Republic Airways has put two former maintenance hangars at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport up for sale after deciding to cease most of the service from Milwaukee offered under the name of its Frontier Airlines subsidiary. In one listing with Dufek Realty, Republic registers a 14-year-old hangar it has been using on West Air Cargo Way. The listing is for the 70,000-sq.-ft. East hangar and 27,000-sq.-ft. connector between the East and West hangars, at an asking price of $7.5 million.
Rolls-Royce has started ground tests of its so-called Trent 1000 Package C program designed to power the Boeing 787-9 and cure fuel-burn shortfalls affecting earlier versions of the turbofan.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed it is in possession of a bomb that apparently was destined for a flight to the U.S. The improvised explosive device (IED) is similar to those used by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the operation that is understood to have supplied Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the “underwear bomber,” who attempted to detonate a device on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009.
Sukhoi has delivered the first Superjet 100 to Aviastar for cabin installation under a broader strategy by the Russian aircraft maker to diversify its supply chain. Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar will start work on Aeroflot-bound MSN95017. In announcing the shift in work, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. President Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk says, “We believe that the cooperation between SCAC and Aviastar-SP, which has a great experience in the aircraft assembly, will help to ramp up the SSJ100 production.”
Click here to view the pdf Top Carriers - Hong Kong, May 15-21, 2012, Ranked By Scheduled Outbound ASMs Top Carriers - Hong Kong, May 15-21, 2012, Ranked By Scheduled Outbound ASMs Departures
Sriwijaya Air, Indonesia’s third-largest carrier, has signed lease deals on three Boeing 737-800s and is negotiating for two more. The airline currently operates 737-200/300/400s, but its corporate planning and business development director, Jefferson Jauwena, tells Aviation Week its first 737-800 has arrived in Indonesia and will go into operation on May 15. This aircraft is leased from GE Capital Aviation Services (Gecas), while the other two it has secured are to be leased from AerCap. Macquarie AirFinance may lease a further 737-800.
Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) medium-haul carrier Scoot, which is scheduled to launch next month, is deploying one of its Boeing 777-200s between Singapore and Bangkok to increase aircraft utilization, CEO Campbell Wilson tells Aviation Week. Speaking on the sidelines of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading Asia conference May 8 in Singapore, Wilson explained that the carrier’s route-planning department realized it had seven hours of spare capacity for one of the 777s and decided to take that opportunity to serve Bangkok daily from Singapore.
The U.S. House of Representatives has an agreement to vote on a bill to authorize funding for the Export-Import Bank for three more years and raise its lending cap to $140 billion by 2014, and a key business group is now lobbying legislators to make sure the bill passes.
Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings reported stronger cargo volumes for March, a further sign that the air freight market is beginning to rebound. “Volumes and rates improved dramatically compared with January and February, and we were well-positioned to help customers respond to an increase in demand for air freight capacity, especially out of Asia," says Atlas CEO William Flynn. Partially on the strength of this and the company’s charter businesses, Atlas expects 2012 earnings to increase by 24% to $5.10 per diluted share and block hours to grow 17%.
Click here to view the pdf Arab Air Carrier Organization Monthly Traffic, March 2012 Arab Air Carrier Organization Monthly Traffic, March 2012 RPK % Chg. ASK % Chg. Load Factor Mar. 12 vs. Mar.
United Airlines’ attempt to persuade Houston’s elected leaders not to provide Southwest Airlines an international base at Houston William B. Hobby Airport argues that instead of generating income and boosting employment for the city, as concluded in a review by the local airport operator, such an expansion would reduce revenues and cost close to 4,000 jobs.
At least one judge on a three-judge appeals court panel is sympathetic to U.S. airlines’ argument that the Transportation Department’s (DOT’s) new full-fare advertising rule violates their First Amendment right to commercial free speech, giving the industry some hope that the DOT’s new requirement will be overturned.
Lufthansa’s executive board has named Simone Menne its new CFO. Chairman Juergen Weber said, “With Simone Menne, we are appointing . . . an experienced Lufthansa manager, who is fully conversant with the Group and our industry.” Menne, 51, has been CFO at BMI British Midland since 2010 and was head of finance at Lufthansa Technik from 2004. She will replace Stephan Gemkow, who resigned last week to become CEO of German retail holding Haniel.
Hawker Beechcraft has secured initial court approval that the company says will enable it to continue its ordinary business while the company proceeds with its prearranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The court approval enables the Wichita airframer to pay employees, vendors and suppliers. The company is using $400 million of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing to meet its obligations.
Let’s face facts: It has become nearly impossible to monitor Ryanair’s economic model or to predict what’s going to happen to Europe’s lowest-fare airline in the next few years. The key question is how to determine whether the Ireland-based carrier can remain profitable in the face of declining traffic growth. In March, the airline carried 5.5 million passengers, a surprising 4% decrease. And, in the past 12 months, its traffic increased a relatively weak 5%. Clearly, this is no longer the two-digit growth to which the airline is accustomed.
Cessna Aircraft signed a new agreement with the China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Company Ltd., (Caiga) and the Shijiazhuang Municipal Government that the company says is a framework to deliver Wichita-built Cessna Caravan single-engine turboprop utility aircraft to Caiga’s Shijiazhuang factory for final assembly, painting, production flight tests and sale within China.
Delta Air Lines’ own growth in Latin America will be focused on adding frequencies instead of new destinations, although new routes will be added, says the airline’s managing director of market development and analysis for the region. Speaking May 4 at the Low Cost Airlines World, Americas, conference in Miami, David Bishko said the airline’s biggest issue in the region is a lack of daily or multiple daily flights in markets that warrant that supply, and the resulting lack of brand awareness compared with its competitors.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) May 6-9—International Air Transport Association’s 25th Annual Ground Handling Conference, Hilton Hotel, Prague, www.iata.org May 7-9—Airports Council International-NA Airport Economics, Finance and Human Capital Conference, Nashville, Tenn., www.aci-na.org/conferences/
