Virgin Atlantic service increases from London include: To Mumbai from thrice-weekly to daily, to Shanghai from six-times-weekly to daily, to Cape Town from twice-weekly to thrice-weekly through Jan. 25 and to daily between Jan. 29 and March 25. It also will add a fifth weekly flight to Las Vegas in July and a sixth in September.
Delta Air Lines was granted an extension last week by the US Bankruptcy Court to file its reorganization plan by July 11. The original deadline was Jan. 12.
FLYi, parent of Independence Air, grounded its fleet Jan. 5 following its last flight, an A319 from Tampa that landed at Washington Dulles. Some 2,700 workers were left unemployed by the shutdown. The low-fare carrier, formerly known as Atlantic Coast Airlines, made the decision Jan. 2 to cease operating after failing to gain financial support from outside investors.
British Airways flew 9.16 billion RPKs in December, up 4.7% over December 2004, on a 2.6% passenger capacity hike to 12.34 billion ASKs. Passenger load factor rose 1.5 points to 74.2%. The number of passengers carried dipped 0.2% to 2.73 million, including a 3.1% reduction on the European network to 1.68 million. Cargo, measured in CTKs, rose 0.2% to 436 million. BA's Asia/Pacific routes showed the most growth with a 16.7% increase in RPKs to 1.7 billion and a 13.3% gain in capacity to 2.22 billion ASKs.
Volito Aviation placed a 1995-vintage A320-200 with Aigle Azur for lease through April 2009. Aircraft is financed by DVB Bank. Midwest Airlines sold an MD-81 to AeroTurbine of Miami. Meridian Aerospace acted as an exclusive agent for the seller.
Vueling Airlines signed a five-year agreement with SR Technics under which the latter will provide technical management and component support for the Barcelona-based carrier's fleet of nine A320s.
Japan Airlines will increase one-way domestic fares 3%-11.3% from April 1 to Sept. 30 to help it cope "with the financial impact of sustained high fuel prices." At the same time, JAL will eliminate the domestic fuel surcharge of ¥200-¥300 established in January 2005. The airline said its FY05 fuel bill will be ¥90 billion higher than in the previous year. It expects costs to increase ¥130-¥140 billion in FY06.
Northwest Airlines continues to seek agreement from its pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Assn., for permission to launch a new subsidiary carrier that would operate 70/100-seat regional jets at Regional airline industry average pilot labor costs ( ATWOnline, Oct. 14). NWA outlined its plans for the subsidiary in a special edition of its internal newsletter Passages. The airline, which has a working name of NewCo, would have its own AOC and would employ furloughed NWA pilots, who would have the right of recall to NWA when that opportunity arises.
Air France-KLM Group denied reports it is increasing its stake in Alitalia. Earlier this week, Finanza e Mercati indicated AF-KLM might take over the struggling Italian carrier. "We are currently not holding merger talks and we are not increasing our holding in Alitalia," Air France spokesperson Samuel Coulon told ATWOnline. "We start to get used to the reports in the Italian press." He added that the French-Dutch group's position has not changed: "We have always said Alitalia has to be privatized and be profitable before we initiate talks to join our group."
EADS named Michael Hauger head of corporate media relations and communications-Germany. He succeeds Rainer Ohler, who took over as head of government relations, communications and external affaires at Airbus on Jan. 1.
Paramount Airways, an Indian carrier launched last September, will purchase 15 Embraer RJs, according to media reports. MD M. Thiagarajan said a contract valued at $450 million will be signed in the next couple of weeks, with deliveries occurring before year end 2007. The airline ordered five ERJs at the Paris Air Show.
CAE signed a deal with Oman Air to extend its pilot training program. It will involve instructor-led upgrade training and recurrent training for 737NGs at the ECFT center in Dubai. SpiceJet of India signed a similar deal. CAE also reached an agreement with Qatar Airways for A330/A340 pilot training. Separately, CAE said it will invest $630 million in a six-year R&D program dubbed Project Phoenix "with the goal of improving current leading-edge technologies and developing additional ones."
Boeing Commercial Airplanes shattered its single-year sales record by a wide margin in 2005, booking net orders for 1,002 aircraft (1,029 gross). Prior to 2005, Boeing's best year was 1988 when it booked 877 net orders, including McDonnell Douglas orders added retroactively. Last year's performance is even more striking in comparison to 2004, when the company sold 272 jets.
Jagson Airlines of India is to buy or lease up to 19 A320 family aircraft over the next three years. The airline will lease six A320s and acquire an additional 13 from Airbus, transforming it from a regional turboprop operator to a national carrier serving nine major Indian cities by year end. Jagson became India's first private airline in 1992 and focuses on tourist destinations in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Recently it also started serving business destinations. Based in Delhi, it operates three 20-seat Do-228s.
Assn. of Asia Pacific Airlines released preliminary traffic results for November that show a significant slowing in passenger growth. Passenger numbers were up just 1.2% to 10.6 million, making the month the weakest in 2005. In terms of RPKs, passenger traffic rose by 2.1% on a restrained capacity increase of 2.9%, resulting in a marginal decline in passenger load factor to 72.3%. International cargo traffic fared much better with 4% growth in FTKs after four months of virtually flat numbers. Capacity was up 3.1%, resulting in a slightly higher freight load factor of 68.7%.
Qatar Airways and Saudi Arabian Airlines announced the signing of a "strategic codeshare agreement" to take effect Feb. 1 on the Dammam-Doha sector. Delta Air Lines will launch daily New York JFK-Sao Paulo service from July 1. It also will add service to New Orleans and Long Beach from its Salt Lake City hub. Atlantic Southeast Airlines will operate daily routes to New Orleans beginning Jan. 31 and SkyWest Airlines will run thrice-daily flights to Long Beach from March 6.
CSA Czech Airlines announced that President and Chairman Jaroslav Tvrdik is resigning, subject to formal approval at extraordinary board meetings scheduled Jan. 18. Tvrdik is leaving to become general campaign manager of the Czech Social Democratic Party.
TAM Brazilian Airlines selected the GEnx to power the 10 A350-900s it ordered last month ( ATWOnline¸ Dec. 22). Delivery of the aircraft will begin in 2012.
Hitit Computer Services' Crane Frequent Flyer software was chosen by Carlson Marketing Group for Virgin Blue's new loyalty program Velocity. Turkish Airlines, Icelandair and Kuwait Airways also use Crane.
United Airlines' budget for 2006 includes capital spending of $400 million that will be invested in new resources including more airport check-in kiosks, refurbishing aircraft interiors, upgrading computer systems and new ground equipment. The information was contained in UAL Chairman and CEO Glenn Tilton's weekly telephone message to employees.
US airlines reported an ontime arrival rate of 80% in November, an improvement over the 79.1% achieved in November 2004 but a drop from October's rate of 81.3%, according to the "Air Travel Consumer Report" released yesterday by the US Dept. of Transportation. As usual, Hawaiian Airlines posted the best ontime arrival rate at 95.2%. Frontier Airlines was next at 85.3%. JetBlue Airways ranked last of the 20 reporting carriers at 74.6%, with Northwest Airlines at 74.9%.
Northwest Airlines mechanics voted last week to continue their four-month strike against what their union called a "renegade, union-busting airline" as 56% of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. voting members opted to reject the latest settlement proposal, which would not have brought back any of the more than 4,000 striking mechanics but would have offered severance pay and some unemployment benefits.
Air Canada is taking its simplified fares concept onto the transatlantic this year, beginning with service to London Heathrow and Manchester. The international pricing structure contains just four fare categories: Tourist, Leisure, Latitude Plus and Executive First. Other international destinations will follow "in the near future." AC has been transitioning to a simpler fare structure over the past few years beginning with its domestic network and in 2005 with its transborder services.
Continental Airlines reported a 13.1% rise in December traffic to 7 billion RPMs from 6.19 billion in 2004. Capacity was up 11.4% to 9.01 billion ASMs and load factor grew 1.2 points to 77.7%, a December record. CO said consolidated passenger RASM increased 7%-8% over December 2004 and mainline RASM grew 5.5%-6.5%. Separately, Continental Express posted a record load factor of 75.4%, up 4.6 points. Regional traffic shot up 23.1% to 817.2 million RPMs and capacity rose 15.6% to 1.08 billion ASMs.
