Continental Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines were fined a combined $100,000 and Mesaba Airlines $75,000 by the US Dept. of Transportation yesterday for their roles in the stranding incident at Rochester (Minn.) International in August. ExpressJet was the operator of CO Flight 2816 and Mesaba was responsible for ground handling. Passengers were stuck onboard the ERJ-145 for more than 5 hr.
Ryanair will set up its 37th base, and first in Norway, at Oslo Rygge in March with three aircraft and 16 new routes, it announced yesterday. It currently service six destinations from RYG. New destinations will be Aarhus, Berlin Schonefeld, Dublin, Dusseldorf Weeze, Eindhoven, Gdansk, Krakow, La Rochelle, Malaga, Memmingen, Palma, Paris Beauvais, Riga, Wroclaw, Valencia and Treviso. The LCC said its investment at the airport will exceed $200 million and that it eventually expects to serve 1.7 million passengers per year.
Emirates said it will begin serving Paris Charles de Gaulle with a 489-seat A380 on Dec. 29 rather than Feb. 1. "An operational review, coupled with demand on the route, has led to an earlier introduction," it said. EK operates the route twice-daily. The A380 will fly thrice-weekly to start, becoming daily Jan. 17. EK also announced a new five-times-weekly Dubai-Tokyo Narita service starting March 28 aboard a 777-300ER. Japan Airlines will codeshare.
Qantas dismissed rumors out of London that it is interested in restarting merger talks with British Airways, stating yesterday that "consolidation is not on the carrier's agenda."
Japan Airlines yesterday said it reached agreement with the Development Bank of Japan for an emergency bridge loan "necessary for continuance of our flight operations." The troubled airline said the Japanese government had approved the loan. JAL did not reveal the loan's amount but Japanese media pegged it at around ¥100 billion ($1.12 billion).
Spring Airlines expects to report a CNY120 million ($17.5 million) net profit for 2009, a sixfold increase from the CNY20 million earned last year, according to the Chairman Wang Zhenghua. The Shanghai Hongqiao-based LCC was CNY140 million in the black through September owing to rapid growth in the domestic market, "but the fourth quarter is the traditional low season, so it's not surprising that we are suffering from a daily loss of CNY600,000 this month," Wang noted. Spring is planning a dramatic fleet expansion.
IATA said that 19 of 34 Eurocontrol states have proposed overflight charge increases in 2010 that will result in a 2.7% net lift in average unit rates equal to around $360 million. The Eurocontrol Enlarged Committee for Route Charges is scheduled to meet today. Armenia proposed the largest increase (32%), while Poland (18%), Romania (17%) and Austria (14%) are the largest when adjusted for the amount of traffic. Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Moldova, Malta, Bulgaria and Finland proposed reductions.
Baltia Air Lines, a New York JFK-based startup aiming to serve Eastern Europe, took delivery of its first 747, it announced yesterday. It said the aircraft was purchased and "paid for in full" and that it "has no debt, and we intend to expand our fleet using revenues generated once we start flight operations."
AirAsia's growth continued unabated in the third quarter despite the recession, as the LCC posted a MYR130.1 million ($38.4 million) profit that represented a reversal from the MYR465.5 million loss suffered in the year-ago period.
US Airways yesterday announced that it is deferring 54 of the 72 aircraft it was scheduled to receive from Airbus in 2010-12, comprising 46 A320s and eight A330s, and will push back the launch of its A350 service from 2015 to 2017.
Turkish Airlines firmed its order for two A330-200 freighters announced three weeks ago ( ATWOnline, Nov. 9). Delivery will begin next fall, Airbus said. THY currently operates four A310 freighters.
AeroMechanical Services and L-3 Communications reached an agreement under which L-3 will sell AMS's real-time data communications and Internet data delivery systems for aircraft. AMS will be the exclusive provider to L-3 of Iridium satellite-based real-time data communications and Internet data delivery technology under the brand name FLYHT.
Blue Wings 48% shareholder Alexander Lebedev is preparing to transfer his stake to Aeroflot, German daily Handelsblatt reported, adding that he hopes to generate €100million ($148.6 million) from the sale of his shares.
Malev Hungarian Airlines will re-launch daily Budapest-Serbia service Dec. 14 aboard 72-seat Q400s after a 17-year hiatus. It suspended operations to Belgrade in 1992 owing to the outbreak of the Yugoslav wars. Jet Airways increased 13-times-weekly Delhi-Kathmandu to twice-daily and will launch daily Mumbai-Kathmandu flights Dec. 2 aboard a 737. Etihad Airways launched four-times-weekly Abu Dhabi-Hyderabad service aboard an A320, increasing to daily from the start of 2010.
GE Aviation announced yesterday that it has acquired Naverus, the Performance-Based Navigation services provider that develops RNP procedures for airlines and air traffic management organizations.
Gulf Air plans to add regional aircraft and more A320s while downsizing its widebody fleet, including selling its five A340s, as part of a three-year "realignment program" aimed at making the unprofitable carrier a "commercially sustainable business" by 2012, it announced yesterday.
Eurofly and Meridiana will merge into Meridiana Fly, the Italian carriers confirmed last week. Meridiana already owns 60.7% of Eurofly. The new airline will focus on medium- and long-haul services while "peak" summer and winter short-haul and charter operations will be handled by a newly incorporated company called Meridiana Express that will be part of Meridiana Fly. Deadline for the integration is Jan. 31.
US FAA yesterday issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require "scheduled airlines to either retrofit their existing fleet with ice-detection equipment or make sure the ice protection system activates at the proper time," the agency said in a statement. For aircraft with an ice-detection system, FAA is proposing to mandate that the system "alert the crew each time they should activate the ice protection system.
Japan Airlines President Haruka Nishimatsu yesterday told former employees that the company's pension benefits must be cut significantly to enable it to become sustainable long-term.
Air Berlin said it is seeking to recruit 700 flight attendants and 120 pilots. The new employees would be based in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Munster/Osnabruck, Nuremberg, Paderborn-Lippstadt and Stuttgart in Germany as well as Basel/Muhlhausen and Zurich in Switzerland, AB said. It currently operates 129 aircraft. It has retired all of its 737 Classics and plans to ground two 757s and one 767-300ER by the end of January.
Lufthansa said its first A380 delivery will be delayed again by several weeks and it now is expected in early summer next year instead of spring, a spokesperson told ATWOnline.
Oxford Aviation Academy signed a five-year agreement with Icelandair for provision of simulator training for 757s and 767s as well as Dash 8-100/-300 training for Air Iceland.
Honeywell said Air New Zealand extended by seven years two of its wheels and brakes service agreements for 737 Classics and 767-300s. Financial details were not disclosed.
KLM yesterday operated the first biofuel demonstration flight in which passengers were aboard, flying a 747-400 partially powered by camelina-derived fuel from Amsterdam Schiphol. The flight, carrying 40 select passengers including KLM President & CEO Peter Hartman and a number of Dutch officials, stayed in the air for about 1 hr. before returning to AMS. One of the aircraft's engines was powered by a 50/50 mixture of traditional jet fuel and camelina-based fuel. Honeywell subsidiary UOP converted the plant-based crude oil to biofuel and then blended it with jet fuel.
