News from Travel Technology Update: Orbitz for Business said it will provide an offline method of booking American Airlines flights if the carrier makes good on its threat to inhibit Orbitz Worldwide websites from issuing its tickets. Orbitz told its corporate customers that it will provide a dedicated 800 number for a call center staffed with customer service personnel trained to handle reservations and questions about American and to accommodate their corporate policies.
Delta Air Lines will outfit 223 Delta Connection regional jet aircraft with onboard Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi, beginning in January and slated to be complete by the end of 2011. It completed outfitting all mainline domestic aircraft in early November. Once fully installed, more than 80% of Delta's domestic fleet, 772 aircraft, will feature Gogo Inflight Internet access. SITA and Royal Jordanian signed a five-year deal under which RJ will migrate to the SITA Airfare Insight fares pricing platform.
Tagsys announced that Qantas has deployed an RFID reusable bag tag using Tagsys technology. According to the company, the bag tags can store details for up to four flights and be reprogrammed for future flights. The bag tags are being used at Sydney and Perth domestic terminals by premium frequent flyers. This will be followed by deployments in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra in 2011.
Lufthansa Systems reached five-year contract with Windrose Aviation to supply its Flight Management Systems onboard the Ukrainian carrier's Airbus A320 fleet. The airline operates a fleet of two Embraer E-195s, two MD-82s, one An-24 and two Airbus A320s.
Lufthansa said its Electronic Flight Bag, with the addition of FlyNet connectivity will "enable us to make decisions in a better way," including constant updates to weather forecasts and live satellite pictures, for which pilots currently rely on paper documents, which can be up to 10 hr. old on long-haul flights. It will also allow LH to replace handwritten logs with the electronic TechLog system.
Jazz Air Income Fund Monday announced the appointment of Richard Flynn as CFO, effective Feb. 28, 2011, to coincide with the retirement of Allan Rowe. Flynn is the VP-finance at Jazz, and has held a number of senior roles since he began his career in the airline industry in 1986.
JAL Group announced Monday that its subsidiary travel companies, JALPAK Co. and JAL TOURS will merge from April 1, 2011, subject to the approval of the stockholders of both companies. The new entity will retain the name of JALPAK Co., Ltd. According to a statement, the merger means JALPAK can offer a wider range of innovative products and implement new, more effective sales techniques.
Airports worldwide reported 7.7% increase in passenger traffic for October compared to the year-ago period, bringing the 10-month traffic gain to 6.4% compared, according to figures released by Airports Council International.
A Dagestan Airlines Tu-154M crashed while attempting to land at Moscow Domodedovo on Dec. 4 at 2:49 p.m. local time after losing power in all three engines. At least two people were killed in the landing attempt and 78 were injured—including one passenger who reportedly died of his injuries after being transported to a hospital.
The Spanish government said it may extend for up to two months its first “state of alarm” measure ordering controllers back to work for 15 days. The controllers launched a wildcat strike on Friday afternoon that resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of flights, with approximately 600,000 travelers stranded.
Air China signed an agreement with the Dalian government to launch Dalian Airlines, replacing Hainan Airlines, which had reached agreement with the local government last year to launch the airline.
Continental Airlines and one of its mechanics were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for their part in the crash of an Air France Concorde on July 25, 2000 in which 113 people died, a French court ruled Monday.
Dublin Airport's new Terminal 2 was opened Czech government plans to merge 92% Munich and Singapore airports signed a cooperation agreement Contracts and Services
Air Serv adopted SITA's PRM Data Access service to rationalize special service requests from passengers with reduced mobility at London Heathrow. Air Serv is the dedicated ground services provider that manages assistance for such passengers departing from or arriving at LHR. It receives around 3,000 messages daily, coming from more than 90 airlines, each containing multiple requests for special assistance.
Cairo International officially inaugurated its third runway and a newcontrol tower. ADPI was responsible for the engineering design, architectural design and work supervision for both projects while Thales was the general integrator for all ATC equipment. It supplied, installed and commissioned the control tower flight data management system, the voice communication control system and voice recording system, the EUROCAT automation system extension, the weather broadcasting system, the screens and the global time synchronization system.
Bmi is urging the UK Civil Aviation Authorityto investigate BAA's plans to introduce higher charges for domestic passengers flying out of London Heathrow and warned that it is preparing legal action to block the increases. The carrier, which is the second-largest slot holder at LHR, believes BAA's conduct is "unreasonably discriminating" against domestic operations from the airport.
Construction of a new international passenger terminal at St. Petersburg Pulkovo officially started last month, part of a €1 billion investment program by the Northern Capital Gateway consortium that won a 30-year concession bid proffered by the airport last October. The private consortium comprises Fraport AG (35.5%), VTB Bank of Russia (50%), Cypriot investor Koltseva Holdings Ltd. (7.5%) and the Greek Copelouzos Group (7%). It effectively took over management of LED in April.
US airports appear to be taking a different approach to use agreements with airlines to account for a changing environment in which gates and other facilities are less likely to be devoted to a single carrier and the airline industry is increasingly unpredictable. Whereas historically US airlines have maintained effective ownership over gate and counter space through long-term lease agreements, the new model more closely resembles traditional practices in Europe and Asia.
The US Transportation Security Administration, in the midst of a rapid rollout of Advanced Imaging Technology body-scanning machines at checkpoints, needs to be more cognizant of airports' concerns, Airports Council International-North America President Greg Principato told Congress.
Air France will bring the Airbus A380 to its Paris Charles de Gaulle–Washington Dulles route on June 6. IAD will be the carrier’s fifth A380 destination and the second A380 destination in the US besides New York JFK. The A380 will allow AF to rationalize its frequencies on the route from the current twice-daily to once daily.
Etihad Airways CEO James Hogan said the carrier will report positive EBITAR for 2010, “marking an important milestone in the commercial development of the airline.” Speaking at a financial road show event in London to more than 170 bank representatives, Hogan laid out Etihad’s business strategy for the future, as well as its commercial performance since it was established seven years ago.
Alaska Airlines announced on Friday it has nearly deployed Gogo Wi-Fi statewide in Alaska with recent availability on flights from southeast Alaska to Anchorage and Fairbanks. Since May it has installed the service from Aircell on more than 70% of its Boeing 737s and aims for complete fleet-wide installation in early 2011.
Emirates President Tim Clark told ATW he believes the Boeing 787 will be an outstanding aircraft but its current problems are slowing development of a 777-300ER upgrade sought by a number of airlines to meet the challenge of the Airbus A350-1000. Clark, who has been a driving force behind an upgraded 777-300ER, told ATW that Boeing was “rightly devoting all its resources to getting the 787 into service.”
Bombardier reported net income of $143 million for its third fiscal quarter ended Oct. 31, down 14.8% from a $168 million profit in the year-ago period, citing a “difficult” environment in its Aerospace unit with “leading indicators sending mixed signals as to the timing of a full recovery,” according to Bombardier President and CEO Pierre Beaudoin.
