Boeing unveiled a new no-charge carbon brake option on the 737NG that it said will reduce weight by up to 700 lb. and increase the wear life for up to twice as many landings. The brakes will be supplied by Goodrich and Messier-Bugatti and will be available for delivery in early 2008. They also will be available for retrofit. "Carbon brakes offer the same stopping performance as steel brakes but with the added benefit of a significant weight savings," 737 Chief Project Engineer Mike Delaney said.
Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, parent of Atlas Air and Polar Air Cargo, announced yesterday the upcoming retirement of President and CEO Jeffrey Erickson, who steered the company out of bankruptcy in 2004.
Delta Air Lines will increase service to Mexico, adding Saturday flights from Boston and Washington Dulles to Cancun. Service begins June 3 aboard 737-800s. Romanian Regional carrier Carpatair will add a 10th destination to its domestic network. A Saab 340 will start thrice-weekly flights from Timisoara to Suceava on March 7. The carrier also plans thrice-weekly Timisoara-London Stansted service from March 27 using F100s. Carpatair operates two F100s, nine Saab 2000s and three Saab 340s.
ATA Airlines received approval yesterday to emerge from bankruptcy. "I don't see any indication we won't be dealing with a solvent entity in April," Judge Basil H. Lorch III said, according to the Associated Press. ATA is expected to announce details of its emergence today.
Air New Zealand, which had been prepared to outsource its widebody heavy airframe maintenance, repair and overhaul activities, said it accepted a counterproposal from union negotiators "that could see [the work] remain in-house through a combination of redundancies and comprehensive labor reform" ( ATWOnline, Dec. 20). ANZ had set a target of achieving $32 million in savings from widebody airframe MRO over five years.
World Airways pilots, represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, went on strike over the weekend after rejecting the carrier's final contract offer Saturday. The two sides had been negotiating throughout last week as the National Mediation Board-mandated 30-day cooling-off period came to a close ( ATWOnline, Jan. 27). Pilots are forbidden to abandon flights for the US military, World's largest customer.
Volvo Aero will increase its participation in the GEnx engine to the tune of an additional SEK6 billion ($787 million) in sales over the next 30 years. Volvo now will be responsible for additional components in the fan module and HPT.
Continental Airlines flight attendants, represented by the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, ratified the four-year labor agreement reached last month, according to the airline ( ATWOnline, Dec. 12). The union is expected to release the voting results and a statement today.
ANA's new cargo airline joint venture with Japan Post will operate as ANA & JP Express or AJV, with flights scheduled to begin in August with three 767Fs ( ATWOnline, Oct. 25, 2005).
Northwest Airlines pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Assn., remain adamantly opposed to the carrier's plan to create a separate airline subsidiary to operate large regional jets or to relaxing their scope agreement to permit Northwest's Regional partners to fly RJs seating up to 76. In a message to pilots, ALPA said, "NWA management needs to realize that NewCo or 'NewCo-like' is unacceptable to the NWA pilot group." NWA has filed a Section 1113 request with the bankruptcy court for authority to impose an agreement ( ATWOnline, Jan.
JetBlue Airways is looking into interline or codeshare agreements with one or more international carriers, CEO David Neeleman told ATWOnline. "There are a lot of people interested in our network," said Neeleman, who spoke at the Raymond James Growth Airline Conference in New York last week. "We could have something by the end of 2006."
US National Transportation Safety Board issued an "urgent safety recommendation" to FAA requesting that the agency "prohibit airlines from using credit for the use of thrust reversers when calculating stopping distances on contaminated runways." The recommendation comes out of the Board's continuing investigation into the Dec. 8 Southwest Airlines runway overrun accident at Chicago Midway ( ATWOnline, Dec. 16). According to NTSB, FAA does not allow the use of the reverse thrust credit when determining dispatch landing distances.
Last year will turn out to be "marginally profitable" for Assn. of European Airlines members, Secretary General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus told ATWOnline. He forecast that his 30 member carriers will post a profit of €1 billion ($1.22 billion), clearly better than the €400 million recorded in 2004 and the negative financial results reported from 1999 through 2003.
UAL Corp.'s announcement Friday of a $16.9 billion fourth-quarter loss and a full-year loss of $21.18 billion overshadowed significant operational improvements at United Airlines as it approaches its exit from bankruptcy next month. And executives are confident the carrier is on the right course, as the staggering on-paper loss will be wiped out upon emergence as unsecured claims are settled "for a minor fraction of the amount of the claims recorded," leaving it expecting a "substantial gain" in the first quarter of 2006.
Bankrupt Delta Air Lines announced a deal with Merrill Lynch providing the carrier with a letter of credit giving it access to up to $300 million in cash held in reserve by its Visa/MasterCard processor, which is entitled to hold back $450 million-$850 million under the terms of an agreement lasting through October 2007. "Even with this vote of support from the financial community for our business plan, we expect 2006 to be a very challenging year," Delta Executive VP and CFO Ed Bastian said.
SAS Group on Friday said it "completely rejects" the Swedish Ministry of Finance's proposal to place an environmental tax on air travel ( ATWOnline, Nov. 29).
Frontier Airlines reversed course in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, posting a loss of $10.3 million for the period after a profitable September quarter in which it earned $6.9 million. At that time, however, the Denver-based carrier warned that it would lose money in the fall period ( ATWOnline, Oct. 31, 2005). The deficit was slightly improved from a year-ago loss of $11.1 million.
Macau Asia Express, a new budget carrier formed and funded by Air Macau (51%) and ST-CNAC (49%), a joint venture between China National Aviation Co. (36%) and Shun Tak Holdings (64%), was established last week. Initial funding is $30 million for the airline, which will adopt "a highly competitive cost model" and launch service in the fourth quarter of this year on routes to the Chinese mainland and Asia.
Embraer officials said there will not be any delays in aircraft production after strong winds ripped roofs off two warehouses at its facility in San Jose dos Campos last week. Wind gusts hit the company's headquarters Jan. 24, injuring 17 employees and damaging hangars where parts are manufactured and ERJ-145s are assembled. One employee remained hospitalized Friday.
Airbus said All Nippon Airways ordered three A320s last year. The Airbus website showed orders for three A320s from an unidentified customer received on Dec. 1. The airframer also said ANA will lease two A320s. All aircraft will be powered by CFM56-5B4/Ps and will support expansion to destinations in China.
LAN Peru will introduce four-times-weekly Sao Paulo-Los Angeles service from March 22 aboard 767s. Finnair is adding three weekly flights from Helsinki to St Petersburg from May, bringing weekly frequencies to 10.
Air Canada intends to challenge Qantas between Los Angeles and Sydney next year, operating fifth freedom services as part of a daily Toronto-Sydney service that will commence during the first half of 2007 when its new 777-300ERs and dash 200LRs begin arriving. Air Canada said it will use authority contained in the recent open skies agreement between the US and Canada and will apply to Canadian and Australian authorities for permission to operate the route.
Assn. of Asia Pacific Airlines members carried 128 million passengers in 2005, an increase of 5% over the previous year. Passenger traffic rose 5.1%, capacity expanded 4.6% and load factor gained 0.4 point to 73.3%. International freight traffic grew 3.3% while capacity rose 4.9%, resulting in a 1-point decline in load factor to 66.4%.
Korean Air concluded a challenging FY05 with net earnings of KRW202.3 billion ($205.6 million), a 61.1% plunge from its 2004 profit of KRW519.5 billion.
