The Aero Club of Washington will host the 60th Annual Wright Memorial Dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel on Friday, Dec. 14. The dinner honors the 2007 recipient of the NAA Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, pilot and astronaut Eugene Cernan. He was the second man to walk in space and the last man to walk on the moon. The most recent award winners were Norman Mineta, Pete Aldridge, Bob Crandall and Sen. John Glenn. For more information, call 703-327-7082 or e-mail [email protected]. [email protected]
Spirit intends to launch service between Fort Lauderdale and Cartagena, Colombia, pending U.S. Transportation Dept. approval. The airline last week told DOT it wanted exemption authority to serve the open-skies service point with its Airbus A319 or Airbus A321 aircraft. Initially, the service would operate twice weekly but would be upgraded to a daily offering on March 9 [DOT-OST-2007-0075].
Recent history shows that Continental's share price is likely to rally soon after its latest steep slide, JP Morgan notes. Continental's shares dropped 30% over 30 trading days, which has occurred 18 times since 1993. Each time, the share price has bounced back after hitting this trigger point, JP Morgan says.
Although US Airways' proposed Beijing service is caught up in a debate about gate availability at Philadelphia Airport, the airline stresses it is already taking steps to launch the China route in 2009. US Airways says it has met with consultants and advisers in China, and has sent teams to China to meet with "relevant Chinese government, airport and airline officials." The carrier notes "these are not the actions of a carrier disinterested in serving China."
The European Parliament is expected to demand that the European Union's draft legislation on airport charges (DAILY, Jan. 25) apply only to major airports. An amendment voted last week by the House's transport committee states that the new rules should apply only to airports whose annual traffic is more than 5 million passengers or which account for more than 15% of the annual passenger movements in the EU country where it is located.
A bill that would transfer airport employee badging responsibility from airports to the Transportation Security Administration for access to Federal Special Security Zones (FSSZ) has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R. 4177, introduced by Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), was introduced in the wake of the arrest of 30 undocumented workers who carried illegal badges at Chicago O'Hare Airport.
American says it will offer a series of fresh contract proposals to the Allied Pilots Association before the end of the year. The union, meanwhile, is likely to present the remainder of its opening proposals during sessions this week, and the negotiating schedule for the rest of the year will also be worked out.
Zagat Survey has released two surveys ranking domestic and international airlines for 2007, with Virgin America and Midwest each topping four of the top categories in the domestic survey. Zagat received responses from 7,498 frequent flyers and travel professionals. Virgin America had the highest scores for premium service overall, for comfort, service and food. Midwest Airlines was ranked the highest for economy service overall, for comfort, service and food. Southwest took the highest scores for its Web site, frequent flyer program and timeliness.
You can now register online for AVIATION WEEK events. Go to www.aviationweek.com/conferences or contact Lydia Janow, 212-904-3225 or 800-240-7645 ext. 5 (U.S. and Canada only) NOV. 28-29 -- A&D Finance Conference, New York, N.Y. APRIL 15-17, 2008 -- MRO/MRO Military North America, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. SEPT. 12 -- Management Forums, Green Aviation, Brussels, Belgium OCT. 2-3 -- Lean/Six Sigma, San Francisco, Calif. OCT. 29 -- Avionics Outlook, Phoenix, Ariz.
The candidates for the privatization of Alitalia are expected to table formal bids this week. As a consequence, the airline's board meeting that will identify the preferred bidder "could be held within the first half of the coming month of December," said the airline.
The broad economic base of Houston's primary service area, as well as its sound financial operations, strong historical demand for air carrier service and modest future debt needs led debt watcher Fitch Ratings to give an A+ rating to $125 million in airport bonds. Fitch also affirms the 'A+' rating for roughly $2.2 billion outstanding subordinate lien airport revenue bonds.
Congestion pricing in some form would be the most productive solution to the rampant overscheduling and delays that characterize congested airports today, according to a new study from The Reason Foundation. "Until [congestion pricing] is implemented, near-term congestion will only get worse because the airlines want to be on the ground with the most flights in their base schedules when FAA moves to impose a 'voluntary' schedule reduction on the incumbents," writes study author David Plavin.
The heads of Delta's Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) unit yesterday told members that hedge funds who are spreading rumors of mergers with United do not have members' interests at heart, and no merger will occur without ALPA's input.
The European Commission took a step toward creating an open aviation area with Israel by formally proposing that negotiations should begin. The ball started rolling yesterday on the long-rumored talks when Jacques Barrot, EC VP-transport, said Israel and the EU should sit down at the negotiating table. An open aviation area "will strengthen the aviation links between the EU and Israel and will establish a high level of regulatory standards, in particular in the fields of safety and security," Barrot said.
The International Air Transport Association yesterday released survey findings that the vast majority of business travelers prefer e-tickets, and slightly more than half want more self-service options. IATA's annual Corporate Air Travel Survey reveals that 89% of those surveyed prefer e-tickets. Overall, 54% said they wanted more self-service, with travelers from the Africa and the Middle East recording the highest self-service approval with 64%, followed by 57% in the Americas, 53% in Europe and 51% in Asia/ Pacific. The survey covered 10,000 travelers.
US Airways yesterday became the latest U.S. carrier to unveil London Heathrow service for next summer; the announcement was a sur- prise since US Airways was not expected to be able to find Heathrow slots by then.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. is asking oneworld carriers American, Iberia, Finnair, Malev and Royal Jordanian to submit additional information that the department needs for consideration of the carriers' antitrust immunity application (DAILY, July 30). SkyTeam carriers Alitalia, Air France, Czech, Delta, KLM and Northwest in August suggested that DOT ask for more information about plans to cooperate with British Airways and how the immunized carriers would cooperate in global markets, among other concerns.
Emirates, which soon will supplant Singapore as the largest Boeing 777 operator, is looking for U.S. pilots. On Dec. 4-12, it will hit Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, Miami and New York to recruit. The airline, which today employs 125 U.S. pilots, launches Dubai-Houston flights Dec. 3. Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum heads to Seattle from Houston the next day for meetings with Boeing.
Asia's airlines resolved to tackle challenges on critical issues, such as safety oversight and investigations, air traffic management, passenger facilitation and liberalization and sustainable aviation, during the recently concluded Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) 51st Assembly of Presidents. AAPA is the trade association of 17 major scheduled international airlines that collectively carry 285 million passengers and 10 million metric tons of cargo.
