Southwest is not letting the prospect of weakening demand slow its capacity growth. The carrier saw capacity jump 9% in February, although it still managed to improve load factor due to a larger increase in traffic. Loads were up 1.8 points to 68.6%, with traffic rising 10.8%. For the first two months of the year, traffic increased 7.8% on a 7% capacity hike, resulting in load factor rising 1.1 points to 66.3%.
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FAA plans to move its ATC System Command Center into a new custom-built facility, after occupying a leased building in Herndon, Va., for the past 14 years. The new facility will be adjacent to FAA’s Potomac terminal radar approach control in Warrenton, Va. Construction is expected to begin in January and finish in 2010. The project is estimated to cost $45 million, but once completed, the new building should yield $2 million in annual cost savings.
Angela Gittens will take over as director general of Airports Council International in April, replacing Robert Aaronson, who plans to retire. “This position brings together everything I’ve learned and applies it on a global scale,” Gittens told The DAILY. “Airports worldwide have issues in common, and ACI’s role is to bring that together and share best practices.”
Delta has promoted and brought on new executives under its maintenance, operations and airports divisions. Tony Charaf has been promoted to president of Delta TechOps maintenance division. The move emphasizes the airline’s commitment to continue expanding its multimillion-dollar maintenance, repair and overhaul business.
The prestigious Collier Trophy will this year be awarded to the industry and government teams responsible for developing the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast program (ADS-B), the National Aeronautic Association says. FAA and UPS experts who were instrumental in the ADS-B program were also named as Aviation Week Laureates last week.
The Fiscal Year 2009 budget resolution passed by the House Budget Committee supports full-funding for FAA’s Airport Improvement Program. House Transportation & Infrastructure Chair James Oberstar (D-Minn.) says the budget rejects the $765 million cut to AIP proposed by the Administration, and provides $3.9 billion for AIP in FY2009, increasing to $4.1 billion in 2011.
Mesa’s Hawaii-based interisland carrier Go posted traffic results better than those recorded in the company’s mainland operation in February. Go generated some 7.23 million revenue passenger miles in the month, up 1.83% from the same month of 2007. Capacity was down 6.24% from the previous year to 10.97 million available seat miles. Load factor, meanwhile, improved from 60.54% in February 2007 to 65.92% just last month. The Hawaiian operation scored an on-time rate of 82.4% in the month and logged an overall completion factor of 99.9%.
Defective fan blades on General Electric CF34-3B1 engines should be taken out of service before another in-flight fire or engine failure occurs, according to the NTSB. In its recommendation, the safety board cites two previous fan blade failures, both involving Bombardier CRJ-200s. One was on an Air Nostrum flight in 2006, the other on an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight in 2007.
Brazil’s airport regulator Infraero, hoping to maintain stability in the local sector after a year of safety crises, will take preventive action to nip trouble in the bud that could see the regulator getting involved in the nitty-gritty of airline operations.
American once again cut its domestic capacity in February, but overall capacity increased due to a boost in international flying. Consolidated capacity was up 2%, with traffic rising 2.5% and load factor improving by 0.3 points to 76.9%. Domestic traffic fell 0.5% on a 0.2% capacity cut, resulting in load factor dropping 0.3 points to 78.8%. International traffic was up 8.4%, with capacity increasing 6%. International loads gained 1.6 points to 73.6%. American Eagle, meanwhile, saw February traffic drop 2.4% and capacity 1.9%. Load factor sank 0.4 points to 69%.
Brazilian sister carriers GOL and VRG (Varig) together increased systemwide capacity some 64.2% from February 2007 to February 2008 but saw their loads fall as traffic failed to keep pace with the additional seats. Systemwide revenue passenger kilometers jumped 35.6% year over year to 2.12 billion, while available seat kilometers in the month stood at 3.55 billion. Load factor plunged 12.6 percentage points to 59.7%. Domestic traffic was up 17% on 37.9% more seat offer, resulting in an 11.1 percentage point decline in loads to 61.7%.
Gulf Air will expand its 56 frequencies a week in India to 68, starting this summer. The carrier was granted additional capacity following a bilateral agreement giving Gulf Air operating rights to Hyderabad on a daily basis. The airline has also been given additional rights for daily services to Kochi and Kolkata and increasing flights to Delhi to 10 a week, Gulf Air General Manager for India Rajeev Nambiar told The DAILY.
A consortium of six Colombian companies and their strategic partner, Chinese state-owned Capital Airport Holding Co.(CAH), won a concession to upgrade, develop, maintain and manage six airports in Western Colombia.
The first U.S. built Airbus A330-200F freighter is slated to roll off the planned Mobile, Ala., final assembly line in 2011, along with five KC-45A tankers for the U.S. Air Force. The assembly facility is being built as part of the Northrop Grumman/EADS win last week of the USAF KC-X program. The loser, Boeing, will be debriefed today on the reasons for its defeat, which could still spur a legal challenge of the award.
Canadian pension plan executives say they will continue their partial takeover bid for Auckland Airport despite New Zealand government policy change which make it tougher for the takeover to succeed.
Bogota’s Eldorado Airport recently drew attention recently because of the Osain concession (DAILY, Feb. 11), but one local paper says faulty radars should be more of a concern.
SAS is planning a 20% cut in carbon emissions from 2007 levels by 2020, even as it predicts 4% annual passenger growth rate. In the near term, the carrier plans to achieve this reduction by focusing on ground operations, including switching to more fuel-efficient company cars. Longer-term, SAS says it will shift its attention to fleet upgrades to more efficient aircraft and engines as well as pushing for the Single European Sky process to reach completion.
The Senate Commerce Committee plans to explore the state of the airline industry in a hearing next week. Air carriers continue to face significant challenges despite earning an estimated net profit of roughly $3.5 billion last year, committee staff said. Among those challenges: high fuel prices, growing competition, and severe congestion and delays. No witnesses have been announced yet for the March 13 hearing.
John Byerly, deputy assistant secretary of state for transportation affairs, and Daniel Calleja, director, Air Transport Directorate of the European Commission, are the winners of this year’s Aviation Week Laureate in the commercial air transport category. Byerly and Calleja were recognized for their work leading the negotiating teams that crafted a historic aviation liberalization agreement last April. Byerly was on hand March 4 to accept the award on their behalf in Washington, D.C., at the 51st Annual Laureate Awards ceremony.
