Air New Zealand could pursue a little-known loophole in New Zealand aviation legislation to bypass the competition regulator and establish a codeshare partnership with Qantas on the Tasman. According to the general lawyer for ANZ, John Blair, the New Zealand government has the power to allow the carriers to sell seats on each other's international services under the Civil Aviation Act. However, he said the legislative provision cannot be exercised to extend such an alliance to domestic services.
AAR hired Fred Kocher as GM-AAR Aircraft Services. Airbus North America tapped Guy McLeod as president-sales. Airport Consultants Council named Dawn E. Lucini of ARINC chair of its DHS Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Committee. AirRep appointed Caroline Daniell and Nadya Gooders operations & commercial assistants in the freighter department and Craig Gould to handle reservations at AirRep Cargo Europe. ASIG selected D. Bradley Keith as national fuel quality & compliance mgr. Emirates introduced Hiran Perera as VP cargo-freighters.
"There's an old saying around here that you never go bankrupt with too few seats or too few airplanes," Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly tells ATW at the airline's Dallas headquarters.
Although traffic and capacity continue to grow, IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani yesterday warned that if fuel prices continue to rise, the industry could see more red ink this year. "If the average price of oil settles at $43 per barrel for the year, the total cost of fuel to the industry will exceed $73 billion," Bisignani said. "Clearly 2005 will be another year of industry losses, despite aggressive airline cost cutting."
Swiss International Air Lines' large shareholders sold almost 84% of the carrier's capital to AirTrust, the holding company through which Lufthansa is taking over Swiss. According to the carrier, the newly formed company now holds 83.96% of Swiss share capital, almost all of the 86.13% previously held by majority shareholders. As part of the deal, AirTrust is offering major shareholders $342.3 million. It is offering another $58.1 million to individual investors whose shares are in free float.
At US Airways, the problems largely were manmade, as is clear in the detailed report commissioned by US Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta following both events. Keenly aware of personnel shortages among the flight attendant and ramp agent work groups, US Airways officials knew they were rolling the dice well before piles of unchecked luggage started reaching the ceiling in Philadelphia.
Continental Airlines got a big boost yesterday when its pilots and mechanics ratified new contracts that will result in significant cost savings for the company. According to the Air Line Pilots Assn., roughly 93% of eligible members cast ballots, with approximately 53.4% voting to approve the new deal. ALPA noted that the contract contains a clause that allows the pilots to reject it if any other employee group fails to approve a similar concessionary contract.
Swissport International is expanding its network by launching passenger handling operations in Rome and Milan in May. Under current plans, the company said it initially will begin station management, supervision and airport ticketing services at Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa. It also said that as part of an agreement in place with Swiss International Air Lines, it will be taking over Swiss's entire ground organization at Milan and Rome.
Singapore Technologies Aerospace yesterday unveiled its newest hangar in Singapore. The facility, which cost roughly $12 million, is capable of holding two narrowbody aircraft simultaneously.
Korean Air reported a 112% year-on-year lift in passenger demand from China to 428.9 million RPKs, while load factor climbed 4.2 points to 70%. The airline also experienced robust growth in Japan and Europe/Middle East traffic with 15.2% and 17.4% hikes in RPKs respectively for the first two months of 2005. Those spectacular gains were offset by a 21.9% drop in domestic RPKs owing to route restructuring. China also became the growth engine of Korean Air's cargo business as volume to and from the country more than doubled to 44.9 million FTKs year-on-year.
Alpine Air Express posted a net loss of $168,843 for the three months ended Jan. 31, a significant improvement from a net loss of $413,081 in the prior-year period. Revenues rose 97.8% to $5.2 million owing to a sharp increase in cargo volumes, which more than doubled year-over-year as a result of a new USPS contract in Hawaii.
As Dragonair launches its first transpacific freighter service, it served warning that it plans to double its freighter fleet to eight 747s in just three years. In addition, the airline is looking at an additional A300B4 for service to mainland Chinese cities.
Basel-based Crossair Europe , a subsidiary of Swiss International Air Lines, will cease operations as expected. Swiss will take over one of the two Saab 2000s the carrier operates.
ASiQ Pty. Ltd. , a wholly owned subsidiary of ASI Entertainment, signed a contract with Saudi Arabian Airlines for the AsiQnet inflight e-mail, Internet and SMS system. The company said further details of the deal will be released shortly.
Navtech signed a long-term contract with Delta Air Lines to provide crew management solutions. The agreement includes the use of Navtech's preferential bidding system, Class, by Delta's pilots.
Lufthansa Systems announced that Etihad Airways opted to implement its NetLine/Plan and NetLine/Sched, allowing for an "integrated approach to optimizing the elements of resource planning and control."
Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings named Michael Barna senior VP and CFO effective April 11. Barna also will serve as senior VP and CFO of AAWW subsidiaries Atlas Air and Polar Air Cargo.
AWAS delivered a CF-6-powered 767-300 to PB Air. The aircraft will operate nonstop service to Shanghai and Beijing from the carrier's Bangkok base. AWAS delivered an RB211-535E4-powered 757-200 to UK charter carrier Astraeus.
Latin American Airline Assn. member carriers flew 10.9 billion RPKs in January, up 17.7% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 12% to 15 billion ASKs and load factor gained 3.5 points to 72.2%.
Honeywell named Peg Billson VP and GM of its Airframe Systems business and Greg Albert VP and GM of its Aircraft Landing Systems business, effective April 1.
Air Nelson signed an agreement with FlightSafety International to purchase a flight simulator to provide the pilot training required for its new Q300. The simulator will be based within Air New Zealand's new simulator facility in Auckland and will be fully operational by October.
