Qatar Airways is expanding its North American service with connections to Houston, its third U.S. city, starting in November. The carrier plans to use Boeing 777-200LRs on the Doha-Houston route, which will begin Nov. 10 with three weekly flights. Daily flights will follow in December. Boeing promises to deliver the first 777-200LR to Qatar in November.
ExpressJet posted a $31.7 million loss for the fourth quarter and a $70.2 million loss for the full year 2007 but the airline is confident its real-time outlook and re-tooling capability will result in improved results for 2008.
Alaska Airlines saw a healthy load factor gain of 2.6 points to 73.3% in February. The 13.5% traffic increase outweighed a 9.4% capacity hike. Meanwhile, Horizon Air saw traffic climb 4.7% on a 1.3% Capacity increase, resulting in load factor improving 2.3 points to 71.1%.
Expedia continues expansion into Asia with a new co-branded Web site in India. The company wants to increase its international revenue to half of its total revenue this year; in 2007, international revenue accounted for 32% of worldwide revenue. Expedia.co.in has been set up to allow for payment in Indian rupees, and comes with in-country customer care. It currently can book only hotels and attractions, but flights are coming soon.
Allegiant showed no signs of slowing down in February, as the airline posted improved traffic and loads in the month. Scheduled service revenue passenger miles jumped 54.8% year over year to 301 million. Capacity offer was up 45% from February 2007 to 348.7 million available seat miles. Load factor increased 5.5 percentage points to 86.4%.
Southwest Airlines has no plans to close any cities in 2008 despite a significant pruning of its schedules, said CEO Gary Kelly. There is a chance for new cities in 2008, “but not a good chance,” he said. “We’re becoming more aggressive and using cuts to grow opportunities like Denver or San Francisco.”
Atlantic Southeast Airlines named Lisa Walker VP-operational support division, Terry Vais VP-customer care and Kevin Wade VP-administration and resources.
ALPA’s Executive Council is taking corrective action to stop US Airways’ Philadelphia Local Council 41 -- its second-largest crew base -- from supporting a rival union by placing it into emergency trusteeship. ALPA believes this is only the second time in union history that this has happened. Three local ALPA officers were ousted by national President John Prater for helping the US Airways Pilots Association recruit. The latter union has secured the right to hold an election to bump out ALPA, and ballots will be counted on April 17.
A “twofold breakdown” – at Southwest and FAA – led to the agency’s $10.2 million civil penalty against the carrier, and FAA is undertaking damage control to make sure the lapses do not compromise voluntary disclosure programs, says FAA (DAILY, March 7).
With start of production likely to begin as early as September, Boeing says 50% of the design documents necessary to build the 747-8 Freighter are completed. The designs will flow to its own factories and suppliers, so they can begin production of parts, assemblies and production tools. First deliveries to launch customers Cargolux and All Nippon Cargo Airlines are set for late 2009.
Chinese airports handled 388 million passengers last year, the civil aviation administration says. That was up 16.8% on 2006, but the growth rate slowed from the previous year’s 19%. International passenger numbers grew faster than domestic numbers. More than a tenth of air travelers in China pass through Beijing Capital International Airport. It handled 48.5 million in 2006. -
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Ingrid Lee at [email protected] (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) MARCH 10-11 — Federal Aviation Administration, 33rd Annual Aviation Forecast Conference, Washington, D.C., 202-267-5370, e-mail: [email protected] MARCH 10-12 — Flight Safety Foundation 20th European Aviation Safety Seminar — EASS, Bucharest, Romania, 703-739-6700
Korean Air’s budget offshoot, Air Korea, will probably begin operating in May, the transport ministry says. At least three no-frills carriers are planning to start up in the country. The others are Asiana’s Air Busan and a franchisee of Singapore’s Tiger Airways with majority Korean ownership.
Both the Air Transport Association and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association are conspicuously not on the list of 35 groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AIA, pressing the Senate to act quickly on FAA authorization. “We will address this issue individually with members of Congress,” ATA says. AOPA says it wants “to avoid any confusion about our position” in supporting the Senate Finance Committee bill and the House-passed legislation “that uses aviation taxes, not user fees, to help pay” for ATC modernization and the Airport Improvement Program.
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U.S. airlines want FAA to change its Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast mandate to reduce the cost of acquiring the needed avionics and to provide benefits sooner, so they can reap a return on an investment; at stake is spending in the range of many tens of thousands of dollars’ per aircraft.
Defective fan blades on General Electric CF34-3B1 engines should be taken out of service before another inflight fire or engine failure occurs – so says the National Transportation Safety Board.
Republic Airways Holdings, parent company of Republic, Chautauqua Airlines and Shuttle America, reported its airlines generated some 712.7 million revenue passenger miles in February, up 39.7% from February 2007. Capacity was up 37.9% to some 1 billion available seat miles, while load factor improved 0.9 percentage points year over year to 70%. Some 1.4 million passengers were carried in the month, up 43.4% from February 2007.
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Airbus has named Thales as supplier for two more elements of the A350XWB, the electrical power conversion system and, teamed with Diehl, the common Remote Data Concentrators (cRDC), which are part of the integrated modular avionics. Thales this year was already named the integrated modular avionics system partner for the A350. The power system win is Thales’s first with Airbus in this area of operations, says Francois Quentin, Thales senior VIP in charge of aerospace.
Tiger Airways will this year add two Airbus A319s to its Australian operation so it can use airports smaller than those needed for its A320s, maybe including Sydney’s general aviation facility, Bankstown. Introducing scheduled jet services at Bankstown would be an almost revolutionary move in Australian commercial aviation because it would finally create competition for Kingsford Smith Airport, which handles almost all of Sydney’s traffic.
Few of the 190 ICAO member states are living up to their obligations to implement secure cargo programs, says IATA head Giovanni Bisignani. IATA recently surveyed 32 states, and found that only 23 have regulated agents and only 22 allow “known shippers.” Further findings were that there is “little alignment or mutual recognition of standards.”
