Star Alliance and Aeroports de Paris signed an agreement in principle to create a partnership to support the alliance's effort to build a minihub at Paris Charles de Gaulle's Terminal 1. ADP is in the second year of a eur220 million ($290 million) refurbishment and modernization of the 31-year-old T1 during which most Star carriers not currently using the terminal will transfer operations there. "We have to invest for a better standard in T1, to reach a comfort similar to T2E or T2F," ADP President Pierre Graff said during a news conference in Paris.
Air France exercised options to purchase four additional GE90-115B-powered 777-300ERs, valued at $920 million at list prices. Deliveries will begin in April 2006. AF currently operates eight 777-300ERs and the new order brings its backlog of 777-300ER deliveries to 12.
Panama's Copa Airlines and AeroRepublica, Colombia's second-largest carrier, announced a strategic alliance that includes Copa's acquisition of a majority stake in AeroRepublica. According to the carriers, the alliance incorporates "technical and commercial collaborative agreements." AeroRepublica will continue to operate independently and will maintain its corporate identity and current workforce. It flies nine aircraft to 11 destinations in Colombia. In 2004 it transported more than 2 million passengers.
SAS Trading AB, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS Group that operates travel retail chain Euroshop, signed an agreement for the sale of its subsidiaries in Poland, Latvia and Estonia to Swedish-based Inflight Service Europe AB.
Alitalia's investment bankers Goldman Sachs and Mediobanca finalized the underwriting syndicate for the airline's eur1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) capital increase, Finanza & Mercati reported. Alitalia's restructuring plan and recap currently is being investigated by the European Commission.
Goodyear extended a multiyear contract with Airbus for the supply of aviation tires to the aircraft manufacturer for A300s, A310s, A318s, A319s, A320s and A321s.
In what was a period of significant growth, Gol reported net income of 123.9 million reais ($46.7 million) for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, up 93.3% over net income of R$64.1 million in the year-ago period. "We continued our investment in our virtuous cycle of profitable growth through the addition of four new aircraft to the fleet, 51 flights and seven new market destinations," CEO Constantino de Oliveira said.
Teledyne Controls said LTU ordered its Aviation Quality Database, a comprehensive and integrated software tool designed to support safety management and quality assurance processes. LTU will rely on AQD to facilitate occurrence data collection, incident investigation and corrective action tracking.
Sabre Airline Solutions' AirFlite suite was selected for implementation by Air China. In addition, the airline will employ consulting services from Sabre to assist with product implementation and network planning.
Bombardier is introducing a longer-range version of its CRJ700 through an increase in MTOW and the use of the higher-thrust GE CF34-8C5B1, a variant of which powers the CRJ900. The CRJ700LR will have a range of 2,516 nm (4,048 km.), a 276-nm increase over the CRJ700ER. It also will provide increases in maximum payload and maximum landing weight. The variant will be available in the first quarter of 2006 and Bombardier said existing CRJ700s "can readily be retrofitted" to the new LR standard.
British Airways Chief Executive Rod Eddington may leave the carrier in late summer or autumn, several UK newspapers reported Sunday. Eddington's departure depends on when Chairman Martin Broughton finds a replacement, but he is "likely to leave the airline within months of its annual meeting in July," according to the Sunday Times, which added that he wants to be back in his native Australia by early 2006.
Boeing President and CEO Harry Stonecipher was ousted Sunday after the board of directors became aware that he was carrying on a consensual "personal relationship" with a female Boeing executive. "The board concluded that the facts reflected poorly on Harry's judgment and would impair his ability to lead the company," said Chairman Lew Platt. The resignation "was in no way related to the company's operational performance or financial condition, both of which remain strong," Platt said.
SAS Group reported that total traffic for group airlines rose 0.8% in February to 2.3 billion RPKs compared to February 2004. Noting that comparisons are skewed owing to the fact that February 2004 contained an extra day, SAS said traffic was weaker this year. Capacity climbed 4.2% to 4 billion ASKs and load factor slipped 1.9 points to 57.2%. On intercontinental routes, load factor plummeted 8.1 points. Scandinavian Airlines reported that ASKs fell 1.8% to 3 billion, RPKs were down 5% to 1.8 billion and load factor dropped 2 points to 58.7%.
US Airways flew 2.93 billion RPMs in February, up 3% over the year-ago period. Capacity climbed 1.2% to 4.21 billion ASMs and load factor gained 1.2 points to 69%. For the two months ended Feb. 28, RPMs rose 3.4% to 5.84 billion, ASMs decreased 0.4% to 8.47 billion and load factor jumped 2.6 points to 69%.
EasyJet carried 2.2 million passengers in February, up 16.3% from a year earlier. Load factor lost 2.7 points to 85.9%. "Passenger numbers rose by a satisfactory 16.3% in February, and load factors were ahead of the 12-month rolling average. It should be noted that the load factor for February 2004 was unusually high," CEO Ray Webster said. Last week, competitor Ryanair reported a 13% increase in February passengers to 2.1 million. For the rolling 12 months ending Feb. 28, easyJet carried 26.4 million passengers and average load factor was 84.2%.
Song launched a fare sale for its New York JFK-Los Angeles flights, which begin May 1. From now until March 17, the carrier is offering $99 one-way fares on the route. The flights are part of Song's expansion at JFK, which also includes new services to San Francisco and Seattle and to leisure destinations Aruba and San Juan.
Japan Airlines announced a host of new services to China. From July 1, its China-Japan network will expand to 13 cities in China served by 29 routes and 237 flights per week. When codeshares are included, the number of cities jumps to 20. The expansion begins March 27 when JAL will codeshare beyond Beijing to six additional cities with China Southern Airlines. These services will be dubbed JAL China Express as per the arrangement already in place with Hainan Airlines to two cities. JAL also has codeshare arrangements with China Eastern Airlines.
BAE Systems Regional Aircraft signed a long-term lease with West Air Sweden for an additional ATP freighter to bring the fleet to 14. Four of the freighters will be fitted with large freight doors while the remaining nine are configured as E-class aircraft, which are loaded via the passenger doors.
SriLankan Airlines unveiled what it termed a "radically revamped schedule." It will launch new daily return service from Colombo to New York JFK March 27 and will add two frequencies to Singapore for a total of 16 and to Kuala Lumpur for a total of 12. In addition, the airline plans to operate a total of 33 weekly flights to Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf in partnership with Emirates. This summer SriLankan will begin daily A330 flights to Abu Dhabi with four of them continuing to Doha and three to Bahrain.
Air France-KLM Group flew 12.94 billion RPKs in February, up 3.8% on the year-ago period. Capacity increased 1.9% to 16.76 billion ASKs and load factor gained 1.4 points to 76.6%. AF load factor reached 74.6%, up 2.3 points, as traffic increased 3.3% on 0.2% higher capacity. KLM traffic grew virtually in line with capacity, up 4.7% and 5% respectively. Load factor was down just 0.3 point to 80.1%. The group carried 4.7 million passengers in February, 2.3% more than in the year-ago period.
AAR was selected by United Airlines to be the exclusive provider of heavy maintenance for the carrier's fleet of 737s. Under the terms of the five-year deal, AAR will operate up to four maintenance lines at AAR Aircraft Services-Indianapolis.
Singapore Airlines launched real-time high-speed Internet access on its London-Singapore flights. The service, which is being provided by Connexion by Boeing, will be available on all three of the carrier's daily flights on the route from mid-2005. SIA said it will introduce the service progressively on other long-haul flights and by year end it will be installed on more than 15 aircraft.
Southwest Airlines will extend its precedent-setting codeshare agreement with ATA Airlines beyond Chicago Midway to Phoenix. Currently, ATA operates two weekly flights to both Maui and Honolulu from Phoenix, but the service will expand to six weekly flights on April 3 and to daily service on June 7. Phoenix is Southwest's second-largest city, with 191 daily departures to 40 destinations.
United Airlines flew 7.9 billion RPMs in February, down 1.8% from the year-ago period. Capacity decreased 4% to 10.55 billion ASMs and load factor rose 1.6 points to 74.8%. For the two months ended Feb. 28, RPMs were up 1.6% to 16.72 billion, ASMs declined 2.3% to 22.13 billion and load factor gained 2.9 points to 75.5%.
