Airlines throughout the world are contending with antitrust charges made at the end of 2007 by the European Commission, which has accused at least 11 and as many as 25 carriers of "cartel" activity relating to airfreight transport.
Lufthansa will add 4,300 new employees this year in Germany, including 2,000 flight attendants and 1,000 ground staff to be based in Frankfurt and Munich. In addition, 360 flight cadets will start their careers at Lufthansa Flight Training in Bremen. LH employs 105,000, with 65,000 based in Germany.
Assn. of European Airlines elected KLM President and CEO Peter Hartman as chairman for 2008. Hartman takes over from Iberia Chairman and CEO Fernando Conte.
When all-business-class carrier MAXJet Airways announced it was filing for bankruptcy and shutting down service on Christmas Eve, two other all-business airlines quickly stepped forward to offer services to displaced passengers and reaffirm their commitment to the service model.
NASA released some 16,000 pages of data from its 2001-04 National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service survey, in which more than 25,000 pilots were asked a range of questions about air safety in the US and reported much higher rates of midair near misses, runway incursions and engine failures than reported by FAA. But NASA, which drew strong criticism two months ago for failing to release the results of the $11 million project publicly ( ATWOnline, Nov.
Allegiant Air will launch twice-weekly Orlando Sanford-Plattsburgh flights and expand its twice-weekly Plattsburgh-Fort Lauderdale service to four-times-weekly on Feb. 1.
Megadata Corp. said Newark Liberty selected its PASSUR Portal and inSight software technologies offering Web-based operational information and flight following capabilities.
Exclusive negotiations between Air France KLM and Alitalia on a possible merger were scheduled to start yesterday following the official approval of Italian Minister of Finance Tommaso Padoa-Schoppia last Friday, according to widespread press reports.
LET THERE BE NO DOUBT: EUROPE'S HIGH-SPEED TRAINS are on a mission to increase their competitive clout over their counterparts in the air. Last summer, seven HST operators announced the formal creation of Railteam, a marketing partnership mirroring the well-established airline alliances (see box, p. 42).
Social networking was undoubtedly the hot trend of the year, at least according to the people who plan travel industry conference agendas. The travel industry is still grappling with how to monetize the huge and amorphous phenomenon. "Two-thirds of online customers use social media," Cindy Estis Green, managing partner of the Estis Group, said.
Commport Aerospace Services Ltd. displayed its fuel administration software, realTimeFuel, at IATA's fuel forum in Istanbul. Compatible with most hardware and management systems, the technology offers hands-on, real-time access to the fueling operation, eliminating costs associated with printed tickets, fuel sheets and data handling in reconciliation systems.
ACTS Aero Technical Support & Services, formerly Air Canada Technical Services, signed long-term material and repair contracts from GE and CFM valued at an estimated $2.5 billion. "This is the biggest contract we've ever signed with a supplier," ACTS told Airline Procurement. "It goes beyond the typical customer and supplier relationship. It is an alliance."
The fares will increase by €15 for one-way flights and €30 for roundtrips. Lufthansa will continue to offer its pre-hike fares, which it has dubbed "Lufthansa Preferred Rates," after July 1 for direct sales through its Web site, call center, ticket counter and its dedicated travel agent Web site, lufthansa-agent.com. Travel agents can book Preferred Rates through a GDS if they agree to pay a fee of €4.90 plus VAT per coupon. Otherwise, they will have access only to the higher fares in the GDS.
ENGINE CONDITION MONITORING is moving from diagnostics toward prognostics, pushing at least part way toward true condition-based maintenance. Sensors and systems have become very good at forecasting and thus preventing potential failures, saving money on delays and major repairs. But they cannot reliably predict success: How much longer a part or engine can stay on-wing.
But then, we'll guess that Lufthansa did not plunk down $300 million for 19% of JetBlue and a seat on the low-fare airline's board of directors because it's looking for a superior ROI or dividend yield that it can't get elsewhere. With all due respect to JetBlue (a fine airline that has hit some turbulence), there's only one US carrier that has demonstrated long-term equity appreciation and a reliable dividend stream and it is based in Dallas, not Queens.
GLOBAL AIR CARGO TRAFFIC growth rates have been disappointingly below average for the past three years, holding at 4%-5% for each of the last two years following growth of just 2% in 2005. That falls short of the 6.1% annual average growth over the long term projected by Boeing, Airbus and other observers, and well below the overall global cargo growth rate of 10% for all forms of transport.
A YEAR AGO, ATW PREDICTED that 2007 would be the peak year of the current airline earnings cycle. It appears we may have been correct. The good news is that barring a catastrophe the industry will enjoy a second consecutive year of profitability in 2008. The bad news is that it probably won't be as good as 2007. Measured against the losses of the first half of the decade, however, one reasonably may conclude that the bad news just isn't that bad. Expectations have been reset, not just owing to 9/11 and SARS but also because of $90/barrel crude.
Pratt & Whitney took a big step forward toward expanding its engine maintenance, repair and overhaul footprint in Europe and the Middle East with this month's agreement with Turkish Airlines Technic to build a 25,000-sq.-m. engine overhaul center at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport.
MERE MONTHS AGO, MANY EXPERTS RELEGATED BIOFUELS for commercial jets to the realm of the quasirealisticsomething hovering just over the horizon. This magazine said as much in our May 2007 story "Fueling the Future" (ATW, 5/07, p. 38). Things have changed.
China Airlines said in December that its board approved the signing of a letter of intent with Airbus to purchase 14 A350-900s plus six options valued at $4.2 billion if all options are exercised. The aircraft will be delivered from 2015 to 2020, replacing the carrier's A340-300 fleet and expanding its mid- and long-haul capacity. The A350-900s will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWBs. Rolls placed the value of the engine deal at $800 million if all options are exercised.
IN A MATTER OF WEEKS, ONE WOULD-be purveyor of a next-generation passenger services system dropped out of the market and another joined the fray. Lufthansa Systems ceased development of its FACE (Future Airline Core Environment) passenger management platform, citing but not identifying "commercial reasons" for the decision.
IN EARLY 2004, KLAUS ZUMWINKEL, CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF DHL Express parent Deutsche Post World Net, made something of a victory lap in the US. The contentious legal dispute over whether DHL subservice airlines Astar Air Cargo (formerly DHL Airways) and ABX Air (formerly the air arm of Airborne Express) could carry DHL cargo in the US had just been decided favorably.
CAE won orders for full-flight simulators and related CAE Simfinity training devices valued at more than C$126 million ($124.1 million) from Continental Airlines, US Airways, Etihad Airways, Air Algerie and Alteon Training.
Air Berlin said CEO Joachim Hunold added the title of LTU chairman and named Helmut Weixier LTU MD-flight operations and accountable manager. Alaska Air Group promoted Ginny Carruthers to dir.-government affairs. American Assn. of Airport Executives welcomed Alexsis Horowitz as dir.-communications. Astraeus Flystar introduced Shaun Monnery as dir.-aircraft leasing. Atlantic Southeast Airlines appointed Bradford Holt COO replacing Bryan LaBreque, who retired. AWAS tapped Ruben Sanchez as VP-sales.
LLamasoft released Version 4.0 of its Supply Chain Guru network design software featuring data importation and modeling options, a new simulation engine, multitime period optimization and production process and transportation modeling.
