Ryanair was forced to postpone introduction of flights from Marseille and Frankfurt Hahn to Morocco owing to a delay in execution of the Euro-Mediterranean air transport agreement between the EU and Morocco. The deal would give EU carriers unrestricted third and fourth freedom rights as well as the right to operate from any point in Europe to any point in Morocco including co-terminal operations. Originally expected to come this month, the signing has been pushed back to Nov.
UPS earned $1.04 billion in net income in the third quarter, an 8.9% rise over $953 million earned in the same period last year, on a 10.5% increase in revenues to $11.66 billion. International package revenues, a good measurement of UPS Airlines' services, grew 17% to $2.25 billion as international package volume climbed 19%.
EasyJet expects its profit for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 to be "slightly ahead" of its previous guidance of 40%-50% growth. The LCC transported 3.01 million passengers in September, up 9.8% from the year-ago month. Load factor rose 0.1 point to 86.5%.
BAA has launched a "major campaign" to recruit 100 women and 60 men to work as permanent part-time security officers at London Stansted, which currently employs 800 security officers. Ryanair released a statement on Oct. 20 accusing BAA of failing to staff all security checkpoints during the morning peak, causing delays to 34 Ryanair flights. "Passengers should not suffer flight delays simply because the BAA is incapable of providing the requisite security service at Stansted," the airline said. BAA's recruitment campaign began earlier this month prior to the Ryanair complaint.
SAS Scandinavian Airlines' Danish cabin staff said they reached new terms with the carrier on Monday, averting a strike that would have halted both domestic and international flights from Denmark starting this weekend. The Danish Cabin Attendants Union said the one-year agreement covers a 3.5% wage hike, hours and other conditions, Reuters reported. It is effective retroactively from March and will run until Feb. 28, 2007.
Porter Airlines launched its inaugural flight out of Toronto City Centre Airport yesterday. The startup carrier will operate up to 10 weekday roundtrips to Ottawa with a fleet of 10 Q400s. Company officials said they will add other destinations that are within a 500-mi. range of YTZ. Protesters were on hand to voice their opposition to Porter, but travelers were undeterred, according to the Toronto Sun. The protesters reportedly are concerned about safety issues involved with operating an airline in an urban setting and the environmental impact.
AirBaltic's winter schedule will include a new Kaliningrad-Copenhagen flight and thrice-weekly services from Riga to Zurich and Gothenburg starting Oct. 29. A codeshare agreement with Uzbekistan Airways will cover a twice-weekly Riga-Tashkent flight. AirBaltic will increase Riga-Berlin Tegel frequency to twice-daily during the week and add a Sunday flight. Riga-Tbilisi will operate thrice-weekly, flights to St.
Groundforce announced five new ground handling contracts. Its deal with Clickair covers the provision of all ramp handling services to March 2009 at Lisbon and Porto. It signed a deal with Emirates for ramp handling at Barcelona until November 2009, while LatCharter signed a three-year contract with Groundforce Morocco for full handling services at Fez, Casablanca, Marrakech and Agadir. It also will provide full handling service on an ad-hoc basis for AtlasJet for two years at the same four airports.
Boeing said it successfully opened and closed the 747-400 Large Cargo Freighter swing tail in testing in Everett, Wash. The aircraft will be used to move assembly components for the 787 around the world and the swing tail is designed to allow more efficient loading and unloading of large parts.
Cathay Pacific Airways announced the donation of its 64.7 million shares in China National Aviation Co. to 64 charities in Hong Kong, six in China and one pan-Asian organization under terms of the Hong Kong Takeovers Code that forbids the carrier from exercising its votes in CNAC's privatization ( ATWOnline, June 23). "During the transaction process we found ourselves facing a difficult regulatory problem which had a very agreeable solution," CX CEO Philip Chen said.
Arik Air of Nigeria announced on its website that it "temporarily delayed the commencement of all passenger flights." The startup had been scheduled to launch last week ( ATWOnline, Oct. 6). "Nonpassenger test flights will continue to run to ensure that your first and every flight are of the highest standard," Arik said, adding that it will start operations "soon."
Ryanair yesterday confirmed to the Dublin and London stock exchanges its takeover offer for Aer Lingus. In the offer document unveiled last week ( ATWOnline, Oct. 23), the LCC maintained its initial bid of €2.80 ($3.53) per share for the recently privatized national carrier. It secured almost 20% of the shares in the days prior to EI's public listing last month.
Korean Air will begin adding a surcharge on paper tickets early next year as part of an effort to push electronic bookings to 100% by the end of 2007, according to VP-Strategy Development Keehong Woo. "We're putting a lot of our resources into increasing the e-ticket share," he said. The airline currently books 60% of tickets electronically.
Willis Lease Finance of California announced the signing of an engine sharing agreement with American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and WestJet covering CFM56-7Bs used to power 737NGs. The pool initially will service more than 450 aircraft. "I believe engine sharing pools will ultimately change the way all engines are leased...Engines can literally be rented in a matter of minutes," WLFC President and CEO Charles Willis said. "We have worked with the management teams of these airlines for over five years to reach agreement on the details."
Delta Air Lines flew 9.08 billion system RPMs in September, a 3.4% decrease from the year-ago month. Capacity dropped 5.4% to 12.17 billion ASMs, lifting load factor 1.5 points to 74.6%. Domestic RPMs fell 12.2% to 6.1 billion against a 14.3% decline in capacity to 8.3 billion ASMs, sending load factor up 1.7 points to 73.5%. International traffic grew 21.6% to 2.97 billion RPMs as capacity climbed at the same rate to 3.87 billion ASMs, leaving load factor at 76.9%.
Swiss International Air Lines announced that an agreement has been reached with Aeropers, the union of the company's Airbus pilots. Union members have approved the three-year accord, which will enter into effect Nov. 1. Swiss said the deal acknowledged both the airline's ongoing restructuring and the increasingly competitive environment.
SR Technics Group announced the implementation of a new corporate structure from Nov. 1 that will organize the company by international business rather than country-specific divisions. SR Technics Switzerland, UK and Ireland will continue to exist but will be superceded by the Aircraft Services, Component Services, Engine Services and Business Development, Sales & Marketing divisions. Those segments will be headed by Alex Kugler, Mike Humphreys, Gerry Timoney and Declan O'Shea respectively. Staff units also will be organized into cross-national entities.
The board of Ryanair Holdings will publish and post its Offer Document to Aer Lingus shareholders today, maintaining its cash bid of €2.80 per share that values the Irish flag carrier at approximately €1.48 billion, a total the LCC said is "significantly higher" than the €1.16 billion IPO value.
Qantas officials told shareholders last week that it expects to exceed its 2005-06 net profit of A$480 million ($363.8 million) in the current fiscal year thanks to continued restructuring and falling fuel prices. The carrier also confirmed it would not cancel its order for 12 A380s, according to press reports.
Philippine Airlines will decide by year end whether to order eight widebodies from Boeing or Airbus, President Jaime Bautista told reporters last week ( ATWOnline, Sept. 7). He said PAL is considering the A340-600 and 777-300ER as part of an expansion plan that includes an order for 20 (15 firm plus five option) A320 family aircraft from both the manufacturer and GECAS. It took delivery of the first aircraft from that order, an A319-100, last week.
Delta Air Lines received approval from the US Bankruptcy Court to cut $50 million in health benefits per year, largely through increased premiums, from approximately 42,000 retirees and other beneficiaries, according to press reports.
Alitalia on Friday acknowledged that there are some "major quantitative shifts" in certain key figures put forward in its budget as it reported consolidated revenue of €3.1 billion ($3.91 billion) for the January-August period, €82 million below its target. The group's consolidated profit for the period was "about €3.1 million." Comparative results were not provided.
Northwest Airlines will pay $23 million to JPMorgan Chase and other lenders as a resolution to a dispute over a $975 million loan, Reuters reported. The lenders had sought $55-$60 million but agreed to the settlement to avoid litigation.
