Delta Air Lines named former Pinnacle Airlines Chairman and Greyhound Lines CEO Stephen Gorman executive VP-operations, succeeding the retiring Joseph Kolshak. Gorman previously was executive VP-flight operations and technical operations at Northwest Airlines and became Pinnacle chairman in 2003.
Nationwide Airlines of South Africa announced Friday that the South African Civil Aviation Authority suspended the carrier's Aviation Maintenance Organization license, resulting in the grounding of all flights. "We have approached the CAA for further details and guidance in respect of any actions they would like us to implement that would enable them to reinstate the AMO's license at which point normal operations will resume," Nationwide CEO Vernon Bricknell said in a message to customers posted on the airline's website.
EgyptAir signed a long-term contract with GECAS for the lease of six 777-300ERs. The first aircraft is scheduled for delivery in February 2010 and will be used on nonstop routes from Cairo to New York JFK and Tokyo Narita. A stop in Bangkok will be eliminated on the latter route but the city will continue to be connected to Cairo with a separate flight. "The 777-300s will supplement our current fleet of five 777-200s," Chairman and CEO Sherif Saad Eldin Galal told ATWOnline.
An Atlasjet Airlines MD-83 outbound from Istanbul crashed early Friday morning during its approach to Isparta Airport in southern Turkey, killing all 57 passengers and crew onboard. The crash site was located in mountainous terrain approximately 7 mi. from Isparta. The aircraft, which was wet-leased from World Focus Airlines, departed IST at 12:50 a.m., 90 min. late owing to its late arrival inbound from Pristina, according to Atlasjet. The crash occurred about 45 min. after takeoff. Published reports described weather as clear and moonlit.
Ryanair said Friday it filed its fifth lawsuit in recent weeks in the European Court of First Instance against the European Commission, this time alleging it failed to investigate illegal state aid to Alitalia. According to the LCC, AZ's subsidies included a split-up of the company's assets and operations and an uneven allocation of debt, resulting in a €1.7 billion ($2.51 billion) debt write-off. Ryanair said it called on the EC to investigate this "blatant abuse" of EU competition rules more than two years ago but the EC has failed to do so.
A profitable fourth quarter helped SkyEurope Airlines narrow its full-fiscal-year loss to €24.1 million ($35.6 million) from the €57.3 million suffered in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2006. Full-year revenue rose 27.4% to €236.2 million against just a 4.2% lift in expenses to €226.6 million. Fuel costs actually declined 5.2% even in the face of a capacity increase thanks to a fuel hedge that expired in August and a weak US dollar, the carrier said. Operating loss improved to €20.9 million from €55.5 million in the 2005-06 fiscal year.
Condor Airlines will establish a maintenance facility for its 757s and 767s in Frankfurt, creating 170 jobs. The new facility will perform work up to A checks.
American Airlines parent AMR Corp.'s announcement that it plans to divest subsidiary American Eagle was not enough to reassure shareholder FL Group, which said Friday that it lowered its stake in AMR to 1.1% from 9.1%.
CHINESE AVIATION ANALYSTS USED to warn that China's air transport industry could not fly on the single engine of Air China. For example, the industry enjoyed a significant financial turnaround in 2006 with a collective net profit of CNY2.38 billion ($311 million) compared with a CNY1.35 billion loss in 2005. But that reversal, as outlined in CAAC's annual report, largely was owing to Air China's success, as the Beijing-based carrier earned CNY3.19 billion.
THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE WHEN you enter the reception area of the Florida headquarters of Spirit Airlines is that there is no receptionist. Stretched across the wall is a banner with an explanation in bold letters: The self-service reception area allows the company to save 2 cents per customer by not staffing the front desk. That's right, 2 cents. Spirit, which bills itself as an ultra-low-fare carrier, does indeed count every penny.
Attempting to leave no trace is a noble, often unsung pursuit. You don't have to tiptoe across rice paper to sense the courage of that ideal. For aviation manufacturers and suppliers, a greener footprint calls for vision, commitment and stewardship. Practices that foster energy efficiency, pollution prevention, longer lifecycles, recycling and responsible disposal no longer bow to the bottom line. "There's more consistency around the world about the need to be environmentally accountable," says Goodrich Environmental, Health and Safety Director Dennis Hussey.
Amadeus this week will unveil the first components of a new next-generation distribution technology platform for the hotel industry. As a first step, Amadeus has completed the migration of the 75,000 hotel properties that participate in its GDS from a system based on TPF (transaction processing facility) to a Linux platform, Jérôme Destors, deputy managing director of Amadeus' Hospitality Business Group, said. All hotel GDS operations are now running on the open-systems platform.
'IT'S NOT TOO FAR, IT JUST SEEMS LIKE IT IS' I first experienced the above quote from the legendary baseball player Yogi Berra in an airline purchasing executive's office. The subject was a proposed modification on a cabin pressurization switch, and there was general agreement from the vendor and those from maintenance and materials. "Everyone loves this mod," I remember someone said. "But these systems are problematic to line maintenance and pilots. Replacing manual cabin pressurization with electronic results in higher reliability, more comfort for passengers."
BASED IN COPENHAGEN but with warehouses scattered around the globe, Satair is one of the leading distributors of aircraft production parts and spares. In the year to June 30, 2007, it boasted revenues of almost $360 million, up 37% from the previous year. Of this growth, 18% was organic with the remainder attributable to acquisitions that made a sizeable contribution. For the current FY it is forecasting revenue in the range of $400-$410 million, up 13%, reflecting a period of consolidation following considerable acquisition activity in the last couple of years.
IT WAS 1 P.M. ON A TYPICAL SUMMER afternoon at Los Angeles International. WestJet Flight 900, a 737NG from Calgary that had just landed, held between parallel Runways 24R and 24L as directed by the LAX tower. "Without authorization, the WestJet crew changed radio frequencies and contacted ground control," according to the US National Transportation Safety Board. The ground controller "assumed" that the 737NG had been "cleared to cross Runway 24L and provided instructions for the flight to taxi to its gate," NTSB said.
THE STRENGTH AND longevity of the current aircraft buying cycle continues to surprise, but is it a legitimate reflection of the underlying vitality of the global economy or a dot.com-like bubble that is soon to burst? Among aircraft financiers and asset managers with whom ATW spoke, the consensus is that it's the former.
Anyone who spends much time in or around the airline industry is familiar with the concept of faith. In the early days of air travel it was as fundamental as believing that the runway would be there when you broke out of the clouds and that the propellers would keep spinning until the tires touched the ground. Faith continues to play a significant role in guiding our industry, although thankfully the subjects almost never involve a wing and a prayer anymore.
The speed at which revenue is processed and understood together with the level of accuracy that results from certain accounting methods has been a growing concern in the airline industry for some time now. Greater processing complexity tends to drive cost up, and these days cost is a factor that most airlines can't afford to be complacent about.
DURING ITS DRAMATIC 19-MONTH stint in Chapter 11, the third-largest US carrier focused adeptly on costs, especially the folks in purchasing. "To put a bit of scale to it," says Shawn Anderson, Delta Air Lines VP-supply chain management, "we renegotiated over 2,000 contracts600 separate sourcing initiatives."
WHEN SINGAPORE AIRLINES launched the world's first A380 service with a flight from Singapore to Sydney on Oct. 25, it was more than the first commercial flight of the world's largest passenger airplane: It was an undeniable sign that there has been a seismic shift in the aviation world's center of influence in the 60 years since SIA took to the air as Malaya Airways Ltd. with three destinations. SIA no longer is just a major player in the Asia/Pacific region and a "great way to fly" but a global force that influences the direction and style of air travel everywhere it goes.
US airlines enjoyed another strong financial quarter in the three months ended Sept. 30, with the 10 largest carriers all in the black for the second straight reporting period and posting a cumulative net profit of $1.67 billion compared to a $738 million loss in the year-ago quarter. But executives worry that the next down cycle may not be too far away. Fuel costs are ascending rapidly and the US airline industry doesn't exactly have a history of long-term financial stability.
In addition, V Australia, Virgin Blue's new long-haul airline, will adopt the Amadeus Altea Customer Management System. The standalone solutions for the company's short-haul operations will manage connectivity on behalf of Virgin Blue's interline and GDS partners. They also will process incoming e-ticket coupons from interline partners, enabling Virgin Blue to receive passengers from full-service carriers such as Etihad and Virgin Atlantic.
PERHAPS EASYJET GOT TIRED OF ITS moniker: Europe's second-largest low-cost carrier. Or perhaps CEO Andrew Harrison decided he had better move before someone else did. In either case, the LCC's purchase of GB Airways in late October for £103.5 million ($212.1 million) in cash has altered the competitive landscape by making easyJet the leading short-haul carrier at London Gatwick while further cementing the lead over Ryanair in terms of revenues that it gained when it acquired Go Fly, British Airways' low-fare airline subsidiary, in May 2002.
Alaska long has been called America's last frontierthe final refuge for the restless, the risk-takers and the adventurers. But it also has been an entrepreneurial frontier, providing a chance to build business success from its vast expanses of undeveloped wilderness. The founding fathers of Alaska Airlines, marking its 75th birthday this year, were both adventurers and entrepreneurs. And certainly they were risk-takers, bush pilots par excellence who often literally flew on a wing and a prayer.
