UK's National Air Traffic Services said proposals by the Civil Aeronautics Authority to lower its cap on ATC charges risks "damaging service levels and future increases in capacity." Last year CAA proposed reductions in en route revenues of RPI minus 7.5% for 2006 and 2% in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. The agency argued the reductions could be achieved by more cuts in operating costs than previously planned and a 20% cut in capital expenditures.
Qantas is using Required Navigation Performance on its flights to Queenstown after receiving approval from New Zealand's CAA and Australia's CASA to use the procedures, according to Naverus, a Seattle-based company that developed the system Qantas is employing.
SITA INC said it was selected by the Civil Aviation Bureau of Japan to be the sole provider of airline service via Multifunctional Transport Satellite. SITA said the selection will further strengthen its Satellite Aircom service, which uses Inmarsat satellites.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
Sabre Holdings Corp.'s acquisition three years ago of David R. Bornemann Associates, a privately held developer of Windows-based software solutions for smaller airlines, has proven to be both a savvy business decision and a challenge for the company's airline software products and services division, Sabre Airline Solutions.
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.
ACI-NA announced that David Plavin will leave his post as president at year end. Airbus North America welcomed Bill Bozin as VP-safety & technical affairs succeeding John Lauber, who becomes Airbus chief safety officer in Toulouse. Air France appointed Catherine Guillouard VP-finance. Alaska Airlines tapped Megan Lawrence as dir.-government affairs. American Airlines promoted Oliver Martins to VP-engineering, quality assurance & planning.
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.
Ready or not, the A380 is coming in 2006. "Airports will be ready," Dick Marchi, senior VP at ACI-NA, tells AE&T. "Most will be fine." The double-decker A380, which was rolled out in January, will carry up to 555 passengers more than 9,000 nm, while the freighter version will be able to haul up to 150 tonnes for more than 5,600 nm.
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."
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."
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.
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.
SkyEurope intends to add four 737-500s this summer, bringing its fleet of the twinjets to 11. It also operates six Brasilia turboprops. The additional aircraft will support an increase in frequencies as well as the launch of 10 new routes: Athens from/to Bratislava and Budapest, Barcelona from/to Budapest and Krakow, Copenhagen from/to Bratislava and Budapest, Manchester from/to Bratislava and Krakow, and Nice from/to Bratislava and Budapest.
IATA reported that international passenger traffic for member airlines rose 7.9% in January compared to the same month in 2004, while seat capacity (ASKs) climbed 7.8% and load factor was 73.5%. IATA DG CEO Giovanni Bisignani said, "There is stronger than expected growth in all regions except for Asia/Pacific, which suffered from the impact of the Indian Ocean tsunami." Asia/Pacific RPKs rose 2.5% with a 6.1% increase in seat capacity. Load factor was 70.9%. The strongest year-over-year growth took place in Latin America, which was up 15% on a 12.8% rise in capacity.
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.
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.
