Fourteenth Annual Aircraft Symposium Featuring a new program & content! September 15-17, 2008 Loews Miami Beach Hotel Join over 500 aviation professionals at seven informative sessions and seven networking events! For more information contact Marquita Fortner at +1(206) 587-6537 or [email protected] ACMG Air Cargo Management Group
Qantas regional unit QantasLink will retire its six Dash 8-100 aircraft as part of a cost-cutting exercise that will also see a withdrawal of services linking Melbourne with secondary Australian cities Newcastle and Wollongong. Newcastle was already well served by budget airlines with Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s, posing a great challenge to Qantas’s full-service turboprop operation, although one of those no-frills carriers, Singapore’s Tiger Airways, will be pulling out of the Newcastle-Melbourne market.
Chinese carriers are reporting the biggest one-month dips in international and domestic traffic since the 2003 SARS epidemic. At Beijing-based Air China, passenger loads for May fell 0.8% below last year. Officials, blamed the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province on dampening demand, along with tighter visa restrictions, according to state-sponsored China Aviation News. The carrier is China’s largest international airline. Passenger load factors were off 4.5%, brightened only by a 1% increase in premium seats, including a 1.6% increase on U.S. routes.
Bulgaria took a step toward being part of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program yesterday with the signing of a new agreement. The “interim declaration” outlines specific security requirements that Bulgaria must implement before it can be part of the VWP. Visa policy is for the European Union to negotiate, but DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff stressed the importance of bilateral agreements on security.
Virgin America plans to cut 10% of its capacity this fall, becoming the latest carrier to make adjustments because of continued rising fuel prices. The carrier is heavily invested in its transcon routes, CEO David Cush told The DAILY. “Some of them are seasonal, so we’re just making an adjustment,” he explained. “But we also see the impact that oil prices are having on the industry. So we’re doing some trimming in anticipation with reduced demand that’s in line with what other airlines have already done.”
Airlines and their trade groups look likely to press their case with Congress and even the courts if the U.S. Transportation Dept. goes ahead, as expected, with plans to auction slots at New York LaGuardia airport. The flood of comments to the supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) for the most part made the same argument: that the FAA is overreaching its legal authority with the auction proposal. The comment period on the SNPRM ended June 16.
United is warning of “significant” second-quarter charges, including goodwill and inventory write-downs, as well as massive year-on-year increases in the price of jet fuel. The Star Alliance carrier in a June 17 regulatory filing also notes that more than $95 million in non-operating expense could be recorded in the three months to June 30, while non-cash charges associated with the airline’s recent capacity control program, which cuts 100 aircraft from its fleet and thousands of jobs, will further depress the company’s balance sheet.
Mexicana will launch daily New York-Cancun nonstop service in July using Airbus A300-600 aircraft. Mexicana spokesman Isaac Volin estimates flights will operate with a 66% load factor or better.
Qantas celebrated its first Los Angeles-Melbourne Airbus A380 flight, set for Oct. 20, with an innovative seat campaign, selling 380 roundtrip economy seats for $380 each, but only during a 48-hour period that just ended yesterday. The offer was good for purchases on June 16-17 only, or until the seats were sold out.
China and Taiwan have agreed to 36 weekly charter flights across the strait dividing them. The flights will begin next month, Taiwanese media report, and will rise to 72 a week after the Summer Olympics in Beijing in August. Beijing has allocated its 18 flights to China Southern, Air China and China Eastern (four each) and to Hainan, Shanghai and Xiamen Airlines (two each).
All Nippon Airlines has received the first Boeing 767-300 freighter converted by Singapore Technologies (ST) Aerospace. The aircraft is one of seven 767-300BCFs being converted by ST Aerospace’s SASCO division for the Japanese carrier. The 50-ton-capacity freighter, which was converted in Singapore, recently completed ground and certification tests at Boeing’s Seattle facilities.
India will install automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast and multilateration systems at three of its busiest airports. The systems, provided by U.S.-based Era Corp. and the Holland Institute of Traffic Technology, will be located at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, the Anna International Airport in Chennai, and the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata.
Air Dominicana (AD) is expanding operations with charters from Caracas to its base on Punta Cana, the island’s booming beach resort center, after operating its first international charters last week between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (DAILY, June 13).
Korean Air budget offshoot Jin Air will begin flying next month, and only on domestic routes, with the aim of breaking even by 2010. The company says it expects to fly internationally by September of next year, implying that the government will, as expected, relax a rule that prevents airlines from flying abroad before they have two years’ operational experience. International services next year are intended to reach China, Japan and Southeast Asia.
The resurrected China Aviation Industry Corporation, to be created by merging Avic 1 and Avic 2 back together (DAILY, May 29), will be inaugurated next month, state media reports.
A strong tourism season helped Austrian Airlines Group post traffic and load factor gains in May, but a weak U.S. dollar “strained” its long-haul performance. This warning comes just days after the board of directors at Austrian Airlines Group — which governs Austrian Airlines, Austrian Arrows and Lauda — said it had contracted Boston Consulting Group to begin an overview of the company’s operations. This review will consider “internal optimization” and possible strategic partnerships.
Ecuadorian carrier Icaro plans to use two wet-leased Boeing 737-200s in its potential domestic operation in Peru. The airline (DAILY, June 13) would initially team with a yet-to-be-identified Peruvian airline in an operating alliance on non-scheduled domestic services to test the market.
The seven network carriers requesting two-year dormancy waivers for their international exemptions and frequencies claim Spirit opposed their filing because of “sour grapes” stemming from its failure to win multiple frequencies in the recent U.S.-Colombia proceeding.
Air Canada has become the latest North American carrier to reveal capacity and staff cuts. The airline says it will reduce system ASMs 7% in the six-month period between October and March, and roughly 1 million ASMs in both the fourth quarter this year and the first quarter 2009.
Former Aerolineas Argentinas (AR) President Antonio Mata, who is planning the launch of his domestic startup Air Pampas Airlines (DAILY, May 21), told a local newspaper the Argentine government demanded he pay $6 million for a “non-existent” carrier in order to get back into the domestic market.
Avianca earlier this week launched three weekly nonstop flights between Bogota and Santo Domingo, using an Airbus A319 configured for 12 in business and 108 in economy. Avianca GM-Dominican Republic Monica Maria Velasquez said this new link will foster increased business, tourism and economic integration between the two countries.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways plans to launch a nonstop Airbus A319 service to Minsk, the capital of Belarus. The service will start as a twice-weekly flight on Aug. 5 and will increase to three times weekly in October. Etihad’s A319s seat 104 passengers, with 20 in business-class. “To make history as the first airline from the Gulf region to fly to Belarus is a great honor for Etihad Airways,” said CEO James Hogan in a statement.
