U.S. billionaire Leonard Blavatnik is about to become Air Berlin’s largest single shareholder. The Russian-born entrepreneur agreed to buy an 18.56% stake in Air Berlin for an undisclosed sum through his Access Industries investment holding. Air Berlin’s shares gained more than 10% on Monday, with market observers expecting Blavatnik to increase his stake even more.
Kuwait Airways is looking to quickly add some widebody and narrowbody capacity to its network, with the goal of signing up one aircraft in each class under an aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance lease agreement. The carrier says on the widebody front it will consider a Boeing 777 or Airbus A330/A340, with a seat-count of 240-300 passengers. The aircraft would be fitted with business and economy class.
Singapore Airlines will fly fewer services to Los Angeles as part of a change in schedules that will shift aircraft to closer services to Asia and Australia. Network capacity will rise, but a redistribution will reflect “changing patterns in demand for travel,” the airline says. The cuts comprise cancellation of the Singapore-Osaka service from May 17 and the four flights a week to Los Angeles through Taipei, effective from Oct. 1, although new flights to Taipei alone will maintain that city’s services.
With passenger sales lagging for its 747-8 update of the venerable widebody, Boeing will start a new sales push this year that tries to distinguish the aircraft as belonging in a different class than the Airbus A380.
The Group on International Aviation and Climate Change is scheduled to meet in mid-July in Montreal. GIACC, convened after the ICAO General Assembly last fall, met last in February and is chartered with finding a global solution to aviation's contribution to climate change.
Pilots at three Chinese airlines have taken the risky step of disguised labor action in a battle with their employers for better contracts, just as political violence is making the authorities extremely sensitive about social unrest. Pilots of 18 flights of China Eastern’s Yunnan provincial subsidiary turned back last week after taking off, returning to their departure airports on doubtful claims of bad weather.
Skybus’ decision to cease all of its services Saturday and file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection made it the third failure of a U.S. scheduled service airline in a week and signifies the fragile state of the U.S. airline industry at current fuel prices, industry analysts and observers said.
American aims to provide broadband Internet connectivity for all passengers on 15 of its Boeing 767-200s during transcontinental flights this year and may expand Wi-Fi to other aircraft in domestic and even international service after this trial run.
All Nippon Airways has exercised the last two of the four options it held from its launch of the 767-300 Boeing Converted Freighter program in 2005. ANA’s original firm order was for three aircraft, and it subsequently picked up two of the options. Singapore Technologies Aerospace is to begin flight testing of the first passenger-to-freighter aircraft in April and redeliver it to ANA in June. The last of the seven aircraft is to be delivered in December 2010.
Amadeus, with technology contracts from TAP Portugal and Corsair in hand, expects to ink a deal with Saudia soon. It recently moved SAS to a full-content deal and is expecting significant growth in Eastern Europe, most recently signing with Croatia Airlines, Russia’s Rossiya and the Ukraine’s AeroSvit. It also is in talks with S7 of Russia.
Airbus expects to deliver the first A320 assembled at its Hamburg facility to Virgin America in May. Assembly of the fourth member of the single-aisle family was added in Hamburg as part of an internal Airbus restructuring. Assembly in Toulouse will eventually be scaled back to 14 aircraft per month, but not before 2011 because Airbus is still in the process of boosting monthly production rates.
Royal Air Maroc, one of the earliest Boeing 787 customers, believes the widebody now will likely arrive at least a year late. The carrier hoped to get the aircraft in October, but late 2009 now seems likely, says Commercial Director Abderrafia Zouitene. RAM already had to extend Boeing 767 leases to maintain capacity. It is now in talks with Boeing on financial compensation to cover costs associated with the delay.
Emirates is coming to the U.S. this week to recruit pilots in Detroit, Cincinnati and Atlanta for the rapidly growing carrier, according to FLTops.com, an on-line information service for professional pilots and applicants. FLTops President Louis Smith said he considers the recruitment effort significant, in part because Emirates appears to be targeting U.S. airline hub markets with a lot of regional jet captains.
Boeing has demonstrated that sustained, level flight in a manned aircraft can be achieved using nothing but a fuel cell for power. Now comes the interesting part. What type of aircraft is most likely to benefit? Francisco Escarti, managing director of Boeing Research & Technology Europe (BR&TE), thinks that unmanned aerial vehicles that tap a fuel cell’s inherent silence and lack of heat signature — no hot gas engine — are a natural for the surveillance world. The fact that such aircraft would contribute no pollutants or CO2 emissions is a bonus.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Ingrid Lee at [email protected] (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) APRIL 8-14 — Experimental Aircraft Association Sun ‘n’ Fun Fly-In, Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, Lakeland, Fla., 920-426-4800. APRIL 14-17 — 2008 Aviation Maintenance Conference, Tulsa Marriott Southern Hills, Tulsa, Okla., 410-266-2008
The Air Transport Association — as expected — last week filed comments denouncing the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s congestion pricing proposal, calling the proposed amendments "ill-advised" and urging DOT to focus on the causes of congestion at airports. With its proposed changes, DOT is trying to "effect a significant policy change" and influence airline schedules and equipment choices in ways that may be prohibited by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1979, ATA wrote.
Southwest is forging ahead with plans to offer international service via code sharing, even though the airline it planned to start that service with in 2009 — ATA — has gone out of business. Southwest is “in discussions with other airlines regarding alliances” and “will continue our focus on other potential partners,” a Southwest spokeswoman said. Southwest has been talking for a year about hooking up with international carriers after its reservations system technology is upgraded to handle international bookings, which remains on track for early 2009.
Vietnam Airlines and Virgin Blue will put their codes on each other’s flights, connecting the Southeast Asian country with 22 Australian destinations. Vietnam Airlines flies to Sydney and Melbourne. The deal will help fend off competition from the Qantas group, which has bought a stake in Vietnam’s Pacific Airlines with a view to rebranding the carrier as a Jetstar franchisee. Jetstar, Qantas’s budget operation, already had a Singaporean affiliate.
Etihad expects to meet its full-year, 6 million-passenger target and also is seeing strong yields in the first few months of the year. In reporting first-quarter results, the Abu Dhabi-based carrier says yield was up 25% on a year-over-year comparison. Between January and March, the airline also transported 1.4 million passengers, and given planned capacity growth the full-year target should be achievable, management believes. Traffic volume was up 40%, with load factor up seven percentage points.
SAS has come to terms with its pilots on pay, clearing the way for the airline to concentrate on its Strategy 2011 plan. The final deal between the airline and Danish Pilots’ Association (DPF), Norwegian SAS Pilots’ Association (NSF) and Swedish Pilots’ Association (SPF) was inked last week. It covers a two-year period retroactive to last year and running through March 31, 2009.
Limco-Piedmont Inc. named Carla Covey executive VP and CFO, effective March 31. Former CFO Shabtai Moshiashvili will remain with the company, reporting to Covey.
Southwest developed the procedure behind the airworthiness directive that got it in trouble, said CEO Gary Kelly at last Thursday’s House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Last month, FAA served Southwest a $10.2 million fine, citing non-compliance with a safety critical AD to inspect a section of Boeing 737 fuselage for cracks.
