Sun Country Airlines will limit taxi time to 4 hr. on all flights following a 5 hr., 45 min. delay to a flight scheduled to depart New York JFK for Minneapolis-St. Paul on Aug. 21. Under the new policy, after 4 hr. Sun Country will return the aircraft to the gate area and disembark the passengers.
Aeroflot and Vnesheconombank subsidiary VEB-Leasing signed an agreement under which SU will have the option to return its first 10 Superjet 100s after 12 years, with delivery financing arranged through loans by the bank to VEB. SU has 30 SSJs on order.
Finnair Group subsidiary Finnair Facilities Management announced a deal with NV Property Fund covering the sale and leaseback of an aircraft hangar, the ground handling fleet center, the ground equipment maintenance unit and the training center at Helsinki Vantaa. Sale price was €77 million ($110.3 million)
Kenya Airways said a three-day strike last week by its employees cost it KES600 million ($7.6 million). Workers agreed to return to work after the carrier promised pay increases, reportedly 10% this year and 10% next year.
China Equity Group plans to re-launch Wuhan-based East Star Airlines, which is going through bankruptcy reorganization, with a CNY200 million ($29.2 million)-CNY300 million investment, according to CEG Chairman Wang Chaoyong. Wang revealed that the group plans to raise the money to restart the troubled carrier in conjunction with seven other companies, including Shanghai YuField. He said CEG has "submitted the reorganization application" to the appropriate court. "Hopefully we can get the result in the next two or three weeks," he commented.
SkyEurope Airlines is still banned from Vienna International, but the airport and the troubled carrier have started talks again. "No solution" has been found thus far, VIE CEO Herbert Kaufmann told Austrian media. SkyEurope was forced to suspend all operations from VIE after missing an Aug. 14 deadline to pay outstanding fees believed to total around €4 million ($5.7 million) ( ATWOnline, Aug. 17).
Alaska Airlines in a filing Friday with the US Dept. of Transportation renewed its request for the US government to review "Virgin America's current and prospective citizenship status." VX has insisted it is in compliance with US ownership and control laws, which require that US airlines be 75%-owned by US citizens.
Southwest Airlines announced Friday that it plans to begin a fleetwide rollout of Wi-Fi Internet connectivity in conjunction with Row 44 in the 2010 first quarter. The LCC said it "has received fantastic customer feedback" from passengers who have used the Row 44 satellite-enabled service on four 737s on which it has been tested since February. "We have concluded our testing for inflight Wi-Fi and are very happy with both the technical performance of the system and the response of customers who have used it," Senior VP-Marketing and Revenue Management Dave Ridley said.
American Airlines said Friday that it will start charging economy-class passengers a $50 fee for a second checked bag on flights to/from or through India and to/from Belgium, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. First checked bags will remain free. The policy takes effect for tickets purchased on or after Sept. 14. On flights within the US, the carrier already charges $20 for a first checked bag and $30 for a second checked bag.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told The Australian that Boeing informed him that the 787's first flight will take place by year end, the newspaper reported Friday. Boeing declined to comment, saying a revised flight test program schedule will be issued by the end of September.
AirBaltic CEO Bertold Flick confirmed to ATWOnline Friday that the Latvian government is providing financial assistance to the carrier, but he declined to comment on media reports that the airline is on the verge of bankruptcy. "It is true we [are getting] a capital increase from the government," he said.
ExpressJet Holdings' flight crew "was not at fault" for the Aug. 7-8 incident in which passengers were stranded overnight on an ERJ-145, US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Friday, instead pinning the blame on a Mesaba Airlines local representative at Rochester (Minn.) International who "improperly refused" to allow the passengers to deplane.
GECAS delivered one new A320-200 to Wizz Air. The aircraft, acquired through a purchase and leaseback transaction with the airline, is part of an existing order agreement. Separately, Wizz Air will launch twice-weekly Gdansk-Bergen service Dec. 18.
Japan Airlines and Nippon Cargo Airlines parent Nippon Yusen said Friday that the carriers are in talks to merge JAL's cargo operations with NCA, according to widespread press reports. The two cargo operations reportedly could operate as a merged entity as early as April 1, 2010.
A number of carriers falling within the scope of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme have submitted or will submit their first monitoring and reporting plans "under protest" following advice from IATA, ATWOnline has learned. The deadline for airlines to submit their tonne-km. monitoring plan and emissions monitoring plan is Aug. 31, or Sept. 30/Oct. 15 for operators whose administering EU member state (UK, Sweden, Germany and Italy) postponed the submission date ( ATWOnline, Aug. 1).
Air Canada released a "touch application" for Apple iPhones/iPods that will allow passengers with the devices "to retrieve electronic boarding passes, track flight information in real time, receive notification of itinerary changes and obtain other [flight] details." Executive VP and Chief Commercial Officer Ben Smith said the application is "only the first iteration. .
Air Berlin placed a €125 million ($177 million) convertible bond with institutional investors outside the US, Canada, Australia and Japan. Part of the inflowing capital will be used to repurchase existing bonds (€90 million nominal value), while the remaining €70 million will be used to refinance future aircraft purchases and improve liquidity. Based on figures reported for the 2009 first quarter, the carrier's equity will improve by €172 million to €504 million. Net indebtedness will decrease by €182 million.
Southwest Airlines Chairman, President and CEO Gary Kelly said the LCC is "seriously considering" operating international flights as soon as 2011 and also remains interested in acquiring troubled assets from rival carriers following its failed bid to purchase Frontier Airlines.
The French BEA said yesterday that it has abandoned the search for the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Air France A330-200 that crashed May 31 about 360 mi. off Brazil's northeast coast, killing all 228 aboard, though it has not ruled out restarting the search later this year.
Hamilton Sundstrand was selected by Irkut Corp. to supply multiple systems for the MC-21, the 150/230-seat commercial aircraft family the Russian company is developing ( ATWOnline, July 3). HS will provide the advanced Electric Power Generating System, secondary electrical power distribution, auxiliary power unit, wing anti-ice and bleed air conditioning for the Nitrogen Generation System.
ANA is set to introduce from Sept.16 a complimentary helicopter transport from Tokyo Narita to central Tokyo for first-class passengers returning to the Japanese capital from New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Frankfurt. Mori Building City Air Services signed an agreement with the airline and will provide the service at least through March 31, 2010. On arrival at NRT, first-class passengers will be taken by limo on a 15-min. drive to the nearby Narita (Sakura) Heliport. From there it is a 15-min.
Cathay Pacific will launch four-times-weekly Hong Kong-Dubai-Jeddah service Oct. 25 aboard an A330-300. It will increase Hong Kong-Riyadh service to daily (from five-times-weekly) Aug. 1 and reduce Hong Kong service to Brisbane (from 10-times-weekly to daily Sept. 1-Nov. 17), San Francisco (14-times-weekly to 11-times-weekly in September and October) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle (from 10-times-weekly to daily Sept. 1).
EASA certified a new Auto-Pilot/Flight-Director TCAS mode for the A380 that Airbus said "essentially completes the existing TCAS functionality by implementing a TCAS vertical guidance feature into the Auto Flight computer." It explained that "the main benefit" is that "the pilot can now fly the aircraft without switching out of one mode and into another. . .
