Goodrich announced a $5.5 million project to expand its customer service headquarters and MRO facility in Monroe, La. Slated for completion in the third quarter, the expansion will accommodate additional services, including complex repairs of large aircraft cargo systems.
Ryanair will establish its 24th European base at Bournemouth on England's south coast. From April the LCC will base one 737-800 there and launch service to Malaga, Murcia, Nantes, Palma and Wroclaw, lifting to 12 the number of routes it serves from the airport. It also will add a second daily flight to Glasgow Prestwick. It expects to bring 1 million passengers per year to Bournemouth. Separately, Ryanair said its proposal to establish operations at Milan Malpensa has been rejected by airports operator SEA, which is 84.5% controlled by the municipality of Milan.
British Airways will launch its new transatlantic subsidiary, OpenSkies, in June with daily flights from New York JFK to Brussels or Paris Charles de Gaulle using 757s carrying up to 82 passengers in business, premium economy and economy sections.
Air Canada Technical Services reached a 10-year OnPoint Solutions agreement with GE for material to repair CF34 engines and a 10-year materials deal with CFM for the repair and overhaul of CFM56 engines, specifically the -2, -3, -5A, -5B and -5C. Contracts total an estimated $2.5 billion covering life-limited and nonlife-limited parts plus component repair and used materials for work on GE and CFM engines.
China Eastern Airlines began assessing its options in the aftermath of Tuesday's rejection by minority shareholders of its planned 24% stake sale to Singapore Airlines and parent Temasek, with pressure mounting for it to resolve its ownership situation quickly.
KLM Cityhopper will transfer the maintenance of its F70 fleet to Nayak Aircraft Services from Martinair Maintenance & Engineering following the latter's decision to "focus more on improving its own operations and making preparations for Martinair's possible fleet renewal," KLM said. Cityhopper operates 21 F70s. Nayak already works on Cityhopper's 14 F50s. Martinair will continue MRO on Cityhopper's 20 F100s until they are phased out in 2010. Between late 2008 and early 2010 it will replace its 15 oldest F100s with 10 E-190s and five F70s.
ARINC announced installation of its AviNet Type B business networking service for air berlin under a three-year service contract. Technology features protocol translation and IATA Type B messaging.
Southwest Airlines released a summer schedule that features the elimination of 57 roundtrip flights and the addition of 40 new flights, including service to six new destinations from Denver. The schedule takes effect May 10 and reflects the fact that the airline is "concerned about slowing economic growth, and we want our flight schedule to be built around flights that are in high demand," according to CEO Gary Kelly ( ATWOnline, Jan. 9).
SAS Group airlines flew 2.71 billion RPKs in December, up 2.9% from the year-ago month. Capacity rose 3.3% to 4.11 billion ASKs and load factor dropped 0.3 point to 65.8%. SAS Scandinavian Airlines enjoyed a 1.1% increase in yield as traffic climbed 2.2% to 1.81 billion RPKs. Capacity was up 3.6% to 2.61 billion ASKs, lowering load factor 1 point to 69.3%.
Kuwaiti government yesterday approved the sale of 40% of Kuwait Airways in a domestic public placement and another 35% to a long-term investor within two years, according to press reports. The government will hold 20% with workers taking the remaining 5%. The head of the parliament's financial committee told reporters that KU will place an aircraft order following the privatization, according to Reuters
Singapore Changi's new Terminal 3 opened for operations yesterday after months of intensive preparatory tests, which included 50 trial flights of which 20 were actual flights. First arrival was SQ001 from San Francisco at 11:50 and first departure was to London Heathrow at 12:50 ( ATWOnline, June 18, 2007). T3 will increase SIN's annual capacity to 70 million passengers.
British Airways will launch five-times-weekly London Heathrow-Hyderabad flights on Oct. 27 aboard a 777. Hyderabad becomes BA's sixth Indian destination. Austrian Airlines Group announced the expansion of its Russian network with thrice-weekly flights to Sochi starting April 1 and Nizhny Novgorod the following day. Both routes will be operated by F70s. AAG currently serves five Russian destinations and will be the Western carrier with the second-largest presence in the country behind Lufthansa.
SriLankan Airlines Chairman Harry Jayawardena issued a statement confirming that the government of Sri Lanka will take "total control" of the airline following Emirates' decision to opt out of its management contract from April 1 ( ATWOnline, Jan. 8). He said the government "will continue to manage the national carrier for the best interest of the public and the country at large" and will continue to be SriLankan's majority owner with no plans to divest.
AWAS, the Dublin-based lessor, gave Airbus a strong start to the year with an order for 75 A320s plus 25 options. The firm aircraft will bring its Airbus portfolio to 145 units, the manufacturer said. The deal is valued at $6.9 billion at list prices.
Austrian Airlines Group appointed Walter Reimann to the position of VP-international and aeropolitical affairs and alliances. He succeeds new COO Peter Malanik.
Rolls-Royce sold Trent 700s to Thai Airways for its fleet of eight new A330-300s scheduled to begin delivery in 2009. The engines are worth approximately $300 million at list prices, Rolls said. Contract also includes a 10-year TotalCare services agreement.
Pinnacle Airlines filed suit in US District Court against the Air Line Pilots Assn. charging the union that represents the carrier's pilots with "bad faith bargaining" in contract talks that date back to 2005. Pinnacle operates as a Northwest Airlink and Delta Connection carrier. An ALPA spokesperson told ATWOnline that the suit was "unprecedented," adding, "The lawyer who will handle the case can't remember when we were sued for failing to bargain in good faith."
Lufthansa Systems reached agreement with Turkish Airlines to implement its codeshare management solution SchedConnect featuring agreements in real time, flight synchronization technology and network expansion. Product launch is expected this quarter.
Clickair carried 4.5 million passengers in 2007, in line with its business plan, but full-year revenue came in lower than forecast, CEO Alex Cruz told ATWOnline while also confirming the LCC will scale down its planned fleet expansion this year.
Encomium Media, founded recently by former OAG VP Duncan Alexander, launched services for Athens International. Company offers consulting, public relations, marketing and research expertise.
China Eastern Airlines Chairman Li Fenghua insisted yesterday that the carrier's plan to sell a 25% stake to Singapore Airlines and its parent Temasek was not dead even after more than 77% of CEA's minority shareholders voted against the deal, effectively killing it.
EasyJet yesterday launched thrice-weekly Liverpool-Innsbruck service. The LCC transported 2.9 million passengers last month, up 9.9% from December 2006. Load factor fell 2.2 points to 78.9%.
Frontier Airlines will report a pre-tax loss for the third fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, 2007, President and CEO Sean Menke said. A $0.78-$0.88 per share loss excluding special items, larger than forecast, was caused by "higher-than-expected operating expenses" related to winter weather in Denver and the Midwest late last month and "weaker-than-expected performance in some sun destination markets," he said. December yield rose 1.5% year-over-year to 11.55 cents and passenger RASM climbed 8.1% to 8.39 cents.
