International Assn. of Machinists and Transport Workers Union reached agreement over future representation of 8,000 active and furloughed fleet service workers at the new US Airways. IAM has represented fleet service workers at US since 1994, while TWU has represented America West Airlines employees since 1999. Representatives from the unions will work alongside each other in negotiations with US on a transition agreement to cover all affected employees at the merged airline.
Sabre Airline Solutions and Worldspan jointly implemented a new message routing technique yesterday that the two interline e-ticketing providers said streamlines communications links between their systems. "The new approach eases cooperation between hub providers and should accelerate implementing interline electronic agreements," according to Tom Murphy, IATA senior VP-industry distribution and financial services.
Preliminary figures released yesterday by Lufthansa Group indicate the company narrowed its first-quarter net loss to €98 million ($124.6 million) from €116 million in the 2005 quarter.
American Airlines Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said the carrier needs at least $1 billion in additional annual savings to keep pace with rivals restructuring through bankruptcy and "just to keep even with our costs last year," and has evaluated replacing the JT8D-200 engines on its MD-80 fleet to save fuel.
Shanghai Airlines accepted a formal invitation to join Star Alliance at a ceremony yesterday in Shanghai, becoming the second Chinese carrier to commit itself to a global airline partnership. China Southern Airlines signed an MOU with SkyTeam two years ago and since then the three alliances have been angling for the best foothold in one of the world's fastest-growing commercial aviation markets. Air China also appears to be on the verge of joining Star.
ARINC and SITA yesterday announced formation of an industry technical work group to define the next generation of business-to-business messaging among air transport operators. The workgroup consists of Northwest Airlines, British Airways, Worldspan, Amadeus, Lufthansa Systems, Sabre, Galileo and Mercator.
Varig will auction off a portion of its assets to raise the money it needs to maintain operations under a plan approved yesterday during a meeting in Rio de Janeiro of employees, government officials and the carrier's creditors, according to media reports. The government confirmed it will not bail out the bankrupt carrier, which reportedly will be split into two companies and sold in approximately two months. Two options are on the table, depending on investor intentions. One would split Varig into a flight operations company and a service unit handling distribution, reservations, etc.
Dallas/Ft. Worth International Board of Directors unanimously approved an expanded Air Service Incentive Program to entice new international passenger, international cargo and domestic passenger service to the airport. The new program will be capped at $7 million per year and $20 million in total through December 2009. In addition to service incentives, it includes landing fee rebates and marketing support. DFW said each new daily international passenger flight can generate upward of $350 million in annual revenues for the North Texas economy.
Record revenue and a commitment to cutting costs helped Singapore Airlines Group reduce the impact of soaring fuel prices to record a massive S$1.24 billion ($791.3 million) profit for the fiscal year ended March 31, just 8.3% down on the previous year.
US airlines reported an ontime performance rate for March of 76.1%, down 0.8 point from the year-ago month but up 0.8 point from February, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Hawaiian Airlines had the highest March ontime rate at 90% among the 19 airlines reporting while United Airlines was lowest at 69.3%.
South African Airways last week took delivery of the first of two Q400 turboprops. The 74-seat aircraft will operate from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein and George.
Touting synergies created by the merger of America West Airlines and the former US Airways, US Airways Group reported a first-quarter profit of $64 million compared to a profit of $28 million for America West in the year-ago quarter and said it now expects to be profitable for the full year, "even after accounting for merger-related expenses and continued high fuel costs."
Worldspan signed a new multiyear full content agreement with Air France that will give Worldspan travel agencies complete access to the airline's content.
Sun Country Airlines, a privately held LCC based at Minneapolis-St. Paul, said its first-quarter net income increased nearly 7% over the year-ago quarter to $5.5 million as revenues rose 15% to $76.5 million and passenger boardings grew 7% to 531,867. The airline said it maintained "virtually identical" year-over-year unit costs excluding fuel. It operates a fleet of seven leased 737-800s to destinations in the US, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Air Proxy was selected by Lufthansa Cargo as its GSA for Latvia from May 1, replacing its previous agreement with airBaltic. Air Proxy already represents Lufthansa Cargo in Estonia.
Air France-KLM flew 16.49 billion RPKs in April, a 10% increase over the year-ago month. Capacity rose 4.8% to 19.86 billion ASKs and load factor was up 3.9 points to 83.1%. AF-KLM flew 918 million RTKs, an increase of 1.1%, as cargo capacity grew 2.1% to 1.36 billion ATKs. Frontier Airlines said its April RASM increased 6.8% to 8.27 cents as yield climbed 1.1% to 10.25 cents and traffic grew 27% to 707.7 million RPMs. Capacity increased 20.1% to 877.4 million ASMs and load factor rose 4.4 points to an April record 80.7%.
Gulf Air faces a deficit of approximately BHD80 million ($211 million) despite "strong improvements" in key performance indicators during the first quarter because "revenue growth simply cannot keep pace with oil price rises," according to President and CEO James Hogan. "We are looking at a range of options to mitigate these additional costs. We are already seeing a more consistent application of fuel surcharges in all our markets," Hogan said.
ABX Air posted a 14.3% profit increase in the first quarter to $8.1 million, rebounding from a difficult 2005 that saw profits drop as primary customer DHL Worldwide Express struggled to compete against FedEx and UPS in the US market. The carrier earned $7.1 million in the year-ago period. "Our operating results reflect the success of our initiatives to drive down costs and improve productivity in our sort, line-haul and air operations for DHL," President and CEO Joe Hete said.
AirTran Airways yesterday resumed negotiations with its 1,400 pilots, represented by the National Pilots Assn. Talks in Orlando are aimed at renewing a labor contract that became amendable in April 2005. This week's talks are scheduled to run through Thursday and another round of negotiations is slated for May 30-31 in Baltimore. Separately, AirTran yesterday launched flights from Chicago Midway to Dallas/Ft. Worth (thrice-daily) and Charlotte (twice-daily) aboard 717s.
Ethiopian Airlines earned a profit of $43.4 million in 2005 on revenues of $495 million, it said at a Saturday news conference marking its 60th anniversary, according to Reuters. A carrier official said the airline intends to increase its annual net earnings to $116 million by 2010 and generate $1 billion in revenues. Ethiopian carried 1.6 million passengers in 2005.
US Airways Group reported a 6.8% decline in consolidated April traffic to 5.45 billion RPMs. Capacity dropped 12.4% to 6.65 billion ASMs and load factor rose 4.9 points to 82%. British Airways flew 9.83 billion RPKs in April, up 9.8% on the year-ago month. Capacity rose 4.2% to 12.49 billion ASKs, lifting load factor 4 points to 78.7%. BA said the increase in traffic comprised a 3.8% gain in premium and a 10.9% lift in nonpremium traffic.
Air France increased its fuel surcharge by €7 ($8.90) per segment on long-haul flights effective April 28. Increases will be withdrawn when price per barrel falls below $60 for 30 consecutive days. Indian Airlines began adding a fuel surcharge of INR300 ($6.68) to tickets on all domestic sectors effective May 4.
Sun Country Airlines plans to retrofit seven 737-800s with Aviation Partners Boeing blended winglets. Royal Jordanian took delivery of its fourth new V2500-powered A321 as part of an order for six A320s/A321s to replace aging A310s and A320s. First A380 destined to enter commercial service with Singapore Airlines took its maiden test flight Sunday in Toulouse. Flight was 2 hr. 15 min. The aircraft will be operated on the London-Singapore-Sydney route. SIA has 10 A380s on firm order with options for 15.
