TAAG Angola Airlines reached a definitive agreement with Boeing for the purchase of two 777-200ERs and four 737-700 Quick Change aircraft. The agreement also includes options for an additional 777-200ER and two more 737-700QCs. According to Boeing, the firm order is valued at roughly $649.6 million at list prices and approximately $990 million with options included. The aircraft will be delivered next year, with the first 777-200ER and 737-700 scheduled to arrive in July. They will replace the current fleet of two 747-300s and five 737-200s.
IBS Software Services said Air New Zealand Cargo, Gulf Air and South African Airways Cargo joined the Core Group of Influence Forum to participate in the development of IBS's next-generation air cargo and logistics management system iCargo.
Kitty Hawk appointed James Kupferschmid VP and CFO. He comes to Kitty Hawk with a 20-plus-year financial career including cargo, airline and M&A assignments with Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines.
SITA SC signed a deal with Finnair to migrate the airline's existing network infrastructure over to a SITA IP-based wide area network solution. The solution is being implemented in more than 80 locations across three continents.
The National Mediation Board Thursday offered binding arbitration to Northwest Airlines and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. The step came after both the airline and the union, which represents Northwest's mechanics, asked to be released from mediation. In a statement, Northwest said it "wants to work with AMFA to reach a consensual agreement that provides wage and benefit levels that are fair to employees and that will allow Northwest to stem its unsustainable operating losses."
Aerosim said AeroMexico will take a 737-700/777-200ER Virtual Procedure Trainer as part of a complete training solution being provided by Alteon Training.
Boeing listed an order for five 777s on its website from an unannounced customer. Embraer reported a total of 60 deliveries for the first half, including 53 commercial aircraft. This is somewhat less than half of the 145 deliveries company officials expect to report for all of 2005. Firm orders in the first six months included six ERJ-145s and 72 170s/190s. In the second quarter alone, 58 firm orders for the 170/190 family were tallied. The firm order backlog, which includes business, commercial and military aircraft, is valued at $10.9 billion.
Shares of Delta Air Lines climbed nearly 18% last Thursday after the carrier announced it would raise its fare caps for domestic one-way walkup fares from $499 to $599 ( ATWOnline, July 15), but JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker threw cold water on the higher expectations, stating that the fare increase is a positive step but does not improve Delta's chances of avoiding Chapter 11.
Gulf Air will launch a thrice-weekly service from Bahrain to Dublin beginning Dec. 2 using A330s in three-class configuration. The flight will be Dublin's first-ever scheduled service into the Middle East. "There is a huge amount of traffic from Dublin to the Gulf and beyond that now has to travel over London or Amsterdam. There is a huge leisure market, a large VFR market as well as a strong high-yield business market," Gulf Air President and CEO James Hogan told ATWOnline in Dublin.
Austrian Airlines Group, which holds 62% of tiny Slovak Airlines, is interested in acquiring the remaining shares if the state permits it, a spokesperson told this website. Meanwhile, AAG, which comprises Austrian, Austrian arrows, Lauda Air and Slovak, flew 2.1 billion RPKs in June, up 8.8% over the year-ago period. ASKs rose 8.7% to 2.8 billion and load factor grew a fraction to 73.1%. The group transported 994,000 passengers, up 12.1%. For the first half, AAG flew 10 billion RPKs, up 1.8%, on a 4.2% gain in ASKs to 14.2 billion. Load factor dropped 1.7 points to 70.2%.
ATA Airlines, which has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since October 2004, Friday announced plans to expand the outsourcing of its heavy maintenance program and to begin outsourcing its customer reservations call center in moves that will result in the loss of 450 jobs. Since filing for Chapter 11, ATA has continued to shrink. Over the last two years its total workforce has dropped from 7,800 to 4,687, and since last year its fleet has been reduced from 67 to 45 aircraft.
Qantas, following in the footsteps of Air New Zealand, Friday announced a "new streamlined fare structure" for transpacific travel starting Aug. 1. The new structure consists of three fare families and permits passengers to combine different fare categories for outbound and return legs. However, the carrier has not adopted true one-way pricing as some fares may be purchased only on a roundtrip basis and there are some restrictions and surcharges for one-way fares.
American Airlines and Philippine Airlines launched interline e-ticketing, bringing the number of domestic and international carriers providing IET in cooperation with American to 28.
Volga-Dnepr Group announced that Commercial Manager Dennis Gliznoutsa was promoted to group commercial director succeeding Tony Bauckham, who took over as MD of Volga-Dnepr UK earlier in the year. Gliznoutsa will be based at London Stansted and is responsible for all sales and marketing of Volga-Dnepr's An-124-100s and IL-76s.
With the merger of US Airways and America West seemingly on track for completion this autumn, US Airways Executive VP-Marketing and Planning Bruce Ashby announced he will leave the airline later this month to become CEO of proposed Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo. The startup is partly backed by one of Ashby's former colleagues, Rakesh Gangwal, who served as president and CEO of US Airways from 1998 until his surprise resignation in November 2001.
JAL Group will launch flights to six destinations from Kobe Airport when it opens on Feb. 16. Under current plans, the carrier will operate 10 daily flights to Tokyo Haneda, Sapporo, Sendai, Okinawa, Kumamoto and Kagoshima. JAL said it is evaluating what type of aircraft to use for the flights and should come to a decision by November.
Iberia flew 4.7 billion RPKs in June, up 6.5% on the prior-year period, while capacity increased 6% to 5.24 billion ASKs. Consequently, load factor improved 0.4 point to 77.7%. The number of passengers carried grew 3.3%--up 5.2% on domestic flights and 0.8% on international flights. During the first half ended June 30, Iberia grew RPKs by 7% and ASKs climbed 6.1%, lifting load factor 0.6 point to 75.1%.
EasyJet is adding six new routes to its network, increasing the total to 216 and the number of key airports served to 64. London Gatwick-Murcia service will commence Sept. 23, Gatwick-Grenoble Dec. 16, Dortmund to both Barcelona and Milan Malpensa and Geneva-Lisbon Oct. 30 and Geneva-Malaga Nov. 1. The new daily services will connect currently served destinations with the exception of Lisbon, which is a new city to be added to the airline's network.
Air Jamaica canceled its full flight schedule for July 16 as a result of Hurricane Emily, which is working its way slowly through the Caribbean. This is the second time this month that the airline has been forced to cancel flights owing to a hurricane ( ATWOnline, July 8).
FedEx Express announced that Senior VP-Air Operations Donald Barber will retire at the end of July. He will be succeeded by FedEx Express VP James Parker.
Discover the World Marketing finalized an agreement with Alitalia to expand its sales and marketing coverage to South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia. It already represents Alitalia in 13 other countries.
As a result of skyrocketing fuel prices, Delta Air Lines yesterday raised its top-level one-way caps in its SimpliFares program by $100 to $599 for economy class and $699 for first class, effective immediately. According to media reports, United Airlines and Continental Airlines quickly matched the move, while Northwest Airlines and American Airlines were studying it.
KLM Customer Ground Handling concluded an open-ended contract with Icelandair to perform full flight handling for its 757 operations at Amsterdam Schiphol. Icelandair currently operates eight weekly flights to Amsterdam.
