Starflyer, a Japanese startup, filed for an AOC and proposes to operate three A320s on the Tokyo Haneda-Kitakyushu route from May when the new airport at Kitakyushu opens. The airline is planning a 12-times-daily shuttle. It is backed by Kyushu businesses including Kyushu Electric Power Co. and Kyushu Railway Co.
Ryanair announced Cork as its 15th European base. From Nov. 24 it will base a 737-800 there and introduce service to Dublin and London Gatwick, bringing to four the number of routes it will serve from Cork. The LCC said it expects to deliver more than 1 million passengers per year through the airport. In addition, it will launch a twice-weekly service from its Shannon base to Malaga from Nov. 2, bringing the number of destinations it serves from Shannon to 17. It will add a new daily service from Knock to London Luton Oct. 30.
US and Thailand reached agreement "on a comprehensive open skies framework to expand and liberalize their bilateral aviation relations." The accord was reached in Washington Friday and will provide for "open routes, capacity, frequencies, designations and pricing, as well as cooperative marketing arrangements including codesharing."
SkyEurope Holding AG, the Austrian company that owns 52% of Bratislava-based low-cost carrier SkyEurope, announced the publication of a prospectus covering an initial public offering of up to 12.98 million ordinary shares. SkyEurope Holding is composed of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ABN AMRO and the European Investment Fund. Bank Austria Creditanstalt holds 28% of SkyEurope while co-founder and CEO Christian Mandl and co-founder and Chairman Alain Skowronek own the remaining 20%, according to a report published earlier this year by Raymond James & Assoc.
Gol will launch direct flights to Buenos Aires from Porto Alegre and Florianople Friday, offering a single daily roundtrip in each market. The carrier began international service to Buenos Aires eight months ago. AirTran Airways will operate a daily seasonal nonstop service to Southwest Florida International Airport in Ft. Myers from Jan. 12 to May 3. Separately, it will add a sixth daily roundtrip between Boston and Philadelphia Dec.15 and a seventh Feb. 15.
Northwest Airlines yesterday disclosed that it had skipped $42 million in payments as its shares plunged 58% to close at $1.41 on a report in Tuesday's New York Times that the carrier may precede Delta Air Lines into bankruptcy owing to soaring fuel costs. The article cited anonymous sources who said the airline could seek Chapter 11 protection as early as today.
ARINC will provide GoJet Airlines with its GlobaLink VDL Mode 2 data link service, AviNet wide-area network service, Air-Ground Domestic radio voice service and OpCenter Web-based messaging service. GoJet, a subsidiary of Trans States Holdings, expects to launch service Oct. 1 under the United Express banner using CRJ700s.
AirTran Airways would be the biggest beneficiary of a Delta Air Lines bankruptcy filing and stands to inherit "16 cents of every revenue dollar Delta leaves behind," but the entire industry would profit from anticipated double-digit capacity cuts, according to JP Morgan's Jamie Baker, who "officially" joined the chorus of those "calling for an imminent Chapter 11 filing." In a report released yesterday, Baker forecast that Delta will shrink capacity 15% from current levels, "approximating the shrinkage" at United Airlines and US Airways after those carriers entered bankruptcy.
American Airlines and United Airlines have written a letter to European Commission Director for Transport Daniel Calleja complaining about the Italian government's refusal to allow them to add their codes to flights operated by their respective EU partner airlines between Milan Linate and European gateway cities, ATWOnline learned from a source close to DG TREN.
The emirate of Abu Dhabi intends to withdraw its shareholding in Gulf Air over the next six months, leaving just two owners of the Middle Eastern carrier: The Kingdom of Bahrain and the Sultanate of Oman. Qatar, the fourth founding partner, left in May 2002. Gulf Air President and CEO James Hogan said there will be no change to the carrier's "core approach to business or to its ongoing business strategy."
United Airlines and South African Airways will begin codesharing this fall. Starting Nov. 1, SAA will place its code on UA domestic flights from Washington Dulles to San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Subject to regulatory approval, the UA code will appear on SAA's Washington Dulles-Johannesburg service and its service within Africa and between South Africa and Europe. SAA will become a fully integrated Star Alliance member in early 2006.
Steep oil price increases will push the world's airline industry deeper into the red in 2005 than previously forecast, IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said yesterday in Washington.
Contract talks between Northwest Airlines and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. aimed at ending a 23-day walkout broke down Sunday and the company said it will begin hiring "permanent replacements" for striking mechanics today ( ATWOnline, Sept. 12). Negotiations apparently collapsed over the issue of severance pay for workers whose jobs were to be eliminated or outsourced.
Air India Express is taking over more Air-India routes. The LCC will operate Delhi-Bahrain from April and Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai from October. Alaska Airlines began double-daily service Monday between Seattle and Dallas/Ft. Worth with continuing service to and from Anchorage on one of the flights.
Indonesia Transportation Ministry grounded four 737-200s belonging to different airlines for maintenance in the wake of the Mandala Airlines crash that killed 143 on Sept. 5 ( ATWOnline, Sept. 7). The groundings resulted from spot inspections of the aircraft by Transportation Minister Hatta Radjasa Saturday. He told Indonesian media that "due to the current situation [air crash], we have decided to carry out ramp checks every day."
CLR Photonics said its WindTracer pulsed Doppler lidar system was deployed at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport in a joint program with US FAA to demonstrate and evaluate it as a windshear detection solution and complement to the terminal Doppler weather radar currently in operation at the airport.
Delta Air Lines could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as early as this week, but not before a final board meeting to discuss the situation, according to a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal that cited "people familiar with the situation."
FedEx ordered six A300-600Fs plus an undisclosed number of options, Airbus announced Sunday. Deliveries will begin in 2007. Value of the order and engine selection were not released. FedEx operates 47 A300-600Fs plus 54 A310Fs.
AirAsia Indonesian affiliate AWAIR's new domestic service actually is intended to attract passengers from Singapore and southern Malaysia. The daily service between Jakarta and Batam beginning Thursday is the airline's way of getting around Singapore's refusal to permit it to operate between Jakarta and the Lion City. Batam has become a new gateway for travelers from Johor and Singapore to Jakarta and vice versa at lower fares. A high-speed ferry serving Batam from key centers in Singapore and southern Malaysia competes the connection.
Alteon Training and 787 launch customer ANA will establish a Tokyo Training Center at Haneda as part of the Alteon global training support network for the Dreamliner. The center will house a full flight simulator, flat-panel simulator, desktop systems, courseware and instructors and will be ready by the first quarter of 2008. The first 787 training center to be announced by Alteon, it primarily will serve ANA but will be available to all 787 operators.
Malaysia Airlines advised the markets yesterday that its first A380 will be delivered six months late, similar to the revised delivery schedules for all launch customer airlines. MAS said in a media release, "Airbus confirmed that the first A380-800 aircraft will be delivered in July 2007 instead of January 2007 and the last (sixth) aircraft will be delivered in May 2009." Executive Director Tengku Azmil Zahruddin said, "We are naturally disappointed with this delay.
Northwest Airlines named David Davis as its new senior VP-finance and controller replacing Jeff Putnam, who resigned. Davis returns to NWA after serving most recently as CFO of Houston-based Kraton Polymers LLC.
Denim Air dropped the three routes it operated in codeshare with Swiss International Air Lines from Zurich to Bologna, Venice and Florence Monday. Termination of the contract follows the acquisition of Swiss by Lufthansa and subsequent reorganization of their networks. The codeshare agreement was set to expire at the end of the current summer schedules. The two freed-up F50s will be used Denim Air in wet-lease activities. Eindhoven-based Denim Air Group was acquired by Panta Holdings at the end of July. Panta is controlled by Jaap Rosen Jacobson and also controls VLM Airlines.
British Airways launched a voluntary scheme through which passengers may make a cash donation "to offset the carbon dioxide emissions from their flight." The money raised will be used by Climate Care, which invests in "sustainable energy projects that tackle global warming by reducing carbon dioxide levels." Air travelers can make the donation via a link from the airline's website "for the cost of emissions created by their journey." According to BA, the donation for a roundtrip fare between London Heathrow and Madrid would be £5 ($9.20), while a return flight to Johannesburg wo
