a radical revamp of the aircraft, according to insiders in Toulouse. CEO Gustav Humbert told reporters two weeks ago that the airframer would make some sort of decision by summer (ATWOnline, April 26).

Qantas said it will open a QantasLink base in Canberra and increase capacity on flights to Sydney "by more than 12%" as it places its sixth 72-seat Q400 on the route in August. It will add another Q400 to the service in October. It currently operates a 50-seat Dash 8 on the route. The move will create at least 30 jobs in Canberra.

Boeing widened its lead over Airbus in terms of aircraft orders in April, while the Toulouse-based manufacturer held its edge in deliveries. Boeing received orders for 149 aircraft last month comprising 144 737s and five 787-9s. More than half of the orders came from Southwest Airlines (79 737-700s), while AirTran signed for 24 737-700s and an unidentified customer took 24 dash 800s. All five 787 orders came from Air Pacific. Boeing also booked orders for two BBJs in the month.