Fifteen months after American Airlines' unionized employees agreed to some $1.7 billion in pay and benefit reductions and productivity improvements in order to keep the airline aloft, management and workers are striving to create a new corporate culture reminiscent of the remarkable transformation achieved at Continental Airlines a decade ago. The drive to change the way the carrier does business reflects AMR Corp.
When the first A320 was delivered to launch customer Air France in October 1987, it represented a revolution in commercial aircraft flight control technology and also featured the most extensive use of automation and computerization on any civil transport flightdeck. Today, with Boeing having embraced fly-by-wire in its two most recent new aircraft programs, and when even regional jets such as the Embraer 170 offer it, it may be difficult to recall the controversy generated by the aircraft.
France is Europe's largest tourist destination, with 75.5 million visitors annually including some 15.5 million Germans, 12.7 million Britons and 12 million Dutch flocking to the country. Per capita GDP is above the European average, and with 61 million inhabitants it has the largest population in Western Europe after Germany. Yet air travelers in France have fewer opportunities to take advantage of low-cost airlines than those in almost any other country in Europe.
People may not be out in the streets demonstrating for change, but they are at their home PCs and Internet cafes making bookings for seats on a revolution sweeping across Asia. The era of the low-cost carrier has arrived and perhaps sooner than most would have expected in a region still making the transition from tightly drawn bilateral agreements to freewheeling open skies arrangements.
In 1964, the US airlines were looking forward to a record year, especially for travel to Europe. With 88.52 million passenger enplanements, up from 77.4 million the previous year, they were not disappointed. They might have been, though, had their vision stretched to the end of the century: Their numbers were a drop in the bucket compared with the 666.15 million enplanements of 2000.
The transformation of commuter/regional airlines over the last 40 years has been nothing short of dramatic. Deregulation, cabin-class airliners, codesharing and top-shelf management have helped change commuter carriers from marginal players with shaky finances into billion-dollar Regionals that have become part of the industry's core.
As ATW's first issue was being prepared for its debut in 1964, another baby was born to the commercial aviation industry: The Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment went live on March 4, 1964. It was an unwieldy name, inevitably shortened to Sabre, and it indeed would prove to be a sharp-edged weapon. It also would revolutionize the travel industry.
It was a January luncheon in New York City, a rather small, intimate affair, that gave birth to the Air Transport World Industry Awards program. During that luncheon, ATW founder, publisher and editor Joe Murphy handed out 10 awards to airline executives from around the world. The Airline of the Year for 1974 was United Airlines.
Airlines in 1964 were very excited about technology. The industry that had been pushing the limits of piston engines and propellers since the 1930s recently had been presented with the greatest gift imaginable-a deus ex machina if there ever was one-the jet airplane.
In the early 1960s there still remained in service a few of the A/N radio ranges that in the 1930s first brought electronic navigation to the aviation community, rudimentary devices that gave precise guidance on just four courses to and from the station. But in 1964 the transition was nearly complete to a new system of navigation based mostly on VOR (VHF Omni Range) and DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) stations for overland en route navigation and ILS (Instrument Landing System) for precision approaches.
When the Beatles arrived in New York in February 1964, they stepped off Pan Am's 707-320 Clipper Defiance, a first-generation pure-jet aircraft that was less than five years old. The classic 707-the longer-range, turbofan-powered 707-320B-was then quite new. A week before the Fab Four's US debut, Hawker Siddeley handed over a brand-new Comet 4 to Kuwait Airways. A brand-new Comet, by gad.
Airline relationships with each other have gone through an extensive period of maturation during the past 40 years, most dramatically in the international arena. The industry has transitioned from a close-knit association of thinly spread operators legally coordinating commercial activities in a sanctioned cartel, self-regulating fares and service levels to provide maximum benefits for both airline and passenger-or so they claimed-to today's system of alliances battling on a global stage increasingly open to free-market competition.
Unambiguous in the products it provides, Airbus Training offers its customers something those customers don't always want: The most efficient way to fly Airbus aircraft.
With its year-round fine weather, excellent beaches and inexpensive hotels and restaurants, Tunisia is a natural alternative for Europeans eager to enjoy a holiday on the Mediterranean without paying Southern Europe prices. Tunisair capitalizes on that market, particularly in the summer months when it operates its aircraft as much as 16 hr. per day on mostly short- and intermediate-haul flights into Europe.
At the end of the second round of talks between the EU and US on the Open Aviation Area held in Brussels in early December, both American and European Commission officials summarized the discussions in glowing terms, proclaiming that "important progress has been made" and that a "significant agreement" likely will be reached by fall.
The 9/11 hijackings that launched America's global war on terrorism have led to more than two years of debate over what can and should be done to ensure the security of the passenger cabin and, by extension, the cockpit. So far, the only government-imposed requirement upon airlines has been a fortified cockpit door, although the US also has permitted, albeit reluctantly, the arming of airline pilots on a voluntary basis.
A push to expose international airlines to greater liability for cabin injuries will either hit a brick wall or surge forward early this year when the US Supreme Court rules on Olympic Airways vs. Husain. At stake is whether the high court will agree or disagree with a broad new interpretation on what can be considered an "accident." The action represents the latest assault on the tried-and-true threshold for liability under the Warsaw Convention and could have a major impact on the priority of cabin safety initiatives.
On any given day, the specials at Bryan Owens' Unclaimed Baggage retail store in Scottsboro, Ala., include deals like a $75 Sharper Image pillow for four bucks, a brand-new Trivial Pursuit 20th anniversary edition board game for $15 and a Schwinn double jogging stroller in excellent condition for just $40.
The five US airports currently in the pilot program to test passenger screening by private companies will be joined by others as the US Transportation Security Administration expands its opt-out trials, TSA Branch Chief Kent Olson assured participants at the Airports Council International-North America's annual conference here.
Enterprise resource planning systems and related software are becoming mandatory components of the maintenance, repair and overhaul supply chain at many airlines. Once the sole province of finance, human resources and management, these single-point and complex IT solutions are being acquired by carriers to cut costs and streamline MRO as well as to replace outdated and expensive-to-maintain legacy systems.
If you ask Southern Winds President Juan Maggio to describe the business model of the airline he launched in 1996, he will say that it bears a similarity to a somewhat younger and better known carrier, JetBlue, in terms of its approach to operating costs and fares.
Aircraft Service International Group is moving in a number of directions, including a strategic purchase, designed to allow it to grow and diversify in an industry that is highly competitive. "We've always got our eye on strategically growing our business. There are opportunities in Europe and Asia and we have an outstanding network to grow here in the US," VP-Marketing and Business Development Dan Sellas tells AE&T.
It is said that the world's most dangerous work environment is the flight deck of a US aircraft carrier, but with an average of 0.10 deaths per 1,000 commercial aircraft departures, perhaps the airport ramp is next in line to take that dubious title. In fact, injuries caused by airport ground accidents tripled between 1996 and 2001 and cost the industry an estimated $5 billion, contributing to air transportation's having the highest loss of work days in the industrialized world.
Taking a page from Boeing's full-service playbook, Montreal-based CAE Inc. has gone full throttle into the flight training business by acquiring like companies and forming partnerships with OEMs and airlines in an attempt to create a more balanced, financially stable training services company.
While most of the aviation world was strapping down the lid of the cash chest as tightly as possible, Boeing decided last year that it so believed in the future of flight training that it spent hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure its position in the market. Locking in its control of FlightSafety Boeing Training International, Boeing bought out its partner last year and just last month announced that the company's name will be changed to Alteon later this year.
