The average age for commercial jet retirements dropped more than three percentage points in 2012 to 23.2 years, the lowest level in more than two decades, according to an Aviation Week data analysis and forecast. The shortening of retirements has important implications on aircraft financing, particularly on airframes more than five years in service, and has led to calls for a shorter depreciation period than the current standard, where aircraft are depreciated to 15% residual value over a 25-year period.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers - Buenos Aires, Jan 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Outbound ASM Top Carriers - Buenos Aires, Jan 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Outbound ASM Departures Airport Share ASMs (mil) Airport Share Seats/Dept.
Delta Air Lines says it will terminate its interline ticketing agreements with Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines, citing both a lack of mutual benefit from the arrangements and support provided the carriers’ by their governments and the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im). The agreements, which expire Feb. 15, allow for the transfer of passengers and baggage between carriers.
United Parcel Service (UPS) yesterday formally withdrew its bid for TNT Express after the European Commission (EC) announced it would block the proposed acquisition. UPS planned to abandon the TNT Express offer after European competition authorities notified the logistics companies earlier this month that their proposals to remedy EC concerns fell short. The EC has long questioned the merger’s possible effect on competition for European international small-parcel delivery services.
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The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) forecasts continued growth in passenger traffic for the region and anticipates a recovery in the cargo market. “The outlook for further growth in passenger travel remains positive, and hopefully in the new year we could also see some signs of a long overdue recovery in the air cargo market,” says AAPA Director General Andrew Herdman.
The emergence of new narrowbody aircraft options means that single-aisle flying will finally become cost-effective for Hawaiian Airlines on routes to the U.S. West Coast, says CEO Mark Dunkerley. During Hawaiian’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Dunkerley shed additional light on the airline’s recent announcement that it will order 16 Airbus A321NEOs. The aircraft, which are expected to begin arriving in 2017, will be used on new and existing West Coast-Hawaii routes.
The “when” may be in question, but the “what” is becoming clearer as NASA pushes ahead with research into future generations of civil transport aircraft. Not only do significant fuel-burn, emissions and noise reductions look increasingly feasible, but advanced computational tools are taking shape that will enable fast, efficient design and analysis of new aircraft.
The National Transportation Safety Board is calling for establishing new duty-time regulations covering maintenance workers involved in on-demand, fractional and all repair station operations, along with those involved with scheduled carriers. The recommendation is one of three new ones issued yesterday following the safety board’s investigation of the Dec. 7, 2011, crash of a Eurocopter AS350-B2 helicopter operated by Sundance Helicopters on a sightseeing trip outside Las Vegas. The pilot and four passengers were killed.
National carrier Air India has invited bids for the sale and leaseback of all its newly acquired Boeing 787 aircraft from prospective lessors by the first week of February. All the six 787 aircraft Air India bought have been grounded since Jan. 17 on a directive from the U.S. FAA following two separate battery failures in 787s operated by Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways. In a Request for Proposal (RFP), dated Jan. 23, the airline has invited quotations from lessors on or before Feb. 5.
IndiGo, India’s leading low-cost carrier, has taken delivery of its first Airbus A320 aircraft, equipped with fuel-saving sharklet technology. Sharklets are newly designed wing-tip devices that Airbus says improve the aircraft’s aerodynamics and significantly cut the airline’s fuel burn and emissions by 4% on longer sectors. President Aditya Ghosh says IndiGo is the first Indian carrier to have an aircraft equipped with sharklets. All future A320 aircraft to be delivered to IndiGo will be fitted with the devices, he adds.
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers - Mexico City, Jan 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Outbound ASMs Top Carriers - Mexico City, Jan 15-21, 2013, Ranked By Scheduled Outbound ASMs Departures Airport Share ASMs (mil) Airport Share Seats /Dept
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AMR Corp. is defending its decision to contract additional feeder operations to Republic Airlines as part of a plan to provide incremental growth at its American Eagle Airlines affiliate with Embraer E-175s. AMR subsidiary American Airlines has long planned to diversify its regional feed, and the announcement last week is “consistent with previous statements and the company’s plan for an increased use of larger regional aircraft,” a spokesman tells Aviation Week.
JetBlue Airways, which added eight new airline partners in 2012, expects to add six to eight more this year and deepen some of its existing partnerships to include one-way code-sharing and frequent flyer program reciprocity. The low-cost carrier, based at New York John F. Kennedy International Airport, announced Royal Air Maroc as its 22nd partner in October. But it only has code-shares with five of them, and those are limited to placing the partner carrier’s code on JetBlue flights—not vice versa.
Hawaiian Airlines’ pilots union has ratified a tentative agreement that would govern the carrier’s new Airbus narrowbody aircraft. Earlier this month, Hawaiian announced that it plans to acquire 16 Airbus A321NEOs between 2017 and 2020 with options for nine additional aircraft. These new narrowbodies would be used to augment the carrier’s routes between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, currently operated with Boeing 767s and Airbus A330s.
U.S. airports will need $71.3 billion in capital development investment by 2017, or $14.3 billion per year, a new study by Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) shows.
