Sao Paulo-based regional carrier Trip Linhas Aereas has placed an order for up to 30 Embraer 175s. Under the contract, Trip firm-ordered five of the Brazilian manufacturer’s twin jets, took options on a further 10 and signed for purchase rights on 15 more. Each aircraft will be configured for an 86-seat, one-class cabin, a little shy of maximum capacity. Deliveries start in 2009.
Alaska Airlines will become an all-Boeing 737 operator by the end of August in an accelerated plan to retire older aircraft. The airline had been planning to retire its aging MD-80s by the end of the year. This move will bring the average age of its fleet down to 7.6 years.
After months of mulling the reorganization of three of its subsidiaries, the SAS Group decided — for now — to divest only the Spirit Air Cargo Handling unit and keep two other entities.
The Air Line Pilots Association unit at Hawaiian Airlines says an attempt started one year ago to negotiate a new contract with management has failed, and it may be time to stop cooperating with the carrier.
SkyWest CEO Jerry Atkin doesn’t think his company is going to have the same issues with Delta as Mesa and Pinnacle, whose contracts the major has tried to terminate over performance issues, but said he understands what the Delta is trying to accomplish.
Fiscal prudence is the watchword for airports as airlines continue to make oil-fueled capacity cuts. Continental announced an 11% capacity cut this fall, with its Cleveland-Hopkins hub losing 13.5% of its flights (DAILY, June 13). The carrier had tapped its smallest hub for a 40% expansion in September 2007, adding 50 new flights in two years (DAILY, Sept. 17, 2007).
Delta has become the sixth carrier to sign a co-branded marketing deal with Clear, the registered-traveler program, which will operate Delta’s RT lanes at JFK, LaGuardia and Los Angeles, beginning this summer. Under the deal, Clear will also open enrollment centers in Delta Crown Room clubs at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in anticipation of opening lanes, also this summer.
The Airlines Reporting Corp. has activated a disaster hotline for businesses affected by the severe weather in Iowa. If an aviation/travel agency business has had weather-related problems and has immediate business needs, the company can call ARC at 800-723-2721. A customer support representative will be on hand to offer one-on-one assistance, help with extensions to reporting deadlines, ordering ticket stock or help with any paperwork regarding the “operational status” of the location, ARC said in a statement.
The Caribbean region should aggressively market to a targeted audience to make up for lost airline service or higher fares to some islands, local tourism officials advise.
Calling the U.S. Transportation Dept.’s LaGuardia Airport slot auction proposal “hare-brained and goofy,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) yesterday introduced a bill to block it.
Fuel costs are turning back the clock on U.S. airlines’ progress since the most recent downturn. U.S. Transportation Dept. data show U.S. network carriers posted their second consecutive quarterly operating loss margin after six consecutive profitable quarters in the first quarter of 2008, and the combined $1.32 billion operating loss was the networks’ largest loss since the fourth quarter 2005.
The pilots union at Austral, domestic affiliate of Aerolineas Argentinas (AR), last week called off a 72-hour strike at the last minute as a gesture of “compliance of the Labor Department’s conciliatory directives and an expression of respect for passengers,” UALA said.
Add homeland security to the list of obstacles air traffic control researchers at U.S. universities face in getting real-world data for effective modeling and simulation. Researchers say it’s never been easy to get that data from NASA and the FAA in the past, but homeland security is increasingly used to lock down access to data that might help prove whether new techniques could help improve traffic flow into congested U.S. airports.
LAN Argentina as of July 11 will launch daily long-haul service between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia, one of the world’s southernmost cities and a popular destination for ecotourists and adventure travelers. The route will be operated with Airbus A320 aircraft and supplements services to Neuquen, Salta, Mendoza, Cordoba and Comodoro Rivadavia that will greatly expand the airline’s presence in Argentina.
While extra charges for checked baggage and higher fuel prices’ effect on fares have grabbed all the headlines, a study of passenger satisfaction by J.D. Power and Associates says another issue has driven overall satisfaction for U.S. carriers to the lowest level in three years — poor airline service.
Two unions representing the cockpit crew at Japan Airlines International (JALI) and one at Japan Air Commuter went on strike yesterday and are expected to carry the action into today. According to JALI, the two unions striking are JAL Flight Crew Union, which represents 1,100 members, and the JAL Japan Pilots Union with 600 members. The latter is the only one expected to continue the strike through today, which would disrupt domestic flights only. It has been 15 years since JALI has been forced to cancel a flight because of a strike.
Ryanair is blasting the European Commission for its decision to launch a formal investigation on potential state aid it won at Frankfurt Hahn Airport from the Hessen and Rheinland-Pfalz regional authorities and Fraport AG. The European Union watchdog is scrutinizing capital increases in 2002 and 2004, along with a profit-and-loss transfer deal, between the airport and its Fraport parent. The EC said that “the investigation follows complaints from a competing airline and from an association of airlines.”
American could accelerate its MD-80 replacement program and may retire its Airbus A300-600s, some of which have already been targeted in the carrier’s fourth-quarter capacity reduction plan. Speaking at Merrill Lynch’s Global Transportation Conference in New York yesterday, American Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said these measures, in addition to higher fares, new fees and a healthy cash balance, will let the carrier address rising fuel costs and a weakened U.S. economy.
Airlines continued to add employees to their rosters in April, but the rate of growth has slowed from the beginning of the year, data compiled by the U.S. Transportation Dept.’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics show. U.S. scheduled airlines employed 1% more workers in April 2008 than in April 2007, the 15th consecutive year-on-year improvement in full-time equivalent (FTE) employees. But the 1% gain is down from the 1.6% improvement in FTE levels recorded in March and sharply lower than the 3.4% gain in January and the 3% rise reported in February.
Venezuela’s Aeropostal is in a holding pattern as the parties struggling for control of the carrier wait for their July 10 court date, with only limited operations and practically no cash flow.
Opain, the operator of Bogota Eldorado Airport, contracted with SITA for its Airport Connect Open passenger check-in system. Opain is in the midst of a US$650 million expansion and modernization program that will result in a new terminal at the airport. Work is expected to continue through 2012. Airport Connect Open enables self-service or agent-led passenger check-in. SITA installed 151 CUTE (Common Use Terminal Equipment) terminals — 108 check-in positions, 14 transfer/connections and 29 at boarding decks, at Eldorado.
Delta will continue its aggressive international expansion out of New York thanks to newly won authority to serve Buenos Aires, but will have to contend with American, which also won operating authority from the U.S. Transportation Dept. to ramp up its offer in the market.
