Colombia decided to move on President Alvaro Uribe’s preferred plan to demolish the present terminal at Bogota’s Eldorado International Airport and construct a brand-new facility located halfway between this site and the Puente Aereo (Air Shuttle) complex. The new facility is expected to be ready in 2012.
Correction: Overseas arrivals in 2007 were down from 2000 but up 32% from 2003, per data from the U.S. Commerce Dept.’s Office of Travel & Tourism Industries. A typographical error in the March 18 issue of The DAILY made the statistic unclear.
Midwest asked the U.S. Transportation Dept. to activate its backup authority to use Washington National slots recently awarded to Spirit and AirTran (DAILY, Feb. 25) on the grounds that the carriers can’t comply with the award conditions, but the carriers dismissed the attempt through filings indicating compliance with the order.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will speak at the first Annual Caribbean Tourism Summit in Washington being organized by the Caribbean Tourism Development Co.
Alitalia’s shares dropped sharply on Monday, even though the carrier’s board of directors accepted an offer by Air France-KLM to take over the airline. The stock plunged 38% in the morning after news emerged that the Air France-KLM offer values the Italian carrier at only EUR139 million, an 81% reduction from last week’s market capitalization.
VRG (operating as Varig) continues to add to its store of interline agreements, this week announcing a deal with Taiwan’s China Airlines. The deal is one of several the carrier has inked since the start of the year, leveraging its participation in IATA’s Multilateral Interline Traffic Agreement to build new partnerships. Varig has similar deals with 20 airlines, including sister carrier GOL.
FAA believes more airlines this summer will begin using a new continuous descent approach (CDA) procedure available on one of the approaches to Los Angeles Airport. The CDA was introduced on the RIIVR One approach on Dec. 20, and FAA plans to roll out two more CDAs at LAX this year.
The Transportation Security Administration will use its own screeners to launch a new canine program to check for explosives at air cargo facilities across the country. On the passenger side, dogs are paired with law enforcement officers (LEOs) to search aircraft, vehicles, terminals, warehouses, and baggage in the airport environment for explosives. But with the launch of TSA’s program, the agency is training its own employees to be explosives detection canine handlers.
Traffic at U.K. airports rose 2.4% year over year to 241 million passengers in 2007, according to a new report by the Civil Aviation Authority. “This growth is slower than that seen over the last decade and continues a trend which began in 2005,” said the report, titled “Recent Trends in Growth of UK Air Passenger Demand.”
As Singapore Airlines brings in the first Airbus A380 passenger flight to London Heathrow today, British Airways is making preparations to begin its own A380 service at Heathrow. BA will already have a lot of experience with the aircraft by the time its first A380s arrive in 2012. The U.K. carrier won the contract to provide maintenance for SIA’s A380s at Heathrow, with the work to be carried out by BA’s Customer Engineering Group.
ExpressJet, in a bid to acknowledge some of its unhappy investors, yesterday added another seat to its eight-strong board of directors for an executive from Hayman Advisors, an investment group and shareholder who has been highly critical of the branded flying operation. Hayman Advisors President Andy Jent was named to the new vacancy on the board as part of an agreement that avoids a proxy contest in the upcoming board of directors election. A Class II director, Jent’s term would expire at the 2009 stockholders meeting.
All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines may each face a 24-hour strike on March 19 but say no international flights will be affected. Japan Airlines says four of its unions are unhappy with negotiations over a variety of issues, including basic salaries. All Nippon says four unions covering its airlines are dissatisfied with talks with management held this spring. If the strikes go ahead, Japan Airlines says 16 out of 624 domestic flights maybe affected, while All Nippon says 164 out of 914 domestic flights may be canceled or delayed.
Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania are the latest countries to sign a visa waiver agreement, putting their citizens on track for a program that allows visa-free travel to the U.S.
American and its pilots union began their National Mediation Board-facilitated talks by reaching agreement on another contract clause, although the most controversial aspects remain unresolved.
ABX announced two new senior appointments that the company says is partly in response to its recent expansion. Peter Fox was named Chief Commercial Officer of ABX Holdings. Fox was president and CEO of Cargo Holdings International, a company bought by ABX in December. He founded Cargo Holdings in 1999 as the parent of several other companies, including Capital Cargo International Airlines.
Airbus does not bear any legal liability for the crash of an A320 on Mont Sainte-Odile, near the German-French boarder in 1992, ruled a French court of appeals last week in Colmar. The court cleared Bernard Ziegler, Airbus’ former senior VP-engineering, who was the most influential figure in developing the cockpit design and fly-by-wire control system for the A320 and other Airbus aircraft. “We have fought 15 years for this,” said Ziegler after the ruling. “There is no perfect machine,” he added, “but this aircraft was excellent”.
FAA believes more airlines this summer will begin using a new continuous descent approach (CDA) procedure available on one of the approaches to Los Angeles Airport. The CDA was introduced on the RIIVR One approach on Dec. 20, and FAA plans to roll out two more CDAs at LAX this year.
Brisbane and Adelaide tied for first place with a “good” rating in a new report released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). But Canberra placed at the bottom of ACCC’s list, with a satisfactory rating.
February 2008 provided Mexican airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Sur a leap year bonus — all-around improved traffic. Total traffic for February 2008 was up 20% from the same month last year, while domestic and international traffic were up 28.5% and 15.7%, respectively. Excluding Feb. 29 from the year-over-year comparison would have resulted in decreased improvement in all areas: Total traffic would have increased by only 15.4%, domestic traffic by only 23.3% and international traffic by 11.5%.
Air traffic handled by Nav Canada increased by an average of 6.5% in January. For the fiscal year to the end of January, traffic was up 5.6% as measured in weighted charging units. Nav Canada’s fiscal year runs through Aug. 31.
U.S. airline traffic and international visitation broke annual records last year, recently released figures from the U.S. Transportation and Commerce departments show. Given concerns about an economic downturn, however, 2007 could also be the last time growth in those areas sync up, at least in the short term. Some expect that traffic will fall in response to tighter spending at home, while the decline of the U.S. dollar continues to be an attractive incentive for Europeans looking to get the most for their euro when traveling abroad.
