Frankfurt Airport and Lufthansa Cargo agreed to a strategic airfreight partnership that will entail joint investments, modernizing cargo facilities and development of common strategies aimed at speeding up air cargo handling while also meeting higher security standards. Lufthansa holds a 10% stake in Frankfurt airport operator Fraport.
Emirates will launch eight-times-weekly service to Bangalore on Oct. 29, using both A330-200s and 777-200s. It currently serves southern India with 31 weekly flights to Chennai, Hyderabad, Cochin and Thiruvananthapuram. It also launched daily Dubai-Beijing service aboard an A340-300. Bulgaria Air will start a twice-weekly Sofia-Dublin service from October aboard 737s. AirBaltic will place its code on Uzbekistan Airways' twice-weekly Riga-Tashkent service beginning Oct. 29.
Boeing's Composite Manufacturing Center last week began fabrication of the first composite stringers for the 787 vertical fin, the largest Dreamliner assembly slated to be built by an internal Boeing division. CMC plans to deliver its first fully functional vertical fin to 787 final assembly in Everett, Wash., in spring 2007.
Top US and Chinese aviation officials meeting yesterday in Washington stressed the need to cooperate on technology and other key areas as air services between the nations accelerate. "We try to avoid mistakes by learning from advanced aviation countries, including the US, about their experiences so as to help China's civil aviation industry achieve sound and sustainable growth," CAAC Vice Minister Yang Guoqing said at the fourth annual US-China Aviation Summit sponsored by the US Trade and Development Agency.
EgyptAir parent EgyptAir Holding placed firm orders valued at more than $160 million for six Embraer 170s with options for six more and plans to launch a Regional subsidiary to operate the aircraft. First delivery is slated for April 2007, with the 170s comprising the fleet of the new EgyptAir Express, described by its chairman, Mohamed Hassan, as "a high-profile domestic and Regional airline." No other details on the subsidiary, scheduled to launch in the 2007 second quarter, were released. The 170s will seat 76 in a single-class layout.
News from Travel Technology Update: Air Canada and ITA Software put the finishing touches on a contract under which ITA will build a new reservations management system for the carrier, replacing its old RES III system. Lise Fournel, the airline's senior vice president of e-commerce and chief information officer, said the new system will take a modular approach and include all reservations, inventory control, seat availability, check-in and airport operations systems.
Denim Air intends to widen its geographical scope, including the startup of operations in the Middle East. "The Middle East market is developing rapidly and I am convinced this offers huge potential for Denim Air," CCO Eric Hespeel said at the Routes conference in Dubai. "We are able to tailor our aircraft to our customers' needs at very short notice due to our flexibility, worldwide experience and creativity." Denim Air has been specializing in ACMI charter activity for 10 years.
SkyEurope last week launched thrice-weekly Paris Orly-Salzburg service. Flybe will launch four-times-weekly Inverness-Belfast service on Dec. 16. It said easyJet will cancel its service on the route next month.
Juneyao Airlines, a Shanghai-based startup, took delivery of its first A319. The leased aircraft has 128 seats in two classes. Juneyao, which is privately held, signed a deal in March to lease two A319s and six A320s from GECAS. It will take two A320s in January and operate routes connecting Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Taiyuan, Changsha and Sanya.
Abanco International of Illinois will partner with Midwest Airlines to offer payments for services on Midwest flights from November using Abanco's mobile data technology inflight application to process credit card transactions.
Luxair is moving its operations at Nice Cote d'Azur from Terminal 2 to the smaller and partially renovated Terminal 1 on Oct. 1. Handling services will be provided by MAP Handling.
TAM flew 1.68 billion domestic RPKs in August, up 32.5% from the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 25.2% to 2.28 billion ASKs and load factor rose 4.1 points to 73.7%. International traffic was up 33.9% to 604 million RPKs against a 34% rise in ASKs to 773 million, leaving load factor steady at 78.2%. The airline said its domestic market share was 51.3%, up 9.6 points year-over-year, and its international market share climbed 34 points to 54.6%. Horizon Air flew 254.6 million RPMs in August, up 7.7% from the year-ago month.
Skyways Aviation arranged the long-term ACMI lease of an F100 from Romania's Carpatair to PGA Portugalia. The aircraft, set for delivery at the end of October, will operate in Portugal through March 2007. Carpatair will provide flight crews and maintenance.
Hainan Airlines' order for 50 Embraer 190s and 50 ERJ-145s ( ATWOnline, Aug. 31) was approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission. The 190s will be built in Brazil while the ERJ-145s will be built at Embraer's Chinese JV facility with Hafei Aviation Industry Group.
Alitalia said a 4-hr. strike yesterday by 6% of flight personnel and 20% of ground workers forced the cancellation of 67 flights. Workers are protesting a management business plan proposal that one union leader claimed "heavily penalized" labor, dismissing further talks with management as "useless, hollow," according to Italian media reports. The carrier was forced to cancel 105 domestic and 74 international flights on Sept. 7 because of a 24-hr. strike called by four trade unions ( ATWOnline, Sept. 8)
OAG reported that the world's busiest route by total number of weekly flights is Barcelona-Madrid. The Spanish route edges up from second place at this time last year, bumping Sao Paulo-Rio de Janeiro to No. 2, OAG said at the Routes conference in Dubai. The third-busiest route is Melbourne-Sydney, ahead of Jakarta-Surabaya and Mumbai-Delhi. "It's interesting to note there is little movement year-on-year among the top 10 busiest routes, with Mumbai-Delhi the only new entry," OAG MD-Business Development Duncan Alexander said.
Virgin Atlantic Airways banned Apple and Dell laptop computer batteries from international flights following last month's recall of 1.8 million batteries by Dell as possible fire hazards. Virgin passengers must remove the batteries from the computer, wrap them and place them in carry-on bags, reported BBC. Passengers can use the computers sans batteries in flight if seats are equipped with electrical sockets and can transport two of the batteries in a carry-on bag. Korean Air and Qantas also have placed restrictions on laptop batteries in response to the recall.
Northwest Airlines flight attendants yesterday filed an appeal of last week's ruling by US District Judge Victor Marrero that prevents them from striking or engaging in work actions ( ATWOnline, Sept. 18). The Assn. of Flight Attendants is asking for an expedited ruling on the appeal, arguing that NWA's imposition of $195 million in annual concessions despite the flight attendants' rejection of two tentative concessionary agreements gives them the right to strike or engage in disruptive CHAOS work actions.
US Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that a group of 21 US passenger airlines, consisting of the seven largest network, low-cost and Regional carriers based on operating revenue, reported a collective domestic operating profit margin of 7.9% in the second quarter, the largest quarterly margin for the group since 2000. BTS said yesterday that the LCCs reported a domestic operating profit margin for the quarter of 10.6%, up 5.3 points compared to the year-ago quarter.
KLM Engineering and Maintenance and Boeing Commercial Aviation Services have teamed to provide component maintenance services for Toronto-based Sunwing Airlines' 737NGs. The carrier currently operates three of the type with plans to add 10-15 more over the next five years.
Shaheen Air hopes to launch its first long-haul routes in December with a four-times weekly Karachi-Doncaster Sheffield service aboard 767s, CEO Arshad Jalil announced at the Routes conference in Dubai. The Pakistan-based carrier, 15% owned by the Pakistani government, currently operates five domestic routes and six international routes in the Gulf. It carried 500,000 passengers in 2005 and has hinted at starting Toronto service next year.
Boeing 747-400 Large Cargo Freighter, critical to the manufacturer's global strategy for building 787s, touched down at Everett, Wash., Saturday to start its flight-test program in earnest. The dash 400LCF first flew in Taipei Sept. 9 ( ATWOnline, Sept. 12) and conducted two test flights before making the ferry flight to Everett. The flight-test program is expected to last through year end, when the aircraft will begin shuttling wing boxes and fuselage sections among Boeing's 787 manufacturing bases worldwide.
IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said overly restrictive foreign ownership rules prevent "meaningful consolidation and perpetuate inefficiency." In a speech yesterday to the ICAO Symposium on Liberalization in Dubai, Bisignani said, "the flags on the tails of our aircraft are so heavy they are sinking our industry," and argued that airlines will have difficulty achieving long-term profitability without the ability to consolidate across borders.
Tokyo Narita started construction Friday on its second runway, 16L/34R, which will be extended to 2,500 m. from 2,180 m. currently. The work, which is limited by ongoing runway operations and thus will not be completed until 2010, also will involve installation of additional taxiways. The project aims to increase the runway's capacity by 20,000 movements a year to 220,000.
Boeing added Rockwell Collins to its 787 GoldCare team, which will aim to provide carriers operating 787s with comprehensive line and base maintenance support as well as supply chain management on a cost-per-flight-hr. basis. "Rockwell provides displays, communication and surveillance systems, pilot controls and the core network cabinet for the 787 and under GoldCare will be responsible for ensuring spare parts are available, managing the maintenance of parts removed from the aircraft and ensuring that equipment reliability is optimized," Boeing said.
