Changi Airports International has finalized a deal to buy a 29% stake in China’s Nanjing Lukou International Airport (NLIA). The stake is valued at US$122.1 million, said spokeswoman Ahfisah Rahman. “Nanjing is an attractive, promising city, with tremendous growth prospects,” she said. “The NLIA is the largest airport in the Jiangsu province and is one of the important trunk line airports in China.”
FAA is designating Newark a Level 3 Coordinated Airport for the summer 2008 travel season and is suggesting to cap flights at the airport to 83 operations per hour, The DAILY has learned. This is the first such cap suggested for the airport, and it follows on the heels of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters’ announcement earlier this week that flight caps will be applied to Newark next year. FAA says it will begin scheduling talks with carriers “within the next few weeks.”
Working frantically against time, Lloyd Aereo Boliviano this week delivered to Bolivia’s transport superintendent a copy of its just-issued operations permit and other supporting documents, barely meeting the Dec. 29 deadline to be authorized by the transport regulator to operate again.
The European Commission’s Environment Council yesterday agreed to changes in the proposal to include aviation in the European Union’s emissions trading scheme (ETS). A month after the European Parliament voted in its first reading to toughen up the proposal, the Council deliberated on the Parliament’s findings. Among other measures, Parliament voted to include all flights operating in the EU from 2011, rather than starting with intra-EU flights that year (DAILY, Nov. 14).
Former Delta COO James Whitehurst yesterday was named president and CEO of Red Hat, Inc., a Raleigh, N.C.-based open-source software developer. Whithurst takes the reins Jan. 1.
Northwest joined Air France partner carriers Brit Air and CityJet in asking the U.S. Transportation Dept. for exemptions and code-share authority. Northwest’s code would appear on Brit Air’s Paris-Genoa flight and CityJet’s flights between Paris and Dublin, Florence and Zurich [DOT-OST-2007-0107; DOT-OST-2004-19214].
United has named Keith Halbert as its new senior VP and chief information officer. Halbert is joining United from Electronic Data Systems, where he was VP and CIO. In his new role, Halbert will oversee all of the airline’s information technology initiatives, including its corporate IT strategy, applications, technical operations, information security and infrastructure planning.”
Some 4.1 million international visitors traveled to the U.S. in September, a 13% jump from the same month last year that helped make the third quarter a strong one in terms of international arrivals, the U.S. Commerce Dept. reported. Foreign visitors spent a whopping $10.8 million dollars in the month, or 19% more than was spent in September 2006. For the year to date, spending was up almost 12% to $89 billion.
The omnibus spending bill ironed out between the House and Senate does not extend Airport Improvement Program (AIP) contract authority but contains other measures that were more warmly received by the industry. Although the bill extends FAA funding and taxes to support the FAA through Feb. 29, 2008, the bill does not extend the contract authority for Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants. This prevents the FAA from making AIP grants at least through that date. (DAILY, Dec. 18).
Fears about a stalemate on basic design between the Colombian government and Opain, awarded the US$650 million concession contract for Bogota’s Eldorado International Airport (DAILY, Dec. 18), were confirmed this week at a public hearing held by the Superintendence of Transportation and Ports, as government officials rejected the prospect of amending the deal.
Northwest used a fashion show at Detroit Metro Airport to debut the carrier’s first new uniforms in 17 years. The uniforms will outfit Northwest’s flight attendants and customer service agents. The employees worked with designer Miranda Moss and TwinHill to create the new garments, said spokesman Roman Blahoski. The uniforms are composed of 15 pieces, using more durable, high-tech fabrics in a palate of colors, including charcoal gray with a hint of red, white and periwinkle blue. The uniforms will debut next fall, Blahoski said.
An unusually large number of U.S. major and regional airlines will all be facing contract negotiations with flight attendant unions in the next two years.
The O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP) is one step closer to acquiring St. Johannes Cemetery as part of the ongoing expansion at the airport. The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion by St. John’s Church to stop OMP from receiving legal title to the cemetery. The motion sought to keep the injunction in place while a petition for review was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. As a result, the injunction imposed more than two years ago by the Seventh Circuit has been lifted.
The Teamsters union will leaflet eight major airports today to tell the traveling public that United outsources all heavy maintenance of its 747s and 777s to South Korea and China, where only five of 2,179 mechanics are FAA certified. This is a protest against the planned sale of the San Francisco maintenance base. The Teamsters are attempting to organize at United.
St. Kitts & Nevis-based startup SKN will operate initially as a charter carrier at the beginning of 2008 with two 32-passenger Dornier jets, reports DAILY affiliate AvNews Latin America & Caribbean .
The long-awaited bilateral traffic rights agreement between India and Hong Kong was finally signed after prolonged discussions that will give each side opportunities to launch 27 new services between the countries. While India can operate the 27 services from any point in India, Hong Kong carriers can operate 10 services to Delhi, six to Mumbai and 11 to Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.
The movements of airport police units and security teams would be harder for potential terrorists to predict under ARMOR, a software program developed by a team of computer scientists at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering.
The European Commission launched a new investigation into state aid allegedly handed out to Olympic Airlines since 2005, adding uncertainty to the Greek flag carrier’s already somber prospects.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that it will hear a case brought against FAA by a runway lighting company that claims the agency imposed arbitrarily strict tests on its products.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has issued a final report on the Air France A340 which ran off the runway at Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport in 2005 and is calling for tighter rules for approach and landing during convective weather. Wendy Tadros, head of the TSB, noted that 10 large aircraft have gone off runways around the world in bad weather since the Toronto event on Aug. 2, 2005. “This is an unacceptable risk,” she says.
European Union governments will not have to finance the security measures implemented at EU airports, according to a compromise hammered out this week by the European parliament and the EU council of ministers in a so-called “conciliation procedure” about new draft rules on aviation security. The European parliament initially echoed concerns voiced by the industry and wanted governments to pay for all security upgrades that supplement basic measures (DAILY, April 26).
