Aloha Airlines has decided to eliminate service to the Central and South Pacific and will suspend operations to Burbank and Vancouver following a route analysis. It also has decided to return two 737-300s, but through improved utilization and optimized scheduling it still intends to expand its operations to California.
The advent of GDS new entrants, dubbed GNEs, sparked an unusually acerbic response from the traditional vendors at ResExpo, who warned suppliers and agents that embracing new technology comes with risks. G2 SwitchWorks and ITA Software say they are close to rolling out systems that will take travel reservations off TPF mainframes and onto open systems that are more agile and a lot cheaper.
Continental Airlines yesterday announced that it reached tentative agreements on new contracts with its last unsigned work groups, its pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics and dispatchers. Terms of the deals were not released but the carrier has said it needs $500 million in savings, more than $300 million of which has to come from those groups. The agreements are subject to union leadership approvals and ratification by union membership, with votes expected by the end of March.
Virgin Blue's independent directors flatly rejected as "neither fair nor reasonable" a A$1.1 billion ($871.6 million) buyout bid by major shareholder Patrick Corp., intensifying pressure on the multimodal transport group to raise its offer price.
After numerous false hopes and blind alleys, the wonderful world of IT finally is moving into the airline maintenance world in a fully realized way, with proven technologies offering off-the-shelf solutions while communications advances make it easier still. Harry Stripe from Northwest Airlines' line maintenance operation said at last month's Miami Aviation Symposium sponsored by Intel and Panasonic, "For ten or twelve years we've been walking down this path. Only in the last four or five years have we seen the tools we need."
Bratislava would seem to be an unlikely place from which to launch an airline. The capital city of Slovakia has a population of around half-a-million (for the country as a whole it is 5.4 million) and is only 30 mi. from Vienna, home to Central Europe's largest carrier, Austrian Airlines.
On top of that introduction schedule, engine manufacturers are assuming that follow-ons to the single-aisle 737NG/ A320 twinjets will be launched around 2010 to be in the market in 2012. This is the big-number category, with hundreds pouring out of factories every year even in down times.
Airlines soon may get an inkling as to which radio technology to buy-or not to buy-for their future aircraft. The enlightenment will commence in a meeting room in Montreal next month when technical experts from FAA, NASA and Eurocontrol unveil to a 30-member ICAO aerocommunications panel their top six or so ideas for what type of communications system will make the most economical and functional sense for global interoperability through 2030.
It is back to the future for Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines, who signed codeshare agreements to compete with the new LCCs operating out of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Under the deal, SIA and its regional subsidiary SilkAir will codeshare on a variety of Malaysia Airlines routes starting March 27. SIA and MAS split in 1972 and relations have been cool for decades, but the impending Asean Free Skies starts in 2008. Both airlines have taken the strategic decision to build market presence and cut out wasteful duplication to combat LCCs.
UPS announced late Friday that it plans to add an $82.5 million, 700,000-sq.-ft. heavy freight facility to its existing Louisville Cargo operations. The move came just one day after the company announced it was closing its freight-sorting hub at Dayton ( ATWOnline , Feb. 25). UPS said several states were considered as bases for the facility but the decision of the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority to extend it tax incentives helped seal the deal. The new complex is expected to bring 720 jobs to Louisville.
Iberia, which late last week placed an order for up to 79 Airbus aircraft ( ATWOnline , Feb. 28), posted a consolidated profit after tax and minority interests of eur218.4 million ($289.4 million) for 2004, a 53% increase over net income of eur34.9 million in the previous year and the second-best profit ever recorded by the company. For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, consolidated net profit rose 53.1% on the year-ago period from eur34.9 million to eur53.4 million.
Independence Air parent FLYi reported an $86 million net loss for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, which included costs related to the sale of four CRJs, the writeoff of goodwill remaining from the original formation of the company and costs related to a recently completed financial restructuring ( ATWOnline , Feb. 23).
But for the grace of US taxpayers, patient bankruptcy judges and the deep pockets of GE Capital Corp., the long-awaited consolidation of the US airline industry might have begun in earnest last year as companies such as United Airlines, US Airways Group and Delta Air Lines simply ran out of financial options. Together, the three accounted for $7.5 billion of the $9.2 billion in aggregate losses suffered by US Major passenger airlines in 2004. Delta by itself accounted for nearly 60% of the industry's annual loss and a bit more than half of the fourth-quarter loss.
Valuair , a Singapore-based low-cost carrier, is planning to launch flights to Australia's east coast cities by December. The airline already operates A320s from Singapore to Perth and the success of that operation is prompting expansion plans. Insiders suggest Valuair will lease A330s or A340s to launch the flights. It operates to Hong Kong, Bangkok and Jakarta and plans to start flights to Chengdu and Xiamen in China, Japan and Korea.
It is quite certain that Bill Boeing was not thinking of the 777-200LR when he declared in 1929 that his namesake company's goal was "to let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment pass us." But 76 years later, the emergence of the newest variant of the successful 777 family certainly represents a triumph of aerospace technology and an improvement in "flying equipment."
Indonesia's Lion Air is in the market for 40 737-900s or A320s/A321s, according to insiders. ATWOnline understands that an MOU has been signed with Boeing, although Airbus is making a counteroffer.
Thirty years ago, Airbus Industrie ran an advertising campaign to educate a doubting industry about its credibility and the virtues of the new A300. "What is it? Who is it? How does it work and where is it going?" the advertisement asked. On Jan. 18, 2005, not one of the nearly 4,500 guests attending the "A380 Reveal" was in the slightest doubt regarding the success of Airbus and what the A380 represents to European industrial collaboration and the airline industry.
US Airways yesterday said its $125 million financing agreement with Eastshore Aviation ( ATWOnline , Feb. 23), an investment entity owned by Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. and its shareholders, was approved by the US Bankruptcy Court. The facility is structured as debtor-in-possession financing and $75 million will be available immediately. The remaining funds will be drawn in $25 million increments later. Upon emergence from Chapter 11, the loan will be converted to equity in the reorganized US Airways.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and responding to growing national as well as European regulatory demands for increased security at airports, Aeroports de Paris launched a trial of several biometric systems in an effort to improve the reliability of access pass control of staff entering restricted areas.
Last summer, 787 VP and GM Mike Bair talked of a "land rush" of airline orders and, along with Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Alan Mulally, repeatedly predicted that more that 200 787 orders would be on the books by the end of 2004. But even the late-January order from six Chinese carriers for a total of 60 787s left the company 14 short of its year-end target, while the number of firm orders remained at 56.
Coming this May, Disney in a partnership with ARINC and Baggage Airline Guest Services Inc. will take the "hold" out of hold baggage and put a zip in the trip to the airport for guests at its Walt Disney World Resort.
Looking like a tiny abstract sculpture in the midst of the giant terminals of 21st century John F. Kennedy International Airport, architect Eero Saarinen's 1961 TWA World Flight Center sits empty on what Richard Smyth, JetBlue Airways' VP-JFK redevelopment, calls "the best ramp on the airport."
US Federal Court judge gave the go-ahead for United Airlines employees to move forward with a class-action lawsuit against the carrier's employee stock ownership plan and its trustees. The suit alleges that those charged with protecting the interests of the employee-owners failed in their duties, costing them "billions of dollars." It claims that the UAL ESOP committee and the plan trustee, State Street Bank, were aware that UAL's stock was unstable and State Street Bank even had placed it on a watch list owing to its volatility.
SkyEurope said that a disagreement with Warsaw Airport will cause it to divert new aircraft originally intended to be based there to Krakow instead. The Slovakian low-cost carrier is adding four aircraft to its fleet this summer, which will enable it to double its capacity at Krakow, increase frequencies on existing routes and open new routes to Barcelona and Manchester. SkyEurope officials claimed that Warsaw cannot guarantee overnight parking for aircraft and intends to raise passenger charges by 23% to pay for a new terminal.
Orbitz Thursday said it filed a lawsuit against G2 SwitchWorks Corp. and five of the company's officers and employees. All five formerly worked at Orbitz, according to the lawsuit, which alleges that they "breached their employment agreements with Orbitz," including having "improperly taken and used Orbitz's confidential information and trade secrets." In a statement, Orbitz claimed that one current G2 employee "has already admitted, in writing, that he was 'in possession of and used sensitive documents.'"
