AirBaltic will undergo the largest fleet expansion in its history owing to parent SAS Group's contract with Bombardier announced Monday ( ATWOnline, March 11). The carrier will take delivery of at least eight Q400 NextGen aircraft starting next year and will hold options for four more. New aircraft will replace F50s. AirBaltic also plans to add two 757-200s and three 737-300s this year.
Barco said UK NATS selected its OSYRIS arrival management software for London Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and City airports. Contract includes software integration with the existing ATC system.
US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters vowed to take action "swiftly" if "serious allegations" that FAA safety inspectors were negligent in their oversight of Southwest Airlines are true.
SAS Group said it will receive "slightly more" than SEK1 billion ($163.3 million) in cash and credit toward new aircraft purchases in settlement with Bombardier and Goodrich over the Q400 landing gear incidents that led the airline to retire its 27 Q400s last fall. As part of the settlement, SAS ordered 13 firm CRJ900 NextGens worth $474 million and 14 Q400 NexGens worth $356 million. It optioned a further 17 CRJ900s and seven Q400s. Delivery of the firm aircraft begins this fall and continues through 2011.
China Southern Airlines will shift its priorities from its traditional focus on domestic routes to a more ambitious commitment to international expansion, Chairman Liu Shaoyong said yesterday. Last year CZ opened 10 new international routes from Guangzhou. "We plan to open more international routes starting from Beijing to New York, London and Detroit, [plus] Guangzhou-Moscow by 2012," Liu revealed. He claimed that CZ's cargo business also will grow significantly. "I expect our cargo transport volume will increase threefold in the next few years," he said.
British Airways said it intends to seek a High Court injunction to prevent its pilots from taking strike action after conciliated talks broke down Friday night ( ATWOnline, Feb. 25). "If strike dates are issued, we will act to protect our customers by applying for an injunction," BA said. The parties are in dispute over the new OpenSkies subsidiary, which is scheduled to commence Paris-New York JFK service in June using non-BALPA pilots.
Emirates is expending significant effort to enter its first A380 into service earlier than the Oct. 1 target date, when it intends to operate Dubai-New York JFK with its first delivery ( ATWOnline, March 4). It expects to take the first aircraft in August, "but we will try to get it earlier, by midsummer, and start scheduled services ahead of October," an EK spokesperson told ATWOnline in Berlin. It is possible the first destination may change from JFK as well.
ExpressJet Holdings reported a $70.2 million loss in 2007 compared to a profit of $92.6 million in 2006. Revenue rose just 0.2% to $1.69 billion while expenses soared 16.3% to $1.79 billion owing to higher fuel costs and expenses related to the launch of its branded flying operation. It had an operating loss of $106.9 million compared to a profit of $140.1 million a year earlier. In an effort to stem the losses, the company will reduce its number of branded aircraft from 44 to 36 in April. The number of daily departures will be cut from 220 to 172.
US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced that airlines serving Newark International have agreed formally to cap flights temporarily 83 per hr. beginning in early May. DOT, which imposed a cap at New York JFK of 83 flights per hr. beginning this month, announced in December that it would impose a similar cap at EWR and pegged the airport's capacity at 83 flights per hr. ( ATWOnline, Dec.
Shannon Aerospace, the Ireland-based narrowbody airframe and MRO subsidiary of Lufthansa Technik, is targeting a 30% increase in productivity and a 30% reduction in ground times using "lean" initiatives. The company recently welcomed Ken Kreafle, a GM of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Co. USA and an authority on the Toyota Production System, to its Shannon facility.
Air France KLM board met yesterday and authorized the company to submit an offer for Alitalia Friday subject to certain pre-conditions, "including notably the commitment of the trade unions." Meanwhile, AF KLM dismissed a Le Figaro report that Chairman and CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta will resign as CEO in October when he reaches age 65. He would remain chairman, the newspaper said, adding without citing sources that President and COO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon would succeed him.
US FAA projected a "near term. . .definite pause in growth" for the domestic airline market in its annual aerospace forecast released yesterday but emphasized that growth will be "vibrant down the road." Speaking at the FAA Aviation Forecast Conference in Washington, Acting Administrator Bobby Sturgell said, "We're talking flat growth in operations and slow growth in passengers." He cited a "series of cascading events" that led to the slowdown, including "$100 oil, an economic picture that's in flux, potential consolidations, and credit market woes."
Lufthansa released further details about its plans to operate its own private jet service beginning this year to replace the agreement it had with NetJets to provide the service. First announced three months ago ( ATWOnline, Dec.
Air China Acting Chairman Kong Dong said Friday that CA plans to introduce Cathay Pacific Airways as its partner in its bid for China Eastern Airlines to help improve CEA's management if the Shanghai-based carrier reverses its decision and accepts Air China's offer. CEA formally rejected Air China's bid last month ( ATWOnline, Feb. 19), but CA parent China National Aviation Holding Co. urged the airline to reconsider earlier last week.
Rumors of further delays to the first flight of the 787 gained momentum Friday as Goldman Sachs indicated the world may have to wait at least an additional three months. In a client note, GS analyst Richard Safran said, "Our sources indicate 787 power-on, scheduled for March end, may be delayed until the end of June. First flight, expected three months after power-on, may be further delayed. We now think deliveries will start in the third quarter of 2009 versus the current 'early '09' target."
Southwest Airlines claimed that both Boeing and US FAA approved its continued operation of 46 737 Classics for nine days in March 2007 even though the aircraft had not undergone required inspections, expressing dismay at the size of the agency's proposed fine for alleged safety lapses.
Delta Air Lines promoted Delta TechOps Senior VP Tony Charaf to president of the MRO division. VP-Maintenance Operations John Laughter was promoted to senior VP and VP-operational control and reliability while Neil Stronach was elevated to senior VP-operations control. Gil West will join DL as senior VP-airport customer service.
Avionica said Continental Airlines secured its ACARS communications in passenger service over the Iridium satellite network. One of CO's satLINK-equipped 737-800s reached its Houston headquarters as it flew over the Pacific. The carrier also plans to install satLINK on 757-200s.
Qatar Airways plans to start all-premium flights out of Doha on medium-haul routes, CEO Akbar Al Baker told ATWOnline at last week's ITB tourism fair in Berlin, and aircraft configured with an all-first-class cabin should be operating by year end.
Flight Safety Foundation, winner of Air Transport World's Joseph S. Murphy Industry Service Award for 2008 ( ATWOnline, Jan. 29), announced a partnership with Aviation Safety Foundation-Australasia designed to "better spread the FSF safety message through Australia and Southeast Asia" and offer the Melbourne-based organization access to FSF resources and assistance.
GE Aviation began a scrap reclamation program with Turkish Airlines as launch partner to recycle hardware containing rhenium. Program calls for customers to return scrap HPT blades made from nickel superalloys containing rhenium to GE. "The program will help them with their environmental efforts as well as help reduce the costs associated with material disposal. For GE, it will help us reduce our need for rhenium, which is a rare and costly element," VP-Supply Chain Scott Ernest said. Material is to be cleaned and melted for reuse.
China Southern Airlines Chairman Liu Shaoyong told reporters in Beijing yesterday that he hopes to sign a joint venture cargo agreement with Air France KLM this year, Reuters reported. "Our discussions with Air France are going smoothly," he said. The airline announced last year that it had entered into exclusive talks with AF-KLM to launch a JV freight carrier in China ( ATWOnline, May 16, 2007).
TUIfly's brand will not disappear should the carrier complete its merger with Germanwings, TUI Germany CEO Volker Bottcher said in Berlin yesterday. TUI signed an MOU with Lufthansa in January to combine their LCC subsidiaries into one "joint and independent holding company" ( ATWOnline, Feb. 27). Travel conglomerate TUI owns TUIfly, the combination of Hapag-Lloyd Flug and Hapag-Lloyd Express, while LH partners with Germanwings and Eurowings along with Albrecht Knauf Industriebeteiligung.
