Sabre Travel Network signed full-content agreements with Virgin Atlantic Airways and SAS Scandinavian Airlines. The SAS agreement runs until 2007 and includes Wideroe.
JetBlue Airways will launch daily Washington Dulles-Las Vegas, daily Boston-Phoenix and twice-daily New York LaGuardia-Orlando services from May 3. It will add frequencies to destinations from New York JFK, Newark, Boston and Dulles at the same time. Emirates will add a second daily Dubai-Dusseldorf flight beginning May 1 aboard an A330-200. It operates a 777-300 on the other flight.
China Airlines flew 2.76 billion RPKs in January, a 10.6% increase over the year-ago month. Number of enplaned passengers grew 11.6% to 764,125 and FTKs increased 4% to 469 million. Finnair Group reported an 8.6% increase in January RPKs and a 6.6% rise in capacity, resulting in a 1.4-point gain in load factor to 74.3%.
Nearly five months after its fiscal third quarter concluded, World Air Holdings, parent of World Airways and North American Airlines, reported it earned a $5.5 million profit in the three months ended Sept. 30, 2005, a 22.5% drop from the $7.1 million earned in the corresponding 2004 period.
Lufthansa Systems signed a consultancy contract with China Cargo Airlines to analyze the carrier's business processes and IT systems and signed with Royal Jordanian to implement SIRAX, a revenue accounting process solution.
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Austrian Airlines Group completed the sale of its catering company Airest to SAVE Group of Italy. The deal is worth approximately €30 million ($35.8 million) and will require the consent of competition authorities, which is expected in the coming weeks. Airest will continue to supply Austrian with catering service. Separately, Austrian reported an 11.9% increase in January RPKs to 1.73 billion and a 3.3% rise in capacity to 2.38 billion ASKs, driving up passenger load factor 5.6 points to 72.7%.
Estonian Air announced it earned a net profit of EEK65.9 million ($5 million) in 2005, an improvement of 95% over 2004 net earnings of approximately $2.6 million. Operating revenue increased 20% to EEK1.14 billion as the number of passengers carried grew 18% to 642,700. The carrier said it will add flights to Barcelona, Dubrovnik and Simferopol in 2006 as well as frequencies on its Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen routes. Those three, along with London, proved to be Estonian's most popular destinations last year. The company's charter business grew 75% to 65,000 passengers.
Midwest Air Group, parent of Midwest Airlines, announced it adopted an updated shareholder rights plan replacing the one that expired last week. It is effective through Feb. 15, 2016, and "is designed to protect shareholder value over the long term and provide fair treatment of our shareholders in the event of a takeover attempt," according to Chairman and CEO Timothy Hoeksema.
Landmark Aviation said it will provide fueling services for American Airlines when AA begins its Dallas Love Field service March 2. The agreement covers AA's MD-80s and American Eagle's ERJ-145s, which will operate 98 weekly flights to Kansas City, St. Louis, Austin and San Antonio.
Lufthansa and Air Malta signed an MOU Tuesday in Malta to begin a "bilateral cooperation" that will start with the adjustment of their schedules to give passengers of each airline the "opportunity to increase connections to worldwide destinations." Lufthansa VP Joachim Steinbach said LH hopes to integrate Air Malta into the new Terminal 2 in Munich. In addition, the two are planning to introduce codeshare flights from November.
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US FAA announced a five-year partnership with Ordinate Corp. of California to develop a standard Aviation English Test. "This is another step in FAA support to ICAO member states, air carrier operators and air traffic service providers to help them meet the ICAO March 2008 English language proficiency requirement," said Graham Elliott, manager of the FAA Academy's Aviation Language Training Program.
Washington Dulles received a $200 million pledge yesterday from the US Dept. of Transportation to help build a fourth runway. The funding will be provided over the next 11 years. The airport's third north-south runway will be completed in 2008, costing $356 million, and will allow Dulles to handle up to 50% more flights per hour "during the right conditions," DOT said. Passenger throughput has increased from 12 million in 1996 to more than 27 million in 2005.
Air France-KLM Group said it will pursue a "profitable growth strategy" during the summer by boosting capacity 5.6% over summer 2005, comprising a 6% increase on its long-haul network, a 6.3% rise on its international medium-haul network and a 1.1% increase domestically. Long-haul growth, including a 19.7% ramp-up in capacity to the Middle East, will come from additional frequencies and larger aircraft. KLM will offer a new destination, Chengdu, with twice-weekly service from Amsterdam. The group will offer 47 weekly flights to China.
US Airways Group reported a $261 million net loss in the fourth fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, the first full three-month period following the September 2005 merger of US Airways and America West Airlines, which is treated as the acquiring company for accounting purposes.
The Australian government, as expected, yesterday rejected Singapore Airlines' plans to offer service on the transpacific route to the US, bowing to a concerted campaign by Qantas to limit competition on its most profitable route and ruling that there would be minimal benefits to Australia.
Etihad Airways will launch daily Abu Dhabi-Manchester service from March 27 aboard an A330. Separately, Boeing said Etihad will implement its Airplane Health Management maintenance condition monitoring system on five new 777-300ERs being delivered in the first half of this year.
Continental Airlines said it will return to its pre-Hurricane Katrina departure frequency from New Orleans by May. It operated 111 flights per week from MSY prior to the storm and now has reached 86% of its former capacity.
AirBaltic will eliminate business class service on routes from Riga to Bergen, Hamburg, Helsinki and Oslo from March 1. Service on the routes will be all-economy with buy-on-board food and beverage.
Austrian low-fare airline Niki is planning to add A319s to its fleet of four A320s and one A321 in order to access new markets. "Currently we take delivery of our new A320s to phase out leased aircraft. With the A319 from 2007, we can operate nonstop services from Vienna to Barcelona, increase frequencies to Palma and look for new markets in Italy like Milan and also to Amsterdam," founder and majority owner Niki Lauda told ATWOnline. The carrier has two A320-200s on order.
Triumph Group of Pennsylvania said its Frisby Aerospace subsidiary was awarded a $300 million contract by Saab Aerostructures to produce the 787 Large Cargo Door Actuation System.
