Qatar set to order 80 A350s, 777s Bombardier forges agreement with PWC for CSeries engine Finnish Commuter orders eight ATR 42s Boeing says 747ADV program on schedule Additional stories Paris Air Show news from June 13 Paris, June 14, 2005 Qatar set to order 80 A350s, 777s
Ryanair carried 2.9 million passengers in May, up 34% on the year-ago period. Load factor improved 1 point to 82%. For the rolling 12 months ended May 31, the number of earned seats totaled 28.8 million.
Japan Airlines said it received registration in the IATA Operational Safety Audit program, an internationally recognized and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline.
Kinetics last week introduced CheckinHere, its new kiosk solution that provides multi-airline check-in, prints boarding passes and provides baggage services for passengers at off-airport locations such as hotels, car rental stations and cruise line ports.
Discover the World Marketing officially opened the new office in Moscow that it will use to handle sales and marketing representation in Russia for client Air New Zealand.
Aviation Partners Boeing was awarded an STC for 757-200 blended winglets by FAA. Continental Airlines is the launch customer for the product and already has 11 winglet shipsets on order for its 757-200s for delivery this year. Icelandair also has some on order.
UAL Corp., parent of United Airlines, made changes to the responsibilities of two senior executives. Senior VP-Strategic Sourcing and Chief Procurement Officer Richard Poulton will take on additional responsibilities for information technology and business development and now will hold the title of senior VP-business development. In addition, Executive VP-Strategy Doug Hacker will lead efforts to assess United's ancillary businesses as part of completing its Chapter 11 restructuring. The company said Hacker initially will focus on San Francisco-based MyPoints.com.
In order to improve its ontime performance and schedule reliability, Alaska Airlines late last week announced that it will eliminate or suspend several flights this summer. "This is a temporary measure to get our operation back on track after record load factors and increased summer flying, coupled with ongoing company transitions, caused delays and cancellations to rise," Alaska CEO Bill Ayer said.
The Australian government again deferred a decision on whether to allow Singapore Airlines' entry to the corridor to the US and embarked on a comprehensive review of the local aviation industry, according to newspaper reports. Prime Minister John Howard advised his counterpart in Singapore, Lee Sien Loong, that the issue of fifth freedom access for SIA to the South Pacific had been put on hold indefinitely because of the proposed ministerial committee inquiry, The Australian newspaper reported.
Japan Airlines expanded its e-ticketing service to include British Airways-operated JAL codeshare flights via London Heathrow and BA connecting flights.
US airlines' ontime performance improved in April compared to the previous month and April 2004. According to Dept. of Transportation statistics, the 19 reporting carriers posted an ontime arrival rate of 83.4%, slightly better than April 2004's 83% and well above March 2005's 76.9%. Hawaiian Airlines at 95.6% had the highest ontime arrival rate. Of mainline carriers, ATA Airlines posted the best mark at 89% with SkyWest Airlines at 87.6% ranking second. Alaska Airlines had the lowest rate at 77%.
Independence Air flew 311.7 million RPMs in May on capacity of 427.5 million ASMs, which produced a load factor of 72.9%. For the five months ended May 31, RPMs totaled 1.14 billion, ASMs were 1.78 billion and load factor reached 64.9%.
SkyEurope placed an order for 16 737-700 blended winglet shipsets with 16 options. The winglets will be purchased by GECAS and installed by Boeing in February 2006. Meanwhile, the carrier will launch a thrice-weekly Dublin-Krakow service Sept. 20.
Air Canada unveiled plans to launch a number of new routes in Canada this summer and fall that will be operated by Air Canada Jazz. Effective Aug. 1, AC Jazz will begin twice-daily nonstop flights between Edmonton and Regina using 37-seat Dash 8-100s and twice-daily nonstop flights between Edmonton and Saskatoon using 50-seat Dash 8-300s. From Sept. 18, the Regional will begin four daily nonstop flights between Hamilton and Montreal and three daily nonstop flights between Hamilton and Ottawa using 50-seat CRJs. In addition, AC released its new Las Vegas schedule. Beginning Oct.
Emirates said its first Islamic Sukuk issue received subscriptions of $824 million against an initial target of $550 million. However, the carrier closed the order book at $550 million. The proceeds of the Islamic Sukuk Bonds issue will be used to finance Emirates' $354 million engineering center, which is scheduled to be completed early next year, and the new $191 million Emirates Group headquarters, which is expected to be inaugurated by the end of 2006.
Iberia teamed up with OnAir to provide e-mail and Web chat services for its business class passengers on long-haul routes following "very successful" inflight tests. Senior VP-Customer Relationships Felix Garcia Viejobueno said, "We know from our customer research that our business passengers are very keen to have the option of using their flight time more productively."
Northwest Airlines will have to continue to negotiate with its mechanics and related workers after the National Mediation Board rejected the carrier's request to declare the talks at an impasse. The two sides have been negotiating since October and a mediator became involved in February. Northwest sent a request to NMB in late May asking the board to declare the talks at an impasse. The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. responded with its own letter asking NMB to let the talks continue.
Kitty Hawk Inc. appointed Robert Barron as VP and COO for its airline subsidiary, Kitty Hawk Aircargo. Since joining Kitty Hawk in May 2004, Barron has served as the company's VP-maintenance and engineering. Earlier he was chief inspector for US Airways.
Mumbai-based GoAir will lease up to 20 A320s over the next two years for its new low-cost domestic services that are scheduled to begin in October. In the longer term, the airline plans to acquire up to 40 A320s. GoAir will start operations in the southern and western regions of India.
Volga-Dnepr Group reported revenue of more than $300 million for 2004, the second-highest result in its 15-year history. The company said its An-124 fleet contributed $225 million in revenue during the year and it controlled roughly 54% of the world's outsize and heavyweight air cargo transportation market. Transportation volume reached 431,973 ton-kilometers.
Air Pacific, Fiji's national airline, reported a profit after tax of $24.5 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, basically equal to the profit achieved in the prior financial year. Revenue increased 4.5% to $440.6 million while expenditure climbed 5.6% to $405.7 million. Profit before tax was $36 million, an increase of 3.7% over the previous year.
CFMI launches engine technology development program Paris opens without Emirates Paris, June 13, 2005 CFMI launches engine technology development program CFM International the day before the start of the Paris Air Show announced LEAP56, a program to develop the technology for a new engine to be available for use on a new generation of aircraft with entry into service as early as 2012.
