Wizz Air yesterday announced the addition of a third aircraft in Prague in June 2010 in response to SkyEurope Airlines' shutdown ( ATWOnline, Sept. 1). It also will increase frequencies on existing services to London Luton, Rome Fiumicino, Bergamo, Brussels Charleroi and Eindhoven in September and October. Meanwhile, Niki CEO Otmar Lenz confirmed to ATWOnline that the carrier will look to expand into areas that lost service as a result of SkyEurope's demise.
Sensis announced that Newark International and Boston Logan International now are operating with its Airport Surface Detection Equipment Model X. The runway incursion detection and alerting system is operational at 19 US airports. FAA plans to deploy ASDE-X at 35 airports by 2011.
IATA said 54 airlines that have reported second-quarter financial results have lost a combined $2.02 billion, a figure signifying a "further deterioration" the organization said is troubling considering that carriers "usually make 50% of their profits in this seasonally strong quarter."
Avianova, a new Russian LCC, launched operations from Moscow Vnukovo with two A320s serving Sochi, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don and Samara. RIA Novosti said the airline's fares start at RUB250 ($7.88) excluding taxes and fees. Avianova Director Vladimir Gorbunov said the carrier hopes to add two aircraft in time for the winter schedule, The Moscow Times reported. The current aircraft are on lease from ILFC for five years each. Avianova's main shareholders are Alfa Group and Indigo Partners.
The legal wrangling between Delta Air Lines and regional partner Mesa Air Group has heated up again now that Delta has filed suit to cancel its contract with Mesa subsidiary Freedom Airlines, which operates 22 ERJ-145s as Delta Connection.
Etihad Airways introduced its new first class suite on an A340-600 operating between Abu Dhabi and London Heathrow. Suite includes an 80.5-in. lie-flat leather seat, a 23-in. LCD screen, a wooden table and a changing room with full-length mirror, sink and a fold-down seat. A second -600 equipped with the suite will enter the fleet next month. Five A330-300s will be delivered with the suites over the next two years, starting in December. Nine A340s will be retrofitted by December 2010.
Hainan Airlines posted net income of CNY175 million ($25.6 million) in the first half based on domestic accounting standards, down 43.7% from the CNY311 million reported in the year-ago period, on a 3.5% decrease in operating revenue to CNY6.12 billion.
British Airways took delivery of the first of two A318s equipped with steep approach capability. The CFM56-5B9/3-powered aircraft will operate on the carrier's twice-daily (except Sunday) London City-New York JFK service scheduled to launch Sept. 29, featuring an all-business-class cabin with 32 seats. Route will be twice-daily in mid-October. Separately, BA today is reintroducing the wider seats previously offered in its Club Europe cabin in response to customer feedback. "As these are converter seats, the installation is simple and there is no extra cost," BA noted.
American Airlines will furlough 228 flight attendants on Oct. 1 and place an additional 693 on leave. The Assn. of Professional Flight Attendants said the carrier originally had planned to cut 1,200 positions in response to previously announced capacity reductions but that the union and management worked to minimize the final number. As a result, 244 employees will go on leave in October and November and an additional 449 will be asked to take voluntary leave. Of the furloughs, 105 will come at New York LaGuardia and 65 at Chicago O'Hare, with the remainder at Boston, St.
The union said that neither airlines nor regulators in the US and Canada have "kept pace" in terms of pilot qualification requirements and training oversight. "Today's archaic regulations allow airlines to hire low-experience pilots into the right seat of high-speed, complex, swept-wing jet aircraft in what amounts to on-the-job training with paying passengers on board," ALPA said. "Investigations of recent accidents reveal that safety margins have been eroded at some carriers as a result. A complete overhaul of pilot selection and training methods is needed."
Milwaukee's General Mitchell International, which has felt the pinch of a faltering economy and a failing local carrier, is looking forward to better times with the arrival of Southwest Airlines this fall. Over the past year, the airport was affected adversely by the financial problems of Midwest Airlines and a subsequent 40% reduction in flying. In prior years, Midwest accounted for more than half of the flights out of MKE. In the first five months of 2009, traffic was down some 15% compared to 2008.
US Department of Homeland Security will add 13 airports to its Global Entry pilot program aimed at streamlining the arrival process for enrolled travelers returning from international destinations. Airports in Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Newark, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sanford, San Francisco, San Juan, and Seattle now will be included. The program uses biometric identification including a digital photo, which can be entered into a special kiosk where the traveler is issued a receipt used to clear Customs and Border Patrol stations.
US travelers are more environmentally aware than they were just two years ago but few are willing to pay extra for eco-friendly travel, according to the July "travelhorizons," a quarterly consumer survey co-authored by the US Travel Assn. and Ypartnership, an advertising and public relations agency.
BORN IN A DAY WHEN AIR TRAFFIC WAS burgeoning, planners saw perimeter taxiways as a way to cut both runway incursions and fuel costs. Now that traffic has tumbled and fuel isn't quite as terrifying, the issue is whether they still make sense. It depends. There is more than a modicum of validity to the old saying, "When you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport."
Vienna International Airport continues to face challenges as construction costs for its new Terminal SkyLink have skyrocketed at the same time that passenger traffic is falling. Airport officials are going back to the drawing board to review existing contracts in an effort to cut costs on the 450-m.-long facility. Construction work was halted on June 30.
Still years away from completion, the Chicago O'Hare Modernization Program already is reducing delays at the world's second-busiest airport. New Runway 9L-27R and the 3,000-ft. extension to runway 10L-27R, as well as the new north ATC tower, all opened last year, improved the airport's ontime arrival rate by 22%, according to the Chicago Dept. of Aviation.
Considering the precipitous drop in revenue and yields and the fact that general anxiety about the weak economy was exacerbated by the swine flu scare, US passenger airlines' second-quarter financial results could have been far worse than they were. Even with key indicators decidedly not in their favor, six of the nine largest airlines earned a net profit during the three-month period and seven of nine were profitable on an operating basis.
Iberia, its associated carriers Iberia Regional Air Nostrum and Vueling as well as oneworld partners American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair and Royal Jordanian, will move to Barcelona El Prat's new Terminal 1 on Sept. 9. The Puente Aereo (Air Bridge), Iberia's 60-flights-per-day walk-on shuttle service between Madrid and Barcelona, will have its own mini-terminal in the T1 building.
A UK government-commissioned report questions the green credentials of high-speed rail by claiming that the proposed new 300-kph (185 mph) London-Manchester train could be less environmentally friendly than the same air route. According to the Daily Telegraph, the study by consultants Booz Allen Hamilton argues that building and operating the rail network will generate more CO2 than taking the same route by air over a 60-year period.
Rentech announced that it has signed a multiyear agreement to supply eight airlines with up to 1.5 million gal. per year of renewable biodiesel--RenDiesel--for ground service equipment operations at Los Angeles International beginning in late 2012 when the plant that will produce the fuel is scheduled to go into service.
American Airlines emitted 29.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2008, down 5% compared to the previous year. Fleet downsizing and schedule reductions played a large role, but the carrier also is encouraging workers to find ways to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Its Fuel Smart fuel conservation program saved 111 million gal. of fuel and 2.3 billion lb. of carbon dioxide last year. Since 2002 AA has reduced its CO2 footprint by 20% and has set an objective of a further 30% reduction by 2025 from 2002.
Biofuels have gotten a major boost from the US Navy's announcement that it will test them in high-performance fighter aircraft. It has asked for 40,000 gal. of JP-5 jet fuel derived from bio-based feedstocks as long as they are not derived from crops used for human consumption.
"Despite the progress made on modelling aviation's impacts on tropospheric chemistry, there remains a significant spread in model results, and while much progress has been made in the last ten years on characterizing emissions, major uncertainties remain over the nature of particles." This is the key finding of a new report, "Transport impacts on atmosphere and climate: Aviation," published in Atmospheric Environment.
ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME to an end and airport passenger growth is no exception. After five years of robust expansion (2003-07), airports experienced an anemic 0.9% increase in passenger throughput last year compared to 2007 and the outlook for the current year clearly is dismal. Vienna Airport, for example, reported a 12.7% drop in passenger traffic for the first half of 2009 while Brussels Zaventem plunged 11.7%.
