Southwest Airlines yesterday launched its Boston service, which will comprise five daily flights to Chicago Midway and five to Baltimore. Royal Air Maroc will launch twice-weekly Casablanca-Dubai service on Oct. 27 using 767-300ERs. RwandAir yesterday added a fifth weekly Kigali-Johannesburg flight.
Strategic Airlines, an Australian scheduled, charter and ACMI operator, said it received an AOC from the French DGAC last week. It plans to operate two A320s in Europe. One already is flying on wet-lease with Solomon Airlines and the second is expected to be available this month for ACMI and charter flights. Strategic acquired OzJet Airlines in June ( ATWOnline, June 30).
UK government will provide Airbus with up to £340 million ($562.2 million) of repayable launch aid for development of the A350, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson confirmed during a visit to Airbus's Filton facility Friday. At the Paris Air Show in June, European governments said they reached agreement to give Airbus €3.5 billion ($4.97 billion) in soft loans for A350 development. The French and German governments already have pledged a combined €2.5 billion for the project, while Spain is expected to loan around €400 million. A statement from the UK Dept.
British Airways said it held "positive" talks with Iberia last week in London about their planned merger. "We have now met twice with the new management team at Iberia and will meet again in due course," CEO Willie Walsh told BA News, the carrier's in-house weekly.
V Australia, the long-haul subsidiary of Brisbane-based Virgin Blue, announced a major expansion of its route network focused around Melbourne and Brisbane. It will launch twice-weekly Brisbane-Phuket service on Nov. 22, followed by weekly MEL-Phuket on Dec. 3. It will commence twice-weekly MEL-Johannesburg flights on March 13. It currently operates three 777-300ERs between Sydney and Brisbane and Los Angeles and will add an MEL-LAX service on Dec 1. It is due to take its fourth -300ER by early October, will add a fifth in September 2010 and has another two on order plus eight options.
Spain's Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Commission released another report yesterday on the August 2008 crash of a Spanair MD-82 that killed 154 people, confirming that the pilots did not know the aircraft's flaps and slats were not extended as it attempted to take off from Madrid ( ATWOnline, Oct. 13, 2008). "The aircraft had the standard procedures and checklists in force. . .which included the selection and confirmation of the correct configuration for takeoff," the report said, according to Reuters.
LOT Polish Airlines suffered a PLN178 million ($60.9 million) loss in the first six months of 2009, which included the closure of its low-cost subsidiary Centralwings ( ATWOnline, April 2), and will bring in a financial adviser to help sell new shares, Reuters reported. "Options include selling a stake to another carrier, a financial investor or even floating the airline on a stock exchange," CEO Sebastian Mikosz was quoted as saying.
Joy Air was expected to start formal operations over the weekend with a fleet of three Chinese-produced MA60 regional aircraft. The official launch of the Xi'an-based carrier comes after a one-month trial period. It is expected to introduce three more MA60s by year end and plans to acquire 50 of the type, plus 50 ARJ21s, over the next eight years.
Lufthansa Systems will run the most significant components of Swiss International Air Lines' IT infrastructure beginning in 2010, Swiss said. "By outsourcing central data center services to Lufthansa Systems, we can cut costs without compromising our high standards of quality, reliability and flexibility," the Lufthansa Group subsidiary said in a statement. The outsourcing agreement covers migration and operation of more than 100 business-critical applications on a variety of operating systems.
CSA Czech Airlines will commence seasonal twice-weekly Prague-Tashkent service Aug. 19 under a codeshare agreement with Uzbekistan Airways aboard an A319. Bahrain Air will launch twice-weekly Bahrain-Baghdad service from Aug. 28. American Eagle will launch service from Miami to Harbour Island (thrice-weekly), Treasure Cay (four-times-weekly) and Governors Harbour (four-times-weekly) Nov. 19 aboard 66-seat ATR 72s.
Belavia Belarusian Airlines acquired a 737-500 from ILFC, bringing its fleet to five 737-500s, three 737-300s, three CRJ100/200s, four Tu 154-Ms, and one Tu-134.
Delta TechOps won a $7 million, four-year contract from Canadian charter airline CanJet to provide component and inventory logistics support for its 737-800 fleet, including avionics, pneumatics and hydraulics. SR Technics said Edelweiss Air, a Swiss International Air Lines subsidiary, extended its existing full-support contract covering the carrier's fleet of A320s for an additional 39 months.
Boeing Friday confirmed to ATWOnline that it "determined that there were microscopic wrinkles in the skin plies of [787] fuselage sections produced by Alenia [Aeronautica]. . .We determined that a simple patch at two locations is required to restore full structural margins.
TAM Friday reported that it earned BRL788.9 million ($429 million) in second-quarter net income on BRL2.4 billion in revenue. It did not provide year-over-year comparisons in the preliminary figures it issued. ATWOnline reported last year that TAM posted 2008 second-quarter net income of BRL50.2 million on BRL2.51 in revenue. The Brazilian carrier said last week that its 2009 second-quarter RASK decreased 20.9% while CASK declined 10.4%.
JetBlue Airways announced last week that it will sell "all-you-can-jet" passes through Aug. 21 for "unlimited" travel aboard the LCC between Sept. 8 and Oct. 8. The passes cost $599 each and "will allow [holders] to visit any of the airline's 56 international and domestic destinations as often as they like" if seats are available during the month-long period, the airline said in a statement.
Republic Airways Holdings confirmed late Thursday that it had been declared the winner in the court-monitored auction for bankrupt Frontier Airlines and plans to purchase the Denver-based carrier when it emerges from Chapter 11, likely in the fall.
Aircraft Leasing and Management arranged the sale of and delivered an additional BAe 146-300 to Lima-based Star Peru on behalf of Flybe, which has replaced its BAe 146 fleet with E-195s. ALM is remarketing the remaining Flybe 146s.
ASIG said it was selected by a consortium of 32 airlines at Washington Dulles "to provide operation and maintenance of the jet fuel facility which supplies all of the carriers serving IAD."
Finnair said it is proceeding with a restructuring that aims to achieve greater efficiency and save costs. The airline is in somewhat of a transitional state after President and CEO Jukka Hienonen announced his resignation following its fourth consecutive quarterly net loss ( ATWOnline, Aug 10), but he is staying in the post for the time being and the restructuring is slated to move forward.
Air France KLM reported a 3.3% drop in July traffic on a 4.1% capacity cut. Load factor increased 0.7 point to 85.1%. Lufthansa Group posted a 6.2% increase in July traffic to 15.48 billion RPKs on a 5.7% lift in capacity to 18.63 billion ASKs, producing a load factor of 83.1%, up 0.4 point.
US FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. announced that an independent team of arbitrators released its decision on controller compensation yesterday, concluding "a challenging mediation process that has produced a landmark labor agreement." NATCA's 14,000 controller members will have 45 days to ratify the "many agreed upon issues." The five issues decided by arbitrators, including pay and benefits, are not subject to ratification.
Iberia's board asked the airline's new chairman and CEO, Antonio Vazquez, to look into alternatives to its merger with British Airways, elEconomista reported.
Southwest Airlines said late yesterday that its $170 million bid to acquire Frontier Airlines was "deemed unacceptable" by a US Bankruptcy Court after the two carriers' pilot unions were unable to reach an agreement on joint work rules and seniority, paving the way for Republic Airways Holdings to purchase Denver-based Frontier.
