Business jet flights are not the cause of air traffic delays in the New York City area, the National Air Traffic Control Association union says, pointing instead to short-staffed ATC facilities and airline overscheduling. The Air Transport Association has been claiming that the bizjets operating out of Teterboro, a main business jet hub airport, are not taking their fair share of delays -- adding to airline woes.
The fault-finding to explain skyrocketing airline delays began before this week's release of DOT's August Air Travel Consumer Report, with the National Air Traffic control Association pointing to airline scheduling and controller shortages for holdups at New York airports that spread across the national system. Airlines reported that 71.7% of their flights arrived on time, up from 69.8% in July 2007 but were down 4.7 percentage points year over year.
GOL strengthened its ties to the SkyTeam Alliance through a recent interline pact with Air France. The Brazilian carrier already has a relationship with Air France's fellow SkyTeam member Delta through a previous interline agreement the carriers inked earlier this year. Through the deal, Air France customers have the option of buying tickets to cities in Brazil and South America served by GOL, and check their baggage through to a final destination.
ATR Head of Sales John Moore says operators in North America could order a couple of hundred turboprops during the next three-to-five years. ATR hopes to build up it market share in the region, particularly the U.S., and plans to debut the latest model of its ATR 42/72 in 2010 (DAILY, Oct. 3).
United's scheduled-only traffic dropped 3% in September, but traffic was down only 1.3% when including charters. For the first nine months, traffic fell 0.5%, while total system traffic, including charters, gained 0.3%. Capacity was down 1.7%, lifting load factor 0.7 points to 80.2% for scheduled service. Capacity including charters was down 2.1%.
Cardiff International Airport is in talks with Middle East carriers Etihad and Emirates Airlines to use Cardiff, capital of Wales, as the most immediate point to the Gulf from the U.K. "Cardiff is operating at two-thirds its capacity, is not as congested as other metros in Britain and is on the same road as Heathrow," Head of Marketing Peter Phillips told The DAILY on the sidelines of the Showcase Wales tourism event.
Grupo Mexicana upped the ante in the battle for Aeromexico by submitting a bid that is 25% higher than the top bid from rival investor groups. Mexicana wants to take at minimum 51% and potentially 100% of Aeromexico shares and is offering to pay MXN2.19 a share, which would value the entire share package at MXN2.17 billion (US$199 million). Mexicana said the deal would result in a US$200 million capital injection for the group.
The FAA branch overseeing operations at Northwest has to report by next month how it is working with the carrier to resolve concerns about maintenance safety that arose during an August 2005 mechanics strike. The mandate stems from an audit by the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s Office Of Inspector General of the conduct of FAA's Certificate Management Office (CMO) in Bloomington, Minn., after an inspector in that area voiced complaints about training for replacement mechanics and other maintenance processes.
Aeroflot recorded a RUB3.25 billion (US$130 million) profit for the first half of 2007. In the same period, the airline carried 3.77 billion passengers, a 17.9% increase from a year earlier. First-half RPMs were up 15.9%, and cargo and passenger operations resulted in a 21.7% improvement in revenues to RUB33.53 billion (US$1.34 billion), but expenses were up as well -- 15.4% to RUB31.9 billion (US$US1.28 billion).
Canada is eager to begin open-skies talks with the European Union, but the two sides can't sit down at the table until the Canadian government issues its mandate for the negotiations.
Delta load factors were up throughout the carrier's network in September, with all but one of its systems showing gains from the same month last year. The airline reported record loads for the month in its Latin American (71.6%), domestic mainline (77.7%) and domestic regional (75.5%) systems. On the whole, consolidated load factor was up 77.6%. Atlantic system loads remained flat, rising only 0.1 point from September 2006 to 80.2%, while loads in the Pacific system fell 10 points to 75.1%.
The European Parliament in its November plenary session is expected to toughen the current proposals to integrate aviation into the EU emissions trading scheme, following the quasi-unanimous approval of a draft report by the House's committee on the environment this week.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. last week revoked the commuter authority of Chalk's International Airlines. The Fort Lauderdale-based airline was literally grounded when FAA in 2005 beached the G-73T Mallard, the aircraft at the core of the airline's seaplane service from Florida to the Bahamas, after Chalk's plane crashed off Miami Beach (DAILY, Dec. 22, 2005). The airline gave notice it intended to restart operations last year but has not been in touch with DOT since those communications.
Delta, effective Oct. 15, will require domestic passengers originating from New York Kennedy to check their baggage at least 45 minutes ahead of their departure. Delta, which said the move will ensure "bags are appropriately handled," enforces the same policy at airports in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando and Denver.
A new nationwide toll-free number has been established -- 800-Flights -- to offer consumers the flight status of their travels on any of 141 airlines covering all 432 U.S. commercial airports and 173 international airports.
US Airways plans to draw down less popular routes from Pittsburgh in early 2008, with smaller markets taking the brunt of the hit. Regional flying to smaller cities is now scheduled to be reduced from 77 daily flights to 46. But the airline notes that most of the expected reductions in flights will be decided by its regional partners, who have not finalized schedules yet. Mainline flights will drop from 31 to 22 per day.
The U.K., Germany and the Netherlands oppose the European Commission's plans to fully finance Europe's future satellite navigation system, Galileo, with public funds. The U.K. and the Netherlands reject the EC's proposal to reallocate EUR2.4 billion from unused European Union budgets to Galileo (DAILY, Sept. 20). Germany believes the whole project should be taken over by the European Space Agency.
Brazil's revamped route network, launched on Oct. 1 as a means to decongest aircraft traffic, got off to a poor start by airport infrastructure regulator Infraero's accounts -- 127 of 1,294 scheduled flights were delayed and 163 were canceled. One of the main provisions of the revamped network is that to qualify as stopover or connecting points, airports must handle flights that are l,500 kilometers long or longer.
Continental's September consolidated traffic jumped 5.6% as capacity grew 4.5%, boosting load factor 0.8 points to 79%. Mainline traffic was up 7.1%, while regional traffic fell 5.9%.
EasyJet appointed soon-to-be DSG International CEO John Browett as a non-executive director of its board. Browett currently is operations development director at U.K. company Tesco and moves into his new position in early December. Previously, Browett was with Boston Consulting Group.
Big Sky on Oct. 31 will launch its Delta Connection-branded flights between Plattsburgh and Saranac Lake, N.Y., and Boston, Essential Air Service that the carrier won last month. Big Sky will operate three roundtrip flights on both the Saranac Lake-Boston and Plattsburgh-Boston routes. Each will be served with 19-seat Beech 1900Ds. The carrier was awarded an annual subsidy rate of $2,408,294, with a forecast profit of $188,000 for the flights [DOT-OST-2005-21681].
