Interest in airlines in Indonesia appears to be building. Last month, Qantas flagged interest in Adam Air and yesterday Bisnis was quoting Garuda Indonesia President Director Emirsyah Satar as stating that Emirates is interested in forging an alliance. "Emirates Airlines is one party interested in us, but there are still no concrete plans," he told the Indonesian newspaper. Previously, Lufthansa was inked to the financing of a rescue of Garuda.
BAE Systems on Friday informed the London Stock Exchange that it has "entered into discussions with European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. regarding the sale of its 20% shareholding in Airbus." In the brief statement, the company also said that "discussions are at an early stage." According to the Associated Press, EADS has valued BAE's stake at €3.5 billion ($4.3 billion). BAE Systems' primary contribution to Airbus is design and production of wings.
American Airlines' traffic increased just 0.2% in March as it flew 12.1 billion RPMs. Capacity dropped 0.9% year-over-year to 14.9 billion ASMs, nudging up load factor 0.9 point to 81.1%. Domestic RPMs fell 0.8% to 8.05 billion, capacity decreased 3.2% to 9.65 billion and load factor rose 2 points to 83.3%. Internationally, traffic grew 2.5% to 4.05 billion RPMs, ASMs increased 3.6% to 5.25 billion and load factor dipped 0.9 point to 77.1%.
Air Berlin carried 2.75 million passengers in the first quarter, up 8.5% over the year-ago period. Highest growth was recorded at Nuremberg (up 24.4%), Paderborn (24.5%) and Hannover (12.7%). Top airports outside Germany were London Stansted (up 60 %) and Milan Bergamo (42 %).
ICAO and IATA signed a memorandum of cooperation "to share safety-related information from their respective audit programs to better identify potential safety risks and prevent aircraft accidents." They also will share accident and incident monitoring, and "experts from each organization will be allowed to participate as observers in audit missions of the other, upon request."
Precision Conversions will provide a 757PCF conversion to Ethiopian Cargo. The aircraft currently is being operated in passenger configuration by Ethiopian. Modification will take place at Goodrich ATS in Everett, Wash.
Willow CSN was selected by proposed low-cost startup Virgin America to manage all of its customer service calls including reservations and flight information through a "virtual call center" staffed by home-based CyberAgents.
Rockwell Collins named Jeff Moore senior VP-operations. He replaces Kent Statler, now VP and GM of Rockwell Collins Services. Goodrich named Bill Ashworth to the post of division president, Aviation Technical Services. He has 10 years of experience at ATS, most recently serving as VP-operations. He replaces Eric Schulz, who has been appointed division president, Actuation Systems.
Ethiopian Airlines will lease two 747-400s from Malaysia Airlines for five years to meet capacity demands ahead of the delivery of its 787s. The 747s will be delivered in July.
SkyEurope Airlines will launch twice-weekly summer services to Krakow from Split and Dubrovnik aboard 737-700s. Flights operate June 17-Sept. 16. It also will begin twice-weekly Bratislava-Naples flights operating June 18-Sept. 17. Separately, SkyEurope flew 178,163 earned seats in March, a 62.3% rise over the year-ago month. Load factor improved 1.2 points to 74.4%.
Emirates SkyCargo launched new scheduled freighter services to Zurich, Rome and Vienna last week using A310-300Fs. Services to Zurich will run twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays, flights to Rome will operate on Wednesdays and Fridays and services to Vienna will operate on Saturdays.
SITA said Romania's Carpatair is acquiring a large package of solutions from SITA's Horizon portfolio under a seven-year contract worth $10 million to automate its passenger services and back office functions and phase in e-ticketing and Internet sales. SITA said the goal is to boost Carpatair's revenues by 15% and achieve annual savings of $2 million on sales and distribution costs.
Southwest Airlines' announcement that it plans to serve Washington Dulles International ( ATWOnline, April 5), an airport it rejected last fall as being too expensive, signals that "all major domestic airports are fair game," wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Linenberg in a research note Friday. Earlier this year, Southwest began service at Denver International Airport, historically viewed as being among the most expensive in the US.
Ryanair offered Aer Lingus passengers who have not received a response to a complaint letter after six weeks or who had their luggage lost in the past year a free ticket on a Ryanair flight. The LCC set up an e-mail address for Aer Lingus passengers to register their complaints before midnight tonight.
Air Malta, which posted an operating loss of MTL2.3 million ($6.6 million) in the first nine months of its fiscal year, announced Wednesday that COO Joe Cappello has replaced Ernst Funk as CEO. Cappello joined the airline in 1976 working in market research and rose to become COO in 2002. "Cappello's experience is vast in every area of our business, not least in the critical commercial revenue generation aspect," Air Malta Chairman Lawrence Zammit said.
Lufthansa signed a full-content distribution agreement with Worldspan. In addition to resulting in lower distribution costs, "Worldspan has provided technology tools to help lower our overall IT expenditure," said Josef Bogdanski, LH senior VP-sales-Germany and global key accounts.
Aviation Fleet Solutions said its QuietEagle noise reduction system, developed and marketed with Pratt & Whitney and designed to reduce cumulative noise from JT8D-200-powered MD-80s by up to 6 dB, received FAA certification.
Lufthansa Technik signed a five-year contract to provide its Total Component Support package for Wizz Air's A320 fleet, which will number 24 aircraft by the end of the contract. Separately, LHT said Kuwait Airways is the launch customer for its newly developed and certified stretcher designed specifically to transport patients onboard aircraft.
American Airlines sent letters to approximately 600 maintenance workers, cleaners, stock clerks and crew chiefs at 24 US airports warning them of possible layoffs. "We cannot say right now whether these job reductions will be temporary or permanent," said a letter to Los Angeles employees obtained by Bloomberg News. New AMR Corp. Executive VP and CFO Thomas Horton has been on record saying he believes AA must cut labor costs to stay competitive. Separately, AMR announced that its 4.25% Senior Convertible Notes due 2023 now are convertible into shares of common stock.
Aer Lingus's largest union, the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union, served protective notice of industrial action that will become effective if no agreement is reached on pensions, job security and employee shareholding ahead of the airline's privatization ( ATWOnline, April 6). SIPTU pledged to continue working during the Easter travel period ending in two weeks. Union members at the carrier supported industrial action in a vote last week.
Alaska Airlines expects its unit costs excluding fuel and special charges to drop 5% in the quarter ended March 31 to 8.1 cents, primarily owing to a shift in the timing of maintenance effects, it said in an SEC filing. It also expects to incur a pre-tax impairment charge of $130-$140 million related to plans to retire 15 owned MD-80s ahead of previous plans in favor of 737NGs ( ATWOnline, March 14). Nonadjusted CASM is expected to rise 23% to 13.6 cents.
Qantas will convert four 737-300s to freighters for domestic cargo carrier Australian air Express at QF's facility in Avalon using conversion kits developed by Israel Aircraft Industries. These will be the first jet freighter conversions in Australia, according to Qantas. The aircraft currently are based in New Zealand and will be replaced with dash 400s. Work begins this month and is scheduled to be completed in January. EADS EFW in Dresden signed a contract with Air India covering conversion of two A310-300s into freighters.
Air Europa of Spain converted purchase rights for 16 737-800s into firm orders in a deal worth approximately $1 billion at list prices. Deliveries are scheduled between 2010 and 2014. The carrier will use the new aircraft on domestic routes, including to the Balearic and Canary islands, as well as on European and North African routes.
Avion Aircraft Trading ordered four 747-400BCFs for Avion Group's Air Atlanta Icelandic subsidiary. The first is scheduled for delivery in August 2007. They will replace older dash 200Fs operated by the ACMI provider. Last month it signed an eight-month wet-lease agreement with Saudi Arabian Airlines for two 747-300s to be delivered June 1.
