Bmi likely will not be profitable for the full year and will trim winter capacity in response to declining passenger demand, Deputy CEO Tim Bye told ATWOnline.
Boeing may avoid a second costly labor strike with the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace following negotiations last week. The Everett Herald reported that leaders on both sides emerged upbeat following talks, with SPEEA Executive Director Ray Goforth telling the paper, "There was more substantive talk about issues during this two-hour meeting than we've had with Boeing since committees started meeting eight months ago." The tone represents a reversal from last month, when SPEEA offered public support for the International Assn.
Aer Arann will lay off up to 100 employees (about 25% of its workforce) as part of a restructuring it said will "better position the airline in the current difficult operating environment." The Dublin-based carrier also plans to operate nine aircraft rather than the current 13 on its own network and will focus on increasing its wet-lease business, according to press reports.
US Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) released a letter he wrote to US airline CEOs urging them to "roll back. . .fuel surcharges and extra fees" in line with lower oil prices. "It seems to me that the extra costs of flying imposed over the summer are less relevant as fuel prices have declined," he wrote.
Tianjin-based Okay Airways became the first Chinese carrier to operate the domestically produced MA60 as the company completed a successful inaugural flight on Oct. 19. The 50/60-seat turboprop's other customers are from Latin America, Africa and elsewhere in Asia. The aircraft has received 136 orders so far. China's first LCC, Okay has increased its focus on the regional market in recent years ( ATWOnline, March 17). Last year it signed a lease deal with China Aviation Industrial Leasing Co.
Extech Data Systems said it added capability to its Andes 3 portable printer featuring a 32-bit microcontroller from ST Microelectronics, a 4MB Flash, 1MB SRAM memory and an in-field programmable CPU. Technology utilizes Form Fiesta, a Windows-based utility enabling users to create boarding passes, parking tickets and other forms.
Qantas yesterday launched A380 service to the US West Coast when its inaugural Melbourne-Los Angeles flight, QF93, departed Australia at 11:15 a.m. local time and landed at LAX at around 7:30 a.m. QF94 was scheduled to depart LAX late last night. Qantas will operate its first Sydney-LAX A380 flight Friday and it said using the A380 on routes to the US is "a mark of its commitment to growing the transpacific market." It currently offers 47 weekly flights to the US.
UPS will raise air express shipping rates by an average of 4.9% from Jan. 5. It said the increase reflects a 6.9% rise in the base rate and a 2% reduction in fuel surcharges. The move indicates that the delivery giant is less concerned about oil prices, which have dropped sharply recently, but remains wary of the weak global economy and its potentially negative effect on express package shipping next year.
US Dept. of State's discussion draft for a "Multilateral Convention on Foreign Investment in Airlines" that was presented to reporters last week in Kuala Lumpur ( ATWOnline, March 17) now is available on both the ATWOnline home page under White Papers & Speeches and here.
Hansung Airlines, a low-cost carrier based at Cheongju, suspended operations Saturday, according to The Korea Times, which reported that the three-year-old airline had failed to pay KRW990 million ($741,000) in airport fees and wages over the past two months and was KRW27.2 billion in debt.
FedEx Express yesterday broke ground on its new European air hub at Cologne/Bonn. The express carrier's primary Central/Eastern European hub currently is located at Frankfurt, but a potential ban on night flights at the airport led it to make the move. The new hub is slated to be completed in 2010.
Turkish Airlines flew 25.53 billion RPKs through the first nine months of 2008, up 12.6% from the year-ago period. Capacity rose 10% to 34.17 billion ASKs and load factor was up 1.7 points to 74.7%. Northwest Airlines flew 6.2 billion consolidated RPMs in September, down 0.5% year-over-year. Capacity fell 0.1% to 7.45 billion ASMs and load factor dropped 0.4 point to 83.3%. Hawaiian Airlines flew 599.2 million RPMs in September, down 10.3% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 1.4% to 749.2 million ASMs, dropping load factor 7.9 points to 80%.
Enerjet is the new name of NewAir & Tours, a Calgary-based charter and tourism startup whose president and CEO Tim Morgan was among WestJet's founders. Enerjet will launch 737-700 charter flights in the 2009 first quarter and its tourism arm in the third quarter.
S7 Airlines plans to phase out the last of its 35 Russian-built aircraft next week owing to lower passenger demand. "The summer season was an alarm bell for us," CEO Vladislav Filev told ATWOnline in Moscow, calling the decision to ground S7's 27 Tu-154s and eight Il-86s "dramatic" and necessary to remain profitable.
Ryanair exercised options for 10 737-800s under terms of its 2005 agreement with Boeing ( ATWOnline, Feb. 25, 2005). Three aircraft are scheduled for delivery in October 2010 and seven the following month. Separately, the LCC said it has asked the UK Office of Fair Trading to investigate Air BP's alleged attempt to increase the delivery cost of aviation fuel at Belfast City and Glasgow Prestwick by more than 50%.
British Airways CEO Willie Walsh last week reiterated his call to move forward with the second phase of EU-US open skies and to remove all current ownership and control restrictions so airlines can consolidate. "It is absolutely clear to me that one of the solutions to the problems this industry is facing is consolidation. We've got to be able to move beyond artificial restriction," he said at the Routes Leaders Forum in Kuala Lumpur.
Austrian Airlines Group issued a new forecast last week "based on the already observed as well as expected declines in bookings," and now is expecting a 2008 net loss before special items of €100-€125million ($134.5-$168.1 million).
The US National Transportation Safety Board issued an "urgent recommendation" to FAA to require that all Pratt & Whitney PW2037 engines be removed from service for inspection of the second-stage turbine hubs when they have accumulated 10,880 flight hr. and/or 4,392 cycles, a warning driven by the board's investigation of a Delta Air Lines 757-200 uncontained engine failure on an attempted takeoff from Las Vegas on Aug. 6.
Thomsonfly will cease operations at Coventry next month in line with parent TUI Travel's strategy to refocus airline operations on leisure routes and reduce low-cost scheduled city-to-city flying ( ATW, October 2008). The UK carrier, which will be rebranded to Thomson Airways following its merger with First Choice Airways, flew to some 10 destinations from the airport. Thomsonfly's decision to pull out of CVT is casting doubts on its future as a passenger facility.
Russian government last week presented a series of proposals to help beleaguered airlines, including a suggestion from Transportation Minister Igor Levitin that tariffs on foreign aircraft leased by Russian carriers be abolished if additional domestic aircraft are leased as well, Prime-Tass reported. The ministry did decide to cancel import tariffs on certain components and equipment for a nine-month period beginning in December.
Bmi will double the frequency of its London Heathrow-Riyadh service to six-times-weekly effective Jan. 15 following a revised air services agreement reached by the UK and Saudi Arabian governments. Three weekly LHR-RUK services will continue to Jeddah and three to Damman. Simultaneously, bmi will suspend its thrice-weekly LHR-JED. Separately, it signed a three-year agreement with Sabre Travel Network giving Sabre travel agencies and corporations access to inventory including Web-only fares.
Berlin Tegel-based Germania will stop operating scheduled services during the winter schedule and maintain only its charter and wet-lease operations. It also will phase out its remaining eight F100s; it already had removed 11 from the fleet. Its network currently comprises 12 destinations. It transported 4 million passengers last year and also operates four 737-300s and eight 737-700s. An additional two -700s and four -300s are on dry lease to other airlines.
Sun Country Airlines, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month ( ATWOnline, Oct. 7), said it will pay employees 70% of their pay for the rest of 2008 instead of 50% as originally announced. Chairman, President and CEO Stan Gadek, in a message to employees, cited "continued customer support for our business in the form of new bookings" and explained that SCA had more cash on hand than expected. But he warned that the carrier is "still at risk."
In a dramatic reversal, Jet Airways late Thursday night announced that the 1,900 employees targeted for layoffs would be reinstated, with Chairman Naresh Goyal claiming his decision did not come from political pressure or union threats but rather because he "cannot see the tears in their eyes."
