AirTran Airways received US Dept. of Transportation approval to begin flights to Cancun. The airline plans to launch service to Cancun from both Atlanta and Tampa on Dec. 15. It will announce schedules and fares next month. Separately, AirTran will launch new daily nonstop service from Indianapolis to Southwest Florida International Airport in Ft. Myers, Ft. Lauderdale International Airport and Sarasota International Airport on Nov. 8. In addition, it will begin additional daily nonstop flights between Indianapolis and Atlanta on Aug.
SAS Technical Services AB will cut about 120 jobs in its medium and heavy maintenance organizations in Norway and Sweden and 80 jobs in its line maintenance operation in Norway out of a total workforce of 3,700. The layoffs are part of SAS Group's Turnaround 2005 program.
American Airlines officially opened a new Admirals Club lounge at Honolulu Monday. The lounge is located airside in the Ewa Concourse on Level 3 above Gate 26 and features showers, workstations equipped with telephones and computers, complimentary high-speed Internet access, fax and PC data ports. American shares the lounge with oneworld partner Qantas.
Milan Linate and Malpensa operator SEA will not be the subject of an IPO, the City of Milan governing authority has decided. However, a plan to sell off a 34% stake in the company to financial and institutional investors in Italy and abroad was approved. The city holds 84% of SEA and had considered listing it this year. The full municipal authority is scheduled to clear the sale on July 10 with sale proceedings starting in September, AFX reported. "The operation will amount to €600 million ($725.9 million).
Adria Airways opened a new €2.5 million ($3 million) hangar at its base in Ljubljana yesterday. It has capacity for three CRJs or one A320. Bombardier authorized Adria in September 2002 as its only European heavy maintenance center for the CRJ and Adria has worked on more 200 aircraft for customers including Lufthansa, Brit Air and Austrian Airlines Group. It also signed a strategic partnership with Air France Industries/KLM Engineering & Maintenance recently. Adria expects to perform maintenance work on approximately 70 aircraft from foreign carriers this year.
Aviapartner began ground handling French scheduled carrier Aigle Azur in Marseille, Lyon, and Toulouse this month. Aviapartner already handled the airline in Lille and Mulhouse. The new deal also covers Aigle Azur's charter flights at Nantes, operated with A321s.
Lufthansa received the go-ahead yesterday to build a maintenance hangar to handle the A380 at Frankfurt. The administrative court of Kassel rejected opposition to the project from local authorities and environmental groups, upholding the state of Hesse's approval last November of the planned building. "Construction of the hangar will be able to start as scheduled in the autumn. Lufthansa will invest around €150 million ($182 million) in the new hangar," a spokesperson told ATWOnline.
Air Berlin will add a 12th destination in Spain to its network. From Nov. 1 it will start daily services from Santiago de Compostela to its hub in Palma de Mallorca.
Virgin Express will resume service between Brussels and Berlin Schoenefeld Sept. 5. The decision was taken by the management board following a joint network review with SN Brussels Airlines, the carrier said in a statement. SN Brussels will continue to operate a four-times-daily rotation to Berlin Tempelhof. Since April, Virgin Express and SN Brussels have been under the common ownership of SN Airholding ( ATWOnline, April 13). Virgin Express initially will fly once daily on the route and will double its service from October.
Bmi confirmed plans to launch services from London Heathrow to Riyadh from Sept. 1. "I am delighted to confirm the expansion of our long-haul network from Heathrow following the successful launch of our Heathrow-Mumbai service last month," CEO Nigel Turner said, pointing out that bmi will be the only British carrier offering scheduled services to Saudi Arabia. British Airways suspended its flights between Heathrow and Jeddah and Riyadh from March 27 owing to reduced passenger demand. Bmi will operate a thrice-weekly service using a three-class A330.
Korean Air reported a 5.5% increase to 4.04 billion RPKs in May. Despite a drop in domestic traffic and slowing passenger flow to Japan and Southeast Asia, traffic between Korea and China jumped 32% to 204.4 million RPKs. Capacity between the two countries also climbed, rising 14.5% to 292.5 million ASKs. Capacity on European operations was up 24.1% while RPKs increased 15.9%. To the US, ASKs grew 14.9% and RPKs 7.1%.
Air New Zealand is planning to make radical changes to its short-haul operations in the Tasman and South Pacific markets to cut losses in a move that is expected to have an impact on Qantas's cost-cutting plans. Over the next 18 months, the airline will integrate its ANZ brand and low-cost Freedom Air leisure carrier under one operational umbrella built around the latter's cost model, with the two airlines' A320 fleets placed on the same AOC "to gain efficiencies from a single fleet type." The move will not affect ANZ's regional and long-haul operations.
United Airlines parent UAL Corp. reported a net loss of $93 million for May, which included $36 million in reorganization items. This is on par with the $93 million net loss the company reported for May 2004, of which $58 million represented reorganization expenses. UAL posted an operating loss of $21 million for the month compared to an operating profit of $9 million in the year-ago period.
Telair International was selected by Boeing to design and manufacture the cargo handling system for the 747 Large Cargo Freighter, the specially modified 747-400 that will transport major assemblies for the 787. According to Boeing, the system's design features "intelligent" power drive units networked through a control system that allows them to communicate with one another. This enables safe and nonlabor-intensive loading and unloading of the aircraft as well as simplifying system maintenance.
Virgin Atlantic said business-class travel increased 26% in its last financial year. During the 12 months ended Feb. 28, the airline carried 352,095 Upper Class passengers, up from 279,714 in the previous 12 months. This produced an Upper Class load factor of 56%, "the highest enjoyed by the airline since 2000," it noted.
Kingfisher Airlines signed a five-year contract with SITA INC for VHF AIRCOM data link services. According to the airline, SITA was selected because of its ability to provide nationwide VHF data communications coverage. SITA has four VHF ground stations operational at Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Calcutta with two more being installed at Port Blair and Trivandrum. SITA INC is now in the process of installing VHF stations at 17 new sites in India as well as upgrading existing sites.
SriLankan Airlines Cargo Center at Bandaranaike International Airport handled an all-time high 146,883 metric tons of cargo in 2004. Previously, the highest total the carrier handled was 127,116 tonnes in 2000. The company said it expects to handle even more cargo this year.
Qatar Airways will add 11 weekly frequencies to India following the recent successful round of bilateral discussions between the countries. Qatar currently operates 19 scheduled flights a week between Doha and Cochin, Trivandrum, Hyderabad and Mumbai. From July 14 it will add New Delhi with seven services a week, flown initially with A320s in a 144-seat, two-class configuration and later with A330s offering three classes of service. From July 15, the Mumbai route will increase from six services a week to daily with the introduction of a new Friday night flight from Doha.
British Airways is stepping up competition with LCCs on its London-based short-haul network with the launch of a new winter service to Grenoble Dec. 10 with prices from £79 ($143.43) return. The fives-times-weekly flights will operate from Gatwick with a two-class 737-500.
In a big win for the company, MTU Maintenance Hannover was awarded a contract from JetBlue Airways to maintain the 360 IAE V2500 engines powering the carrier's current and future A320s. The contract runs for 10 years and is valued at roughly €750 million ($906.2 million). "This larger order adds substantially to the continued growth of our civil repair business," MTU Aero Engines Holding AG President and CEO Udo Stark said. "Having JetBlue as a partner consolidates our position as the world's largest independent provider of engine services measured by sales."
Volga-Dnepr Group signed a 15-year financial agreement with Ilyushin Finance Corp. to become launch customer for the IL-96-400T with an order for two of the freighters. The first is due to be delivered in late 2006. The IL-96-400T will have a cargo capacity of 92 tonnes and a range of 5,000 km. It will be powered by four PC-90A1 engines. It will be used by AirBridge Cargo, Volga-Dnepr's scheduled cargo airline, to enhance its expanding network. The contract was signed by Volga-Dnepr Group President Alexey Isaikin and IFC General Director Alexander Rubtsov.
ASI Entertainment's wholly owned subsidiary ASiQ Pty. Ltd. and EMS Satcom, a division of EMS Technologies, signed a letter of intent under which ASiQ selected EMS Satcom's eNfusion HSD-128 high-speed data solution for the ASiQnet Saudi Arabian Airlines program to provide global inflight Internet connectivity for the carrier.
