Barry Rempel, president and CEO of the Winnipeg Airports Authority, has been elected to a two-year term as chairman of the Canadian Airports Council (CAC). The association elected William Restall, president and CEO of Saskatoon Airport Authority, as vice chair.
The growth in international airline traffic worldwide continued a “sharp downward trend” in March, the International Air Transport Assn. reported Friday, leading IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani to declare that “the buffer of an expanding economy” to protect the industry from high oil prices has “disappeared.” Growth slowed even for Asia/Pacific carriers, to 4.3%, which IATA said is significant because the region’s booming economies were expected to immunize them from the U.S. slowdown.
Ambassador John Bruton, head of the European Commission’s delegation to the U.S., will brief the House aviation subcommittee today during a hearing on aviation and the environment. Bruton’s briefing will occur during an official recess during the hearing and will not be part of the record.
Korean Air is pleased with the progress made by fellow Asian SkyTeam member China Southern has made since joining the alliance, said Bang Sun-Oh, VP-international affairs and alliance team. “Korean Air, along with Delta and Air France, were the founding carriers of SkyTeam, and we were the only Asian carrier,” said Sun-Oh. “We were proud to be the sponsoring airline to bring China Southern into SkyTeam last November, the first Chinese carrier to join a global alliance.”
The European Commission has completely withdrawn its plans to make the IATA standard for cabin luggage mandatory throughout the European Union. The rationale behind the proposal to prohibit all carry-ons larger than 56 cm x 45 cm x 25 cm was to make security screening easier at airports. But “studies concluded that the influence of baggage size on overall performance of security staff at airports was far less significant than other factors and that its effectiveness would not justify the additional costs and inconvenience,” said the commission.
Allegiant in April saw its traffic jump on 20.6% more capacity than was offered in same month last year, resulting in a 5.4 point improvement in load factor to 87.5%. The company generated some 298.35 million revenue passenger miles and 341 million available seat miles in its schedule services. Allegiant operated 2,569 departures in the month, up 25.6% from April 2007, and stage lenghts were down 4.4% to 895 miles on average. Nearly 328,000 passengers were carried on Allegiant’s scheduled flights.
JAL Group last week raised its financial estimate for the fiscal year ended March 31, with net profit expected to more than double. JAL plans to release its final figures for fiscal 2007 on May 9, but it is already predicting they will be significantly better than its November forecast. Japanese regulations require companies to give notification anytime they expect net profit to change more than 30% from previous estimates.
Switzerland’s Flybaboo has taken delivery of the first of three Embraer E-190 twinjets it plans to lease this year from M1 Travel. The 100-seat jets are part of a fleet expansion that will triple Flybaboo’s current capacity, and allow it to inaugurate recently announced services to Kiev, Ukraine; Sofia, Bulgaria; St Petersburg, Russia; and Vienna, Austria; between May 26 and July 1.
AirTran Airways’ April load factor dipped 2.9 percentage points, compared to the same period last year, as a 5.7% rise in traffic to 1.51 billion revenue passenger miles failed to match a 9.9% year-over-year jump in capacity to 2.04 billion available seat miles. The airline’s reduced April load of 73.9%, which is being attributed to an early Easter and Passover, is not expected to continue into the summer, which AirTran says “continues to book well.” AirTran’s traffic and capacity set new April records for the airline.
Mexican airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (OMA) expects that its airports have room to grow their traffic in spite of current concerns about the global economy. Total passenger traffic was up 11.5% in the first quarter of 2008 on strong domestic demand. International traffic fell 2% thanks to the reduction of flights and frequencies to Acapulco, Mazatlan and Zihuatenejo, top tourist destinations in OMA’s network. New Mexican airlines accounted for 31% of total traffic in the quarter, compared with 19.1% in 2007, said OMA CFO Victor Bravo.
Air Berlin is shifting its main operation in northern Italy to Milan Malpensa, providing another boost to the airport after Lufthansa said it would increase operations there as well. Air Berlin has been using Bergamo Orio al Serio, but starting June 16 the carrier will have 25 weekly frequencies from Malpensa’s Terminal 1. The flights will go to Duesseldorf and Berlin Tegel. The decision was made to appeal more to business travelers, as well as other customers, says Air Berlin’s Italy manager, Marco Fontana.
Boeing revealed a $2.2 billion deal with the Iraqi government yesterday that could see as many as 40 737s operating from the Middle East country. The U.S. manufacturer also confirmed in a statement that it is in talks with Iraq for a firm order of 10 787s.
Delays in the recovery program for the Airbus A380 and their possible effect on slowing future deliveries has once again shaken investor confidence in Airbus parent company EADS.
American plans to cut its last Oakland flights — as well as at least eight other routes — as part of its planned fall capacity reductions, the carrier confirmed yesterday.
The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), concerned about how their members would fare in negotiations with six immunized SkyTeam members, is invoking a joint U.S. Transportation Dept.-European Commission study on how alliances affect transatlantic competition (DAILY, March 19) and a Justice Dept. decision on the Delta-Northwest merger as reasons why DOT should defer a decision on SkyTeam antitrust immunity.
Korea’s Asiana Airlines is to place an order for two more Boeing 777-200ERs, The DAILY has learned. The order, which is expected within days, follows a single 777-200ER order placed by Asiana on Jan. 31. Asiana currently operates nine 777-200ERs, six of which have been bought directly from Boeing. All -200ERs in Asiana’s fleet, including the three leased aircraft, are powered by Pratt & Whitney PW4090 engines. Boeing would not confirm the upcoming order; Asiana was unavailable for comment.
JetBlue has expanded its service in Boston and Austin and upsized its service connecting the two cities. JetBlue began daily service from Boston to Chicago (O’Hare) and New Orleans and resumed seasonal service to Bermuda May 1, all using its 100-seat Embraer 190 aircraft. With the additions, JetBlue now offers nonstop service from Boston to 30 destinations in the U.S., Aruba, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.
Low-cost carriers Clickair in Barcelona and Germanwings in Cologne/Bonn last week began “cross-selling” some of the other carrier’s flights on their respective Web sites. Under the marketing agreement, customers using Clickair’s site will see Stuttgart and Cologne listed as destinations for flights from Barcelona, but on flights operated by Germanwings. Similarly, Germanwings customers will see options on its site for flights from Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich to Barcelona, and customers who select them will be directed to Clickair’s site for bookings.
The California state legislature is working on a bill to strengthen the state’s airport land use laws. The legislation has passed the Senate, and now it goes to the Assembly’s local government committee. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association — which lobbied for the bill’s passage — says the bill would require all counties with public-use airports to have an airport land-use commission. Existing rules protecting airports from incompatible development have been weakened, AOPA says.
New Orleans-based baggage courier company Advance Check-In is betting that passengers will pay to check their bags and get boarding passes at hotels around the city.
Economists and industry observers see no end in sight for high oil prices and argue that the current records may not be the result of a speculative bubble but are, instead, the result of new market fundamentals, and this could make for tough going for the airline industry for the balance of the year.
Nicholas Sabatini, FAA’s associate administrator for safety, is conducting a nationwide tour to talk to agency employees about the recent inspection controversy. He will present an update of the airworthiness directive audit and give overviews of new programs. According to an employee Web site, Sabatini will also stress that the system overall is working. He has already visited the southern and southwestern regions, and he will get to the remaining regions this month.
