During talks last month, the U.S. and Brazil signed a memorandum of consultation (MOC) pledging to hold a second round of negotiations before the end of this year, The DAILY has learned. Last month’s talks were the first formal negotiations the two sides have had in a decade. The talks were also the first since Brazil made the transition from a military-controlled aviation system to a civilian-controlled system, a senior U.S. official said.
British Airways will begin direct flights from New York to Brussels and Paris in June with a new carrier it has dubbed Open Skies, seen as a way to take advantage of the European Union/U.S. air service pact that goes into effect in March. This move, by BA’s previously named Project Lauren, is the latest by carriers on both sides of the Atlantic that are jockeying for position to fly between key points in the U.S. and Europe.
Venezuelan civil aviation regulator INAC said it would review some of Aeropostal’s management practices as a deadline for the airline to pay $5.5 million to the regulator approaches on Friday. The move to review the carrier’s practice is seemingly related to the outstanding debt owed to INAC by Aeropostal. The US$5.5 million, which includes labor and operational warranties, was the result of administrative proceedings initiated by INAC for alleged “irregularities” by the airline denounced by workers and users.
Mexican regional carrier Aviacsa next month will inaugurate service from Monterrey to New York Kennedy Airport four times a week and from Guadalajara to Los Angeles with an equal number of frequencies, according to DAILY affiliate AvNews Latin America & Caribbean. All flights will operate with Boeing 737 NG aircraft.
Austrian Airlines Group is adding two new Russian destinations this summer — Sochi and Nizhniy Novgorod. The airline will launch flights April 1 to Sochi and April 2 to Nizhniy Novgorod from Vienna with Fokker 70s, offering three weekly flights to each. Austrian currently flies to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Rostov and Krasnodar. The expansion is part of Austrian’s “Focus East” strategy, in which it is pulling back from unprofitable long-haul routes in favor of European niches.
The U.S.-European Union open-skies agreement is on track to go into effect at the end of March as planned, a preliminary meeting of the Joint Committee found.
Embraer has set a company record with 169 commercial aircraft deliveries last year, reaching the high end of its forecast 12 months ago. Also, the airframer says the strong order intake throughout the year continued into the past year, when it added 39 170/190s to its order book, and two ERJ135s for the Thai military.
Air Comet Chile (formerly Aerolineas del Sur) kicked off the new year with the opening of a new long-haul route from Santiago to Puerto Natales, gateway to Patagonia and Torres del Paine National Park, both favorite destinations with foreign ecotourists.
Lisa Porter, NASA associate administrator for aeronautics research, will leave the agency on or about Feb. 1 to become the first director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. In a Jan. 9 notice to NASA colleagues, Porter said the new organization will sponsor innovative research that will yield revolutionary game-changing capabilities for the intelligence community. Her deputy, Jaiwon Shin, will take over the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters as acting associate administrator.
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Labor unions have been advised that a looming recession and rising fuel costs could tip the scales in favor of management at the bargaining table this year, and managements will want to drag out negotiations on new contracts as long as possible.
Despite soaring oil prices, Mexican low-cost carrier VivaAerobus this week said it will not add a fuel surcharge to its published fares, as other airlines are doing. VivaAerobus spokesman Juan Carlos Zuazau told Terra Mexico that VivaAerobus is now operating at the highest load factors in the country, which, together with its operational efficiency, high utilization of fleet and other assets, plus strict control over costs, enables it to avoid passing on additional charges to passengers.
Saudi Arabian Airlines and Sabre have signed four separate deals to upgrade the airline’s technology related to a three-year IT transition program that is a part of Saudia’s IT Master Plan.
Allegiant’s scheduled traffic in December jumped 57.5% year over year on 56.5% more capacity, resulting in a 0.5-percentage-point increase in load factor to 78.9%. For all of 2007, revenue passenger miles were up 42.5% to 2.8 million, available seat miles rose 38.4% to 3.4 million and load factor grew 2.4 points to 83.1%. Allegiant carried some 3 million passengers in the year, up 55.5% from 2006, and 337,289 passengers in December. Fuel price in December was 38.8% higher than in the previous December, as Allegiant paid $2.90 a gallon for fuel.
Travelport GDS, operator of the Galileo and Worldspan GDSs, will consolidate its operations by establishing a new headquarters and primary data center in Atlanta while keeping its Rosemont, Ill., Parsippany, N.J., and Denver facilities. Travelport late last year bought Worldspan, which is based in Atlanta and owns a large complex there, and is integrating that company with Galileo, based in Parsippany.
Worldwide passenger traffic rose 5.6% to 230.3 million year over year in November, according to statistics from Airports Council International. Growth in November was fueled by a 9% hike in international traffic to 102.6 million passengers. The African region posted a large boost in international travelers, rising 21.5% to 4.1 million in November.
Southwest Airlines intends to eliminate 57 roundtrip flights that are not performing up to snuff and move those aircraft to 40 other roundtrip markets, with Denver getting the lion’s share.
The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority has created a new online reporting system for birdstrikes. Previously, aerodromes, aircraft operators and private pilots filed birdstrike reports by completing CAA’s CA1282 Birdstrike Occurrence Form, which was faxed or posted. The online reporting form is available at http://www.caa.co.uk/birdstrikereporting.
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) hosted several other unions yesterday on the first day of a three-day bargaining summit in Washington aimed at increasing their bargaining power.
