SAS passengers flying out of Copenhagen Airport are taking part in a six-month trial to track their movements and communicate travel changes. The SPOPOS project — Danish for tracking technology personal and operator services — uses using RFID and Bluetooth technology to follow travelers as they transit the airport. The system also lets the airline communicate with passengers via cell phone or by paging them.
Honeywell Aerospace plans to get out of the hardware distribution business by selling its Consumable Solutions (HCS) unit to Florida-based B/E Aerospace in a $1.05 billion cash and stock deal unveiled yesterday.
JetBlue Airways’ LiveTV division is buying the Verizon Airfone network. The deal will give LiveTV ownership of more than 100 air-to-ground base stations that currently offer general aviation inflight connectivity. Verizon had once tried to use Airfone to break into the commercial aviation connectivity market. The telecommunications company has been looking for a buyer for its air-to-ground division for almost two years.
Aer Lingus, which dramatically increased long-haul capacity for the first part of this year, is now suspending its Dublin-Los Angeles service Nov. 2 and will cut long-haul capacity by 15% for the winter season.
Chinese government officials have chosen participants in the nation’s project for a large commercial aircraft, which will include Harbin Aircraft, Shaanxi Aircraft, Xi’an Aircraft, Shenyang Aircraft and Chengdu Aircraft. All are units of Avic 1 and Avic 2, which will soon be merged along focused product lines — possibly as a preliminary to reorganizing the industry. Xi’an Aircraft had already said it would make assemblies for the aircraft.
Emirates Airlines is returning to the U.S. June 23-28 for a third harvest of a pilot population that is faced with grim job prospects, according to Lou Smith, president of FLTops.com, a career service for professional pilots. In April, the rapidly expanding Dubai-based carrier first conducted recruitment information sessions at major hubs. In May, Emirates returned for a second tour. Profitable Emirates has been seeking qualified first officers to fly its rapidly expanding fleet that includes Airbus A330/340s and Boeing 777s.
30 Years Ago June 9, 1978 – Greyhound CEO James Kerrigan called airline discount fares “phony” because the reduced fares have so many restrictions that “the conditions under which the traveler can get the reduced air fare [are] roughly the same odds he has at winning a lottery.” 20 Years Ago
A June 1 strike at Aeromexico was averted when management and the 1,900-member flight attendants union (ASSA), urged by the secretary of transportation, agreed on an across-the-board salary increase of 4.5% instead of the union’s original demand of 7%. The agreement provides for the airline to save US$20 million by pruning fringe benefits, from laundering of uniforms to a 35-day ceiling on annual vacations, reported Invertia News Service.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Ingrid Lee at [email protected] (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) JUNE 9-10 — Technology Training Corp.’s Cyber Security Conference, Hilton Arlington, Va., 310-563-1223, www.ttcus.com JUNE 9-11 — Florida Aviation Trades Association, 62nd Annual Meeting and Trade Show, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., 407-383-8619 JUNE 9-14 — International Council of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Associations, 24th World Assembly, Athens, Greece, 301-695-2200
GOL and sister carrier Varig saw their loads grow modestly in May, as robust performance in the international market offset weakness in their domestic network. Total system traffic was up 20.7% to 2.36 billion revenue passenger kilometers and capacity up 18.6% to 3.61 billion available seat kilometers. Load factor accordingly moved up 1.1 percentage points from May 2007 to 65.4%.
Air New Zealand and Auckland Airport are worried about provisions in a parliament bill they say will hurt the way they do business. The airline asserts that the Commerce Amendment Bill will take too long to go into effect and cost flyers millions of dollars, while the airport says the measure will put capital investment at risk. Parliament is working on the bill, which, among other things, reviews the power of the government to regulate airports to control fees.
Air traffic control researchers at U.S. universities are having a hard time obtaining air traffic data from NASA and FAA to study new techniques that could improve the movement of aircraft in the national airspace system. Researchers say it has never been easy to get such data, but now U.S. government agencies have another justification for saying no — homeland security. So while it would be nice to figure out new techniques to improve the flow of traffic into congested U.S.
Airfares between Brazil and other countries in South American may fall as much as 80% now that Brazilian civil aviation regulator Anac has deregulated those fares, but the agency wants carriers to be deliberate in their planning.
Continental and ExpressJet signed a new seven-year capacity purchase agreement (CPA) that will help the major cut costs in the face of the tough operating environment, but the move will also alter the size and scope of the ExpressJet operation outside of the CPA flying. The new CPA, which takes effect July 1, will see ExpressJet flying Continental Express services at rates the major said “are lower than rates under its current agreement and more competitive with those offered by other regional service providers.”
JetBlue Airways pilots, in their latest effort to unionize, plan an information event June 19 at the Ramada Plaza Hotel at New York JFK Airport. “The effort should not be taken lightly,” notes the JetBlue Pilots Assn. Organizing Committee in a letter to flight crew. JetBlue is in the same position as Southwest was in 30 years ago -- and the direction Southwest chose “had historical implications for them, their company, and the entire industry.” The committee is collecting interest cards from JetBlue pilots, which is the first step of the process in forming a union.
Amadeus, Galileo and Worldspan are going after rapidly growing Middle East and Gulf state airlines in search of new technology contracts. Amadeus this week announced signing an exclusive distribution partner deal with 12 carriers from the Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO). Six of those are new Amadeus customers that will join at the end of this year when their current distribution contracts expire.
American and its pilots union will begin their next round of contract negotiations tomorrow, but will then take a two-week break because their mediator is unavailable. The parties are tentatively scheduled to meet next June 30-July 2.
The European Commission is expected to decide on June 11 to launch a formal investigation into the EUR300 million state aid that rescued Alitalia last April.
As it predicted, the Association of Flight Attendants on Friday filed charges with the National Mediation Board (NMB) against Delta for interfering with a flight attendant election. The AFA claims that Delta management denied flight attendants a free and fair election through aggressive tactics to keep flight attendants from voting. It is now asking for a new election.
JetBlue’s traffic fell 2.3% year-over-year in May in spite of a 1.2% increase in capacity, resulting in a 2.8-point drop in load factor to 79.2%. The drop in traffic and load factor made JetBlue the odd-carrier-out among U.S. low-cost carriers, but an airline spokesman told The DAILY JetBlue isn’t concerned because its passenger revenue per available seat mile increased 12% in May.
