Newly formed low-cost carrier Bahrain Air wants $270 million to fund a fleet expansion. Under a three-year business plan revealed late last year, the Airbus A320 operator plans to add four narrowbodies by the end of 2008, seven in 2009, and 10 by 2010. The first A320 was received on Feb. 2.
Thai Airways International’s Airbus A380 fleet will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. The carrier, which placed an order for six A380 in 2004, expects to place the aircraft in service in 2010, a 21-month delay on the initial launch caused by continuing delays in the A380 program.
ABX saw its revenue increase by more than one-third in the first quarter, although almost all of this was attributed to the new cargo businesses the company acquired last year. The revenue gain could not stop its net profit from sliding to $3.8 million, compared to $4.2 million in the first quarter of last year. This was primarily due to a $4.6 million increase in interest expenses associated with financing the acquisition of new businesses and aircraft. Setting aside interest, taxes and depreciation, ABX saw earnings grow 78% to $36.8 million.
Chantilly, Va.-based FLO Corp. has finalized $7.1 million in financing to fund its acquisition of Unisys’s rtGo registered traveler program. FLO currently operates the RT program at Reno International Airport. FLO originally announced the deal in October 2007 (DAILY, Nov. 2). The company is funding the acquisition by selling an additional $5.5 million in principle of its senior convertible notes, along with another $1.6 million in private placement notes.
BAA parent Group Ferrovial blamed a first-quarter 4.8% drop in sales -- to EUR3.2 billion (US$4.9 billion) – on increased costs to open London Heathrow’s Terminal 5. The Spanish company was also hurt by the rise of the Euro versus the U.S. dollar and the U.K. pound sterling. Gross profits in the quarter were down 12.4% to EUR556.7 million (US$861.7 million) year over year.
Qantas said it will still have to cancel flights today and May 23 even though its mechanics union decided not to strike after all. The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers’ Association (ALAE) changed its mind about the work stoppage just a day before the first planned action. Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon said the decision “had come too late for the airline to reverse the cancellation of services.” However, Qantas said it would add capacity on some routes, operating four additional Sydney-Melbourne flights.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is making progress toward screening all cargo on passenger flights, but needs to do a better job of screening cargo that originates overseas, a congressional report says. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says TSA has improved training and managing its airport screener workforce, deploying more effective passenger and carry-on bag screening technologies, and inspecting domestic air cargo.
SkyWest, Inc. reported depressed loads and decreased traffic in April. Sister carriers SkyWest and ASA together generated 1.46 billion revenue passenger miles, down 0.9% from April 2007, while seat offer grew 1.1% to 1.89 billion available seat miles. Loads, as a result, dipped 1.6 percentage points to 77%. The airline carried some 2.8 million passengers and operated 74,420 departures, down 0.3% and 1%, respectively, from April 2008.
The O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP) overcame its last hurdle to acquire the St. Johannes Cemetery after the U.S. Supreme Court denied St. John’s United Church of Christ’s petition for writ of certiorari. As a result, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that rejected St. John’s challenges to OMP’s acquisition of the cemetery. The program has begun to contact next of kin to begin the cemetery relocation process. OMP is 187 days away from commissioning two new runways and a new air traffic control tower.
The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority has tapped Unisys for a two-year, C$5.4 million (US$5.3 million) contract to upgrade biometric Restricted Area Identity Cards (RAIC) at 29 of the country’s top airports.
JetBlue CEO Dave Barger sees a “silver lining” for JetBlue in the U.S. airline industry’s current woes — and apparently in the dollar’s miserable exchange rate, too.
High fuel prices have renewed Embraer’s interest in commercial turboprops, says CEO Frederico Fleury Curado, who accepts that a propeller-powered aircraft could be a viable replacement for 50-seat regional jets when large numbers of RJs start being retired around 2015. Curado notes, however, there is no guarantee Embraer’s research will result in a new turboprop program.
US Airways has brokered new deals with all but two of its labor groups with the approval of a new contract by the carrier’s fleet services staff, leaving only pilots and flight attendants without a new contract. The new three-year deal was approved by 63% of the voting members. US Airways’ 7,700 fleet services workers are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
GDSs and online travel portals continue to see their shrinking online and segment bookings offset by large fare increases. Travelport, which owns the Galileo and Worldspan GDSs, saw its GDS unit’s net revenues jump 43% in the first quarter to $592 million while booking segments were down. According to the Airlines Reporting Corp., for the first four months of this year total transactions processed by ARC were down 2.1%, but total fare value rose 5.2% to $25.6 billion.
Airline fuel managers suffering from jet fuel costs equivalent to $170 per barrel can expect no relief for the rest of the year, even though overall demand for oil in the world's developed economies is expected to contract 2.8%. Demand for oil in the large, developed economies of the world should fall for the balance of the year, the International Energy Agency says, but that fall will be more than offset by rising demand in China, India and other emerging economies, and supplies will continue to remain tight.
The first talks for the second stage of the U.S.-European Union open skies agreement kicked off yesterday in Slovenia, and the EU signaled that it will continue to press for the U.S. to relax the rules of ownership and control of U.S. carriers.
Eos told a bankruptcy court judge this week that “time is of the essence” in finding a buyer for all or some of its assets, and it asked the court to approve an auction process that would begin this month and end by June 9. A hearing on the airline’s auction process proposal is scheduled for May 22.
Portugal is one step closer to getting a new Lisbon Airport after the government approved plans to build the facility in Alcochete, on the other side of the Tagus River. The new facility is scheduled to open by 2017.
Alaska Airlines boosted its West Coast schedule by adding two weekday roundtrips between Seattle and San Francisco from July 7. The new flights give Alaska 10 daily roundtrips between Seattle and San Francisco, and 24 flights between Seattle and the three Bay Area airports.
Easily understanding how changes anywhere on an aircraft -- such as a powerplant swap or engine wash -- could affect fuel consumption and environmental performance is the target of Boeing’s latest Web-based Airplane Health Management (AHM) module, called Performance Monitoring.
U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a measure to suspend filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a vote certain to please the airline industry, which had long been pushing for the federal government to stop diverting oil to the SPR. The measure, offered by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) as an amendment to a flood insurance bill, passed 97-1 in the Senate on May 13. It would halt filling of the SPR until the end of the year or until oil drops to $75 per barrel, whichever comes first.
Air New Zealand is to install a new inflight entertainment system on its fleet of Airbus narrowbodies and Boeing 767-300ERs. The system, Panasonic Avionics’ X Series, will initially provide audio and video on demand, iPod integration, moving maps and games. Panasonic in a statement notes that advanced functionality can be added.
