After defeating an environmental challenge to building its main runway, the only new air carrier airport under construction in the US is aiming for a late May or early June opening next year. Panama City-Bay County International is being built along the northern Gulf Coast of Florida on 1,300 of the 4,000 acres donated for the project by the St. Joe Co., which will develop nearby commercial and industrial districts. A 41,000-acre conservation area adjoining the airport will protect the state's West Bay shoreline.
Emirates President Tim Clark is getting some strange complaint letters these days. "Passengers are telling me off. They are not getting any sleep on our flights because they are up all night watching classic movies," he muses. The trend toward airlines offering increasing numbers of old movies is not just owing to a fondness for black and white or film noir, however. Some carriers are not happy about the rising price of first-run movies and are turning to the classics, which are one-fifth or less the price of a new release, to help manage costs in these tough times.
Passengers flying long-haul from UK airports may opt for other European airports if the government fails to act on the Air Passenger Duty, according to a poll commissioned by the British Airline Pilots Assn. The government plans to more than double this tax on British airports over the next 18 months. The APD could add up to £85 to the price of a ticket at Heathrow, BALPA contends.
United Airlines told some travel agencies that they would " no longer have continued access to United's credit card merchant agreements," effective July 20. The carrier told the agencies that if customers wish to pay by credit card, the agencies should process the transactions under their own merchant agreements and settle in cash with United through the Airlines Reporting Corp. United said agents who received the notice but continued to process transactions using United's merchant facilities would receive $75 debit memos.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE: THAT'S THE QUESTION facing China's smaller privately run carriers. Clearly, Chengdu-based United Eagle Airlines and Wuhan-based East Star Airlines chose no as the answer. United Eagle had to sell a controlling stake to Sichuan Airlines in exchange for a capital injection of CNY200 million ($29.2 million). East Star was forced by CAAC to suspend operations and has gone through bankruptcy owing to its heavy debt burden.
AS US AIRLINES SCROUNGE for every last penny of ancillary revenue to replace the dollars no longer being spent on tickets, some are taking a second look at food service. The post-9/11 buy-on-board programs that grudgingly were introduced after carriers concluded they could not simply withdraw all sustenance from the skies are taking on a new flavor, according to some that have adopted or are considering such options.
The US House of Representatives passed an FAA reauthorization bill in May containing several controversial provisions championed by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.), setting the stage for debate in the Senate on the long-stalled effort to renew FAA's legislative mandate and provide long-term funding for the agency.
The US Dept. of Transportation cancelled proposed slot auctions at New York's three main area airports, reversing a controversial rule put in place by DOT in the waning days of the Bush administration. The plan to requisition slots from airlines at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark and auction them to reduce delays had been tied up in court since it was proposed last fall following legal challenges by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airports, as well as the Air Transport Assn. and IATA.
PHOTO CREDIT: Werner Kruger, Lufthansa Lufthansa Cargo AG launched an "information offensive" to retain nighttime cargo flights at Frankfurt Airport after local officials said they were considering a ban against them.
ICAO's Group on International Aviation and Climate Change this month recommended "a global aspirational goal of 2% annual improvement in fuel efficiency of the international civil aviation in-service fleet," but noticeably did not make any proposals on emissions trading.
Not so long ago, the air transport industry faced a serious dilemma. The rapid growth in air travel in the early 1990s meant that absent a step-change improvement in safety, the industry could reach a point where it sustained one fatal accident per week. Of course such a situation never would have been permitted to develop. No government or regulatory authority could have tolerated it and so aviation growth would have been curtailed, with all this entailed for its ability to continue playing a vital role in a growing global economy.
FOR A SUCCESSFUL TECHNOLOGY, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman's famous observation has relevance to the expectation within the aviation industry and general public that the new technology being incorporated into the latest generation of aircraft will by itself eliminate all airline accidents.
A GLOBAL RECESSION, A NEW DISEASE THAT IS PANICKING travelers and governments alike, rising violence and unrest in the Middle East: This is the setting for the 48th International Paris Air Show-Le Bourget (June 15-21), which also celebrates the 100th anniversary of the first air exposition held in Paris in 1909 at the Grand Palais.
US airlines say they made exactly the right moves in the first half of last year to prepare for the global financial downturn--even though they had no idea it was coming. The industry scrambled to counter ballooning fuel costs amid predictions that per-barrel crude oil prices, already at $150, would hit $200 or
Vancouver International will open C$100 million ($91.9 million) worth of new C-Pier gates in July and a C$50 million apron and taxiway are being built for these gates, part of the airport's $1.4 billion, 10-year capital improvement plan that includes many projects designed to ease travel for the tens of thousands of visitors expected for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
By the middle of the week, however, the mood had lightened. The rain gave way to bright sunshine, Boeing and others expressed confidence that the economy had hit bottom with a recovery on the horizon and Airbus was on its way to announcing firm orders for 58 aircraft valued at nearly $6.4 billion and MOUs for an additional 69 planes worth $6.5 billion.
IATA has committed to achieving carbon neutral traffic growth by 2020, the organization announced at its 65th Annual General Meeting in Kuala Lumpur this week. "Two years ago we set a vision to achieve carbon-neutral growth on the way to a carbon-free future. Today we have taken a major step forward by committing to a global cap on our emissions in 2020," IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said. After 2020, aviation will have to offset any carbon growth by purchasing credits or offsets under the plan.
Virgin Blue, the Australian low-cost carrier, will migrate to Navitaire's New Skies platform later this year. Virgin Blue has been using Navitaire's Open Skies system since its launch.
One of the least understood and most contentious issues surrounding aviation's impact on the environment has been the potential contribution of contrails to climate change. During the grounding of the US commercial airline fleet in the days following 9/11, scientists at the University of Wisconsin claimed that the absence of contrails was responsible for a 1.1 deg. C (2 deg. F) change in temperature over the US.
A ruling from the European Parliament that allows airlines to hang onto their unused airport slots could affect passenger service adversely with last-minute flight cancellations and may serve as an artificial barrier to market access for LCCs, warned Airports Council International Europe.
Although science is capable of solving the technical challenges of creating safe, sustainable, second-generation aviation biofuels, getting them into production in large quantities will take a major effort that may not be possible without government support, according to speakers at the recent Eco-Aviation conference in Washington sponsored by ATW and Leeham Co.
THE FIRST RECORDED INFLIGHT COLLISION INVOLVING A powered aircraft and a bird is believed to have occurred not too long after the first powered flight. In September 1905, Orville Wright was chasing a flock of birds when he struck one. He landed safely but the encounter was fatal for the bird. The incident, recounted in the Wright Brothers' diaries, began a dangerous relationship that continues to this day, having claimed many hundreds of human lives and countless thousands of birds.
Virgin Blue joins AGD The Virgin Blue Group of carriers is the first Australian operator to join the Aviation Global Deal Group. AGD is a coalition of airlines and BAA along with international nonprofit The Climate Group that was formed to work for inclusion of aviation in a "new global climate deal" scheduled to be discussed at December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen. In April, the AGD presented a draft policy framework for aviation emissions to UN climate change negotiators in Bonn.
Air New Zealand will cut capacity an additional 3% in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010, and said it has "entered into discussions with unions on how to minimize any potential job losses. . .A review of crewing requirements to meet existing customer demand has identified a potential surplus of up to 40 cabin crew and pilots in regional airline and domestic jet operations."
