Pinnacle Airlines yesterday signed a contract for 15 74-seat Q400s plus 10 conditional orders and 20 options. The firm aircraft are worth $381 million at list prices and the deal could climb to $1.2 billion if conditional orders and options are exercised, Bombardier said. Aircraft will be operated by Pinnacle subsidiary Colgan Air for Continental Connection.
Delta Air Lines is amending its service agreement to lower rates and cut some flying done by Republic Airways. At the same time, it tapped Mesa Air Group to operate 14 new Delta-owned CRJ900s under a 10-year agreement. The Mesa deal also includes six additional ERJ-145s, bringing the number of 145s it flies for Delta Connection to 36 and the total fleet to 62. Mesa will receive a general unsecured claim of $35 million as part of DL's bankruptcy proceedings.
Azerbaijan Airlines selected the GEnx to power the three 787-8s it ordered last month ( ATWOnline, Feb. 26). The engine order is valued at more than $100 million, GE said.
India Ministry of Civil Aviation granted approval to Alliance Air, Jet Airways, Deccan Aviation, Sahara Airlines, Kingfisher Airlines, Paramount Airways and Indus Airways to acquire and operate foreign manufactured aircraft with fewer than 80 seats. Airlines in India are exempt from landing fees for planes with fewer than 80 seats. Separately, the ministry announced that the new Bangalore International Airport will open April 2.
US FAA estimates it will need $15-$22 billion through 2025 to fund transformation of "grossly inefficient" radar-based ATC into the "NextGen" satellite-based system, including $4.3 billion over the next five years, and is pushing Congress to reform the agency's funding mechanism and allow it to borrow money when necessary.
British Airways announced an expansion of its operation at London City, which it retained as part of its deal to sell BA Connect to Flybe ( ATWOnline, March 6). BA's new CityFlyer subsidiary will operate 250 weekly flights from LCY, a more than 73.6% increase from its current program of 144, to six UK and European destinations beginning March 26 aboard 10 RJ100s. It will launch new four-times-daily service to Glasgow International and Zurich and also will fly to Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Madrid and Milan Malpensa.
SAS is offering passengers the opportunity "to offset carbon dioxide emissions from air travel by paying [voluntary] compensation" via its website. Compensation fees are not set but the airline noted that a typical Scandinavia-Europe roundtrip would cost €4.50 ($5.93) for the passenger to offset his share of emissions generated.
Continental Airlines released an investor update this week saying it expects first-quarter yield to be "up slightly" from the year-ago quarter despite a drop in mainline domestic and regional yields. "Strong improvement" in transatlantic and Latin American yields will help compensate, it said. Full-year capacity is expected to climb 4.9%, driven by a 10.3% growth in transatlantic operations. CO said first-quarter consolidated CASM will be 11.44-11.49 cents, rising to 11.45-11.50 cents for the full year.
US Airways is close to ordering 60 A320 family jets or 737NGs to replace its 737-300s and -400s and expects to make a selection by the end of April, according to Senior VP and CFO Derek Kerr. Speaking at the airline's media day in Tempe yesterday, Kerr said deliveries would occur in the 2008-10 timeframe and that both Boeing and Airbus have delivery positions available.
The UK reportedly is taking another crack at excluding London Heathrow from a liberalized transatlantic aviation environment, a move it attempted during an early round of open skies negotiations between the EU and US several years ago. "Britain is talking bilaterally to the Americans and to the German [EU] presidency. It wants a year's delay in opening Heathrow," an EU source told Reuters. A UK Dept. of Transport spokesperson confirmed that "negotiations are ongoing. We wouldn't say anything that would prejudice them."
Cathay Pacific Airways together with Dragonair flew 5.88 billion RPKs in February, up 2.2% from the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 3% to 7.79 billion ASKs, dropping load factor 0.5 point to 75.5%.
Air Arabia reported a 2006 full-year profit of AED101 million ($27.5 million), more than three times the AED31.3 million earned in 2005. Revenue soared 82% to AED749.2 million and passenger numbers grew 54% to 1.8 million. Load factor was 81.2%. The airline has submitted its application to United Arab Emirates authorities to launch an IPO this quarter. Separately, Air Arabia launched thrice-weekly Sharjah-Karachi service and twice-weekly Sharjah-Peshawar flights. Each service adds one frequency from April 3.
Malaysia Airlines will launch a new subsidiary next month called Firefly that will operate two F50s out of Penang, according to press reports. Firefly will serve Kota Bahru, Langkawi, Kuantan, Kuala Terengganu (all twice-daily) and the Thai cities of Phuket and Koh Samui (daily). MAS CEO Idris Jala told reporters that Firefly will break even in its first year, "should be able to make money" in its second and is not subsidized by the government.
US Airways said it distributed $58.7 million in profit sharing to employees yesterday. The profit-sharing program sets aside 10% of US's annual pre-tax profit excluding special items.
Frontier Airlines authorized the repurchase of up to 300,000 shares of outstanding common stock. The repurchased shares will be contributed to the carrier's employee stock ownership plan.
TAM secured a $331 million syndicated loan led by Calyon and Natixis Transport Finance to finance pre-delivery payments on the four firm 777-300ERs ordered last fall ( ATWOnline, Nov. 22, 2006).
BCI Aircraft Leasing said it acquired two A321-100s from Airbus that are on long-term lease to Alitalia, bringing to five the number of -100s the Chicago-based lessor has placed with AZ.
Airbus, in conjunction with Lufthansa and Qantas, will fly development A380s to New York JFK and Los Angeles International next week to demonstrate the aircraft to US media and to test JFK and LAX facilities. Development A380 MSN7, to be operated with assistance from LH ( ATWOnline, Feb. 14), will fly on to Chicago O'Hare after stopping at JFK. An A380 will fly to Washington Dulles on March 25.
Emirates President Tim Clark told ATWOnline last week in Berlin that the operating costs of its A380 fleet will be higher than originally planned. "There are still an extra six tons of weight we can't get out of the A380. That will cost us extra money in operation for the next 10 or 15 years," Clark said.
United Airlines and United Express will start service from Denver to Dayton (daily from April 24 aboard GoJet Airlines CRJ700s), Raleigh/Durham (from April 24) and Kalispell, Mont. (twice-daily from June 7) aboard SkyWest Airlines 50-seat CRJs. SpiceJet launched daily Bangalore-Hyderabad-Kolkata and daily Bangalore-Mumbai flights aboard 737-800s.
