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.
The board of directors of Alitalia decided to meet again on April 8 to “verify the presence of the required elements to ensure the going concern of the company,” said the Italian flag carrier about the collapse of talks with Air France-KLM.
Eurocontrol plans to develop a road map by the end of 2009 that outlines how unmanned aircraft will be integrated into the European air traffic management (ATM) system in the years to come.
Despite increases in costs, TAP Portugal has managed to continue its financial turnaround. After struggling for several years, TAP managed to deliver a EUR32.8 million (US$51.4 million) net profit last year. It’s the carrier’s best financial performance to date, management says, coming on top of EUR7.3 million in the prior year. Also up was the operating result, with a 160% boost to EUR79.3 million. Operating costs were up 13.6% to EUR1.7 billion, but were outpaced by the growth in operating revenue, which reached EUR1.6 billion.
S7 Airlines is fielding new Airbus A320s, following first delivery last week. Russia’s second-largest airline is leasing six of the aircraft through International Lease Finance Corp.
The wave of airlines offering inflight voice and data communications continues to swell, with Oman Air now joining the ranks of carriers signing on to provide the service. Using OnAir’s Inmarsat-based service, Oman Air will start fielding aircraft equipped to handle up to 12 voice calls, text messaging, Blackberry-type emailing and wireless Internet, starting next year. The Internet will be accessible via laptop or seat-back inflight entertainment systems, the airline says.
Airlines bumped up their transatlantic schedules in anticipation of the liberalization afforded by the U.S.-European Union opens-skies agreement that went into force March 30, data from IATA show. Airlines are scheduling 2,485 nonstop flights per week from the EU to the U.S. for April, an 11% rise from the same month a year ago, the data show.
