US Airways’ pilots union has issued a scathing, and very public, attack on the carrier’s safety practices with accusations that it is harassing pilots to operate aircraft deemed unsafe by flight crews. The accusations are not new, indeed they have been issued time and again by the US Airline Pilots Association (Aviation Daily, May 11), but this time the union on July 21 paid for a full-page advertisement in national newspaper USA Today to highlight its cause.
Air France-KLM’s board of directors plans to meet Tuesday to discuss major orders for about 100 long-haul aircraft, although it is unclear if a decision will be made and when it will be announced. The group is evaluating the Airbus A350 and the Boeing 787. CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon has indicated that Air France-KLM will likely split the order between the two manufacturers, much like American Airlines has done in the case of its 460-aircraft order for A320s and Boeing 737s.
Strong forward bookings for the summer period have led low-fare carrier EasyJet to project a £200-230 million ($324-372 million) pre-tax profit for the full year. The airline, in an interim management statement, notes that “second-half total revenue per seat is now expected to improve by around 5-6% for the second half with planned improvement in yields, bag charges and other ancillary revenues. Consequently, full-year total revenue per seat at constant currency is expected to grow by around 2-3%.”
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Ingrid Lee at [email protected] (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) July 25-31—Experimental Aircraft Association Air Venture Oshkosh 2011, Oshkosh, Wis., www.eaa.org July 26-27—American Association of Airline Executives’ Seventh Annual Aviation Air Quality Conference, Embassy Suites Portland (Ore.) Downtown, www.aaae.org July 31-Aug. 2—Northeast Chapter Winter Operations & Deicing Conference and Exhibition, Renaissance Hotel, Seattle, www.aaae.org
Thai carrier Nok Air is close to signing a deal to lease five ATR 72 turboprops, and is also negotiating a deal for Lufthansa Technik to conduct heavy maintenance checks on these and other new fleet additions in Bangkok.
While American Airlines’ huge aircraft order grabbed most of the attention, the carrier also spent part of the afternoon July 20 trying to explain to stock analysts why its quarterly financial and unit revenue results continue to lag behind its peers—and why in some respects the gap may have grown. American also tried to show it is taking immediate steps to address the problem with capacity adjustments and additional cost savings.
Japanese maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) firm Jamco was severely hit by the March tsunami, but plans to reopen its Sendai facility in early October. The tsunami swept through its office and two hangars at Sendai Airport, damaging equipment and leaving tons of debris. Jamco cleared the debris soon after the tsunami and then restored water and low-voltage power to the facility in June, but it restored high-voltage electricity—needed for equipment—only in mid-July, says Executive VP Yoshihisa Suzuki.
Garuda Indonesia will decide within the next few months which manufacturer it will choose for a major order of regional jets, says CEO Emirsyah Satar. The carrier intends to establish a fleet of aircraft with 80-90 seats, and is considering proposals for 18 aircraft from Embraer and Bombardier, Satar tells Aviation Week at the Aviation Outlook Australia Pacific conference in Sydney. Garuda is also assessing what size is needed. The choices are the Embraer 170, Embraer 190, Bombardier CRJ900 and Bombardier CRJ1000, says Satar.
The U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) will delay the implementation of some of its new passenger rights rules until early next year, but the delay will not be as long as many airlines requested, nor will it include indefinite postponement of some of the rules pending the outcome of a legal challenge, as requested by some airlines. Most of the new requirements were scheduled to take effect Aug. 23. The full-fare advertising change, which requires carriers to include government taxes and fees in the advertised price, was scheduled to take effect Oct. 24.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board of directors, in an 11:1 vote, has adopted a plan that calls for building a Metrorail station above ground in front of the Eero Saarinen-designed terminal at Dulles International Airport. The MWAA board reversed a decision made in April that had sited the station underground.
Allegiant Airlines is placing its Long Beach Airport bets on Las Vegas, tripling its flights between the Southern California airport and gambling mecca in a move that is a departure from the low-cost carrier’s usual strategy in two ways. First, Allegiant typically offers low frequency service—most often from two to four flights a week—for city-pairs that connect small communities to major U.S. leisure destinations. By adding four frequencies to Long Beach-Las Vegas as of Sept. 1 and an additional four Nov.
The FAA moved one step closer to a partial shutdown Thursday as lawmakers continued their disagreement over extending the FAA reauthorization bill. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters that without a bill by Friday night, government would furlough 4,000 employees in 35 states, including those working to engineer and implement the Next Generation air traffic control system, he adds.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is introducing Duesseldorf as its third destination in Germany. The carrier, which is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, will offer four weekly flights from its hub in Abu Dhabi, UAE, starting Dec. 16.
Bangkok Airways will add two more Airbus A319s to its fleet in the next seven months and plans to lease a fourth Airbus A320 next year. The airline wants to add the extra A320 by November 2012, says Peter Wiesner, senior VP-network management. The carrier has not yet decided if it will be a new or used aircraft, or what its seating configuration will be, Wiesner tells Aviation Week on the sidelines of the Aviation Outlook Australia Pacific conference in Sydney.
Emirates is still waiting to hear whether it will be allowed to fly Airbus A380s into major Indian airports, but it does not think there will be a long-term holdup. Both Emirates and Lufthansa have said they want to operate A380 routes to India, but so far the government has not approved the use of the aircraft at Indian airports. Local media are reporting that this is partly to protect Air India, which is due to receive its first A380 this year.
The U.S. airline industry is a few months away from achieving 10-year milestone since having a “large aircraft” accident, says John Hickey, FAA’s deputy associate administrator for aviation safety. That milestone accident happened on Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines’ Airbus A300 crashed soon after taking off from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The need to be part of American Airlines’ historic narrowbody airplane order, coupled with the pressure to respond immediately to the market challenge posed by the Airbus A320NEO (new engine option) program, clearly was the deciding factor in Boeing’s offer of the new engine 737.
The China market has become so important to Gulfstream that the U.S. aircraft-maker has decided to change the name of the Gulfstream G250, in an effort to do away with the negative connotations associated with that sequence of numbers. Instead the aircraft will be called the G280.
