While American Airlines continues to limit some tickets purchased from Argentina because of concern over the future value of the country’s pesos, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines continue to operate normally from Argentina, the airlines tell Aviation Week.
Southwest and Virgin America marked Monday’s end to the Wright Amendment at Love Field by launching services on 10 total routes, including two—Los Angeles and Washington Reagan—that pit the carriers against each other. Southwest will grow its seven destinations to 17 by early January. Virgin America, swapping one gate at Dallas/Fort Worth for two at Love Field, also serves San Francisco and will add New York LaGuardia later this month. Both airports are in Southwest’s Love Field plans.
FAA’s Chicago En Route Center came back online early Monday morning, ending a 17-day outage that required creative approaches such as the use of adjacent facilities to maintain traffic flow and led FAA to stand up a review of air traffic center interruption-contingency plans.
The head of Air France-KLM is not giving up on his strategy to participate in the growth of low-cost carriers (LCCs) and confirmed plans to set up a new subsidiary in France if pilots do not agree to expand Transavia France. The new airline will use “new aircraft that are arriving in the coming months,” according to Air France-KLM Chairman and CEO Alexandre de Juniac.
AviationWeek Conferences & Exhibitions For a complete list of Aviation Week’s upcoming events, and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events Nov. 4-6—MRO Asia, Singapore EXPO Convention and Exhibition Centre, Singapore Nov. 19-20—A&D Programs, Wigwam Resort, Liltchfield Park, Ariz. Jan 13-14, 2015—MRO Latin America, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Upcoming Events To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] . (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Oct. 15-17—World Passenger Symposium 2014, The Hilton Bayfront, San Diego, California, www.iata.org/events/passenger-symposium/Pages/index.aspx
Airlines for America (A4A) president and CEO Nicholas Calio has launched an aggressive lobbying campaign ahead of next year’s FAA reauthorization debate in Congress, telling U.S. lawmakers they need to act to “level the competitive playing field” for U.S. airlines facing stiff competition from Middle East and Asian carriers.
Singapore-based Tigerair, seeking to improve cash flow and put unneeded aircraft to work, is sub-leasing some of its leased Airbus A320s to Indian low-cost carrier (LCC) Indigo. With up to 20 out-of-service aircraft on its books, Tigerair parent Tiger Airways Holdings (TAH) has signed a deal to deliver 12 A320s to the Indian carrier between October 2014 and March 2015.
MADRID — The European airline market remains too fragmented, with 35 carriers handling 80% of traffic compared with just four in the U.S., AerCap Holdings Head of EMEA Kenneth Wigmore said at MRO Europe 2014.
FAA Thursday began flight tests to confirm that the agency is on track to transfer air traffic back to controllers at the Chicago En Route Center starting late Sunday night, the agency said.
Arguing that Delta Air Lines “... is making a joke of the route proceeding,” by flying between Seattle and Tokyo Haneda only enough to keep the authority under Department of Transportation (DOT) rules, Hawaiian Airlines is asking the federal government to reopen the application process for the rights.
Qantas has tapped Aviation Technical Services (ATS) to help the carrier improve maintenance efficiency on its 737 fleet. ATS, which counts 737 mainstay Southwest as one of its largest customers, will apply its engineering and maintenance management expertise to help Qantas fine-tune everything from material availability to staffing. “We want to step back and reassess what and how we should be managing our maintenance program,” said Qantas Executive Manager of Engineering Chris Nassenstein.
The European Commission (EC) has called for an “urgent” meeting of the joint committee that governs the U.S.-EU open-skies agreement to discuss the U.S. Transportation Department’s (DOT) delay in approving Norwegian Air International’s (NAI) application to serve the U.S.
German civil aviation authority Luftfahrtbundesamt again has told Etihad Airways and Air Berlin that it will not approve around half of the 60 codesharing routes flown by the airline, but Air Berlin has voiced strong opposition. Air Berlin CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer says it is “rejecting that position sharply.” Withdrawing the codesharing approvals would threaten jobs and air transport growth in Germany. German airports would lose traffic and growth opportunities. Air Berlin therefore plans to lobby for approvals in every possible way.
People Express said Thursday it has an agreement with a new aircraft provider and could resume service if the U.S. Transportation Department approves it as an Indirect Air Carrier.
