The U.S. and Kenya will kick off the first round of open-skies negotiations on May 28 and 29 in Washington, a senior State Dept. official tells The DAILY. Whether the talks will include industry observers remains to be determined by the Kenyan side. The U.S. does not have a bilateral air services agreement with Kenya.
The CEOs of Delta and Northwest yesterday repeatedly assured lawmakers their proposed merger won’t reduce frontline employees or air services, although they stressed that such changes could well be forced by rising oil prices.
General Electric plans to challenge Pratt & Whitney’s ambitions with its geared turbofan by launching a technology program aimed at developing a “Next Gen” CF34 regional jet engine family by around 2015. The ‘NG34’engine plan is aimed at the burgeoning 70- to 120-passenger market and will share technology under development in the GE-Snecma LEAP56 program, a collaborative effort aimed at a next-generation CFM56. It will also leverage technology development from the larger GEnx engine family, as well as other technology projects within GE.
The European Union intends to push ahead with its plans to include aviation in the emissions trading scheme (ETS) to goad ICAO into acting on this global problem, Ambassador John Bruton, head of the European Commission’s delegation to the U.S., told The DAILY. Aviation emissions are growing and are a growing problem, wherever in the world they are emitted, Bruton said, and this makes the problem an EU issue as well. If ICAO isn’t moving fast enough on mitigating emissions, then the EU must, he said.
Northwest reported a 1% increase in traffic in April on a 2.1% increase in capacity, causing its load factor to drop by 0.9 points to 82.8%. The figures include both mainline service and Northwest Airlink regional service. Northwest Airlink fared better than mainline, with a 44.3% increase in traffic on a 44.2% gain in capacity. For mainline service, traffic fell 2% on a 1.2% cut in capacity.
Airbus efforts to unload French production facilities at St. Nazaire and Meaulte have failed. The weak dollar and the global credit crisis have contributed to making the deal with Latecoere fall through, both sides report. Airbus has asked buyers of the facilities being spun off to shoulder most of the dollar currency risk; but the continued fall of the U.S. currency made that increasingly unpalatable.
Bombardier’s latest 10-year forecast adds 1,700 commercial airliners and 325 businees aircraft to its delivery outlook. Despite high fuel prices and economic challenges in the U.S., the aircraft maker sees both segments being strong. The 1,320 units to be placed in the business aviation market are valued at about US$30 billion, with the 12,900 commercial aircraft between 20 and 149 seats valued at US$528 billion.
ExpressJet Holdings will further reduce the airline’s branded flying in June and expects the service to “incur a significant loss” on the service for the year, the company disclosed in an earnings report and 10-Q filing this week. The airline also disclosed that its credit card processor has increased its holdback on credit card purchases to 100%, which would be considered another indicator of the regional carrier’s financial struggles.
Bombardier has yet to approve formal program launch for the 110- to 149-seat CSeries aircraft family, but already plans several versions of the two core products. The baseline program has Bombardier launching the C110 first, and then the C130. But Gary Scott, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, says an extended-range version of each type is expected to emerge and a long-range version will likely be fielded as well. The latter would probably be targeted at airlines wanting to fly an all-business-class configuration for long distances, Scott says.
Bombardier’s Services Corporation (BSC) subsidiary has been contracted to provide heavy maintenance for U.S. regional operator SkyWest Airlines and its Atlanta-based Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) unit. Under a 10-year agreement, BSC will provide C-checks and other heavy maintenance for SkyWest’s fleet of 222 Bombardier regional jets, which include CRJ200s, CRJ700s and CRJ900s. A separate contract covers heavy maintenance for ASA’s fleet of 110 CRJ200s. Financial details are not being disclosed.
The Transportation Security Administration will have to submit to Congress a best practices guide for issuing biometric credentials to airport workers under a bill introduced by Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. Thompson called the measure “legislating smart security” because it will require a comprehensive plan before airports begin using biometric identification for their workers.
Market-based measures have a role to play in mitigating aviation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, provided these measures are voluntary, Carl Burleson, FAA director-aviation policy, planning and environment, told The DAILY.
Airbus reports a rare negative book-to-bill ratio for last month, with 39 deliveries and only 12 aircraft to its order book. Airbus officials have been saying for some time that the order pace seen last year and even early this year would drop. The sole order last month came from Aer Lingus, which signed for six A330-300s and six A350-900s. Through April, Airbus delivered 162 aircraft; the aircraft maker has taken in 397 net orders.
All-business-class carrier L’Avion and OpenSkies — the new British Airway’s transatlantic subsidiary hoping to start New York-Paris service in June — are planning to code share in what the airlines said could be the first step toward a deeper alliance. The carriers have filed for U.S. Transportation Dept. approval that would let L’Avion place its code on the OpenSkies flights between Orly and Kennedy airports. L’Avion offers its service between Orly and Newark nine times a week, increasing to 12 as of May 18 with twice-daily service most days.
House Lawmakers on Tuesday acknowledged the need to mitigate aviation's greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), pinning their hopes on the next-generationg air traffic management system, rather than a European Union-style cap-and-trade program. Witnesses before the House aviation subcommittee's hearing on aviation emissions stressed the industry's record combatting emissions. The U.S. airline industry, has improved fuel efficiency by 11% in the past four years, said Dan Elwell, FAA assistant administrator for policy, planning and the environment.
Changes in U.K. holiday patterns and the Terminal 5 debacle contributed to a significant fall in British Airways’ traffic and load factor for April, the airline said this week. Traffic dropped by 7% versus a capacity decrease of 0.4 points. This resulted in a load factor drop of 5.1 points to 71.6%. The traffic fall comprised a 3.4% increase in the premium category, with non-premium declining 8.8%.
Southwest reported a 5.7% year-over-year increase in traffic in April on a 5.3% gain in capacity, resulting in a 0.3-point rise in load factor to 72.6%. For the year to date through April, the airline’s traffic is up 8.3% on a 6.1% increase in capacity, with a 1.4-point increase in load factor to 70.5%.
Southwest, which already considers its Nuts About Southwest blog to be a “virtual focus group,” upgraded the blog this week to include video entries and podcasts, user-posted photos via Flickr, a weekly poll, a headline service with the latest Southwest news, and other new features.
US Airways’ Las Vegas hub will see three mainline flights and another nine Express flights cut from the system effective Aug. 19. The changes are part of the capacity cuts US Airways announced during its first quarter analyst call. Under the latest schedule, US Airways will end mainline flights from Las Vegas to Atlanta, Newark and Oakland. US Airways Express will drop service to nine cities, including Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City and Tucson, while another 10 cities will see drops in their frequencies.
American calculates the MD-80 inspection cancellations contributed to a 4.3% cut in mainline capacity in April. The carrier’s mainline traffic was down 6.6% for the month, and load factor dropped two points to 80.1%. Domestic mainline traffic declined 8.4% on a 5.9% capacity cut, resulting in load factor falling 2.3 points to 82.2%. International traffic was down 3.1% on a 1.5% capacity decrease.
Ecuador’s Tame, the state-owned airline run by the country’s air force as a commercial carrier, will soon begin flights to link Ecuador’s port of Manta on the Pacific and the Brazilian gateway of Manaus. Brazil will soon designate a domestic airline to share these tasks with Tame.
JetBlue’s load factor fell 5.2 points year over year in April to 79.5%, as a 0.8% increase in traffic lagged far behind its 7.4% increase in capacity. JetBlue also said its preliminary tally for passenger revenue per available seat mile showed a 3% year-over-year increase. CEO Dave Barger said the airline’s year-over-year revenue performance, which was affected by having the Easter holiday in March instead of April this year, was “in line with our expectations.” He described the bookings for this summer as “solid.”
