Lawmakers and the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s Inspector General last week called on DOT to improve its monitoring and enforcement of airline customer service, although it appears house leaders will hold off from introducing further "passenger bill of rights" legislation - at least for now.
United Chief Operating Officer Peter McDonald says, "There is too much capacity, and we've been pretty outspoken about that. We've actually been quite outspoken about what should be done about it and that is to allow constructive consolidation to occur." While United doesn't have a particular partner in mind, McDonald says it believes consolidation should be treated like open skies. "We feel that a free market approach is best, and the government should allow those that want to combine and take out redundant costs and reallocate capacity to be able to do so."
Continental this summer plans to begin installing in-seat power and audio-visual on-demand in the economy cabins of its Boeing 757-200 fleet. The premium cabins already have these features. Both of the last two 777s delivered to Continental have in-seat power and AVOD throughout the aircraft, and the carrier plans to upgrade the rest of its 777s to the same standard.
Delta management has some concern about potential operational challenges at New York Kennedy this summer, but the carrier is laying the groundwork to ease passenger disruptions resulting from weather events at the airport.
Dayton Airport is negotiating with UPS to give control of its abandoned 1 million-square-foot cargo facility back to the city, says Director Iftikhar Ahmad. The airport would bring its cargo business back into the community, bringing in more non-airline revenue and creating jobs.
London Heathrow's new tower is expected to open this weekend, and it will also debut a new ATC system supplied by Nav Canada. Heathrow is the latest U.K. airport to receive the Nav Canada extended computer display system (EXCDS), following Stansted, Gatwick and Luton towers. EXCDS eliminates the need for paper flight strips and improves tower coordination.
Hawaiian Airlines reported a 14.2% increase in traffic during the first quarter to 1.6 billion revenue passenger miles, while passengers carried rose 14.8% to 1.4 million. Available seat miles rose during the period by 14.2%, for a nearly level load factor of 87.4%. For March, RPMs increased by 22.1% to 679 million RPMs, and ASMs rose 17.2% to 745 million. Load factor gained 3.6 percentage points to 91.1%. -JLM
The U.S. Transportation Dept. will re-bid Essential Air Service for Silver City and Clovis, N.M., instead of reconsidering proposals submitted for the service earlier this year. Officials representing the communities voiced displeasure with last month's award to Great Lakes, which switched the hub served from Albuquerque to Denver (for Clovis) and Phoenix (from Silver City). Community leaders said they hoped for such service as add-ons, offered in addition to regular service to Albuquerque (DAILY, April 4).
Etihad Airways placed orders with G.A.S. Global Aviation Services for the supply of galleys, crew rest compartments and other cabin components for its growing fleet of Airbus A340-600s. G.A.S. will also build crew rest compartments for Turkish Airways' Airbus A310 fleet.
Southwest, disenchanted with first- quarter costs and projections for domestic growth, is thinking about departing slightly from its successful business model and leveraging its enviable brand position. The airline reported a first-quarter profit yesterday of $93 million, up from $61 million this time last year. It also had record first-quarter revenues of $2.2 billion, up 8.9% from last year. But its operating costs rose 4.3%, and operating income fell to $84 million from $98 million.
An arbitrator last week granted Air Canada's flight attendants who are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees a 2% raise, effective July 2006, a 1.75% raise, effective July 2007, and a 1.75% raise, effective July 2008.
Italy's Commissione di Garanzia, the public service's strike surveillance authority, has ruled that a 24-hour Alitalia ground staff strike tentatively scheduled April 23 is illegal.
The Greater Orlando Airport Authority's board of directors has approved the hiring of Kevin Dillon as its new deputy executive director for public safety. Dillon has been director of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport since 1999 and has management experience with the Port Authority and Massport.
The Open Travel Alliance, a U.S. trade association for technology standards used by the travel industry, is reviewing proposals to create two new member programs -- a certification program for members and an implementation support program. It expects GDSs and a few airline technology companies -- possibly Datalex and OpenJaw -- to be the first members to submit to a certification process. The alliance expects to finalize the proposals in a few weeks for board approval.
Airbus, seeking to pump more value into its MRO network, will create an executive board to work on specific issues highlighted by its customers and has developed tools to help operators do their own maintenance training -- and potentially train others. Details on the initiatives, unveiled Thursday at Aviation Week's MRO conference in Atlanta, are still being finalized, said Airbus Senior Director-MRO Support Management Wolfgang Kortas. The advisory board announcement is expected next week.
Airports would use six key tools -- including behavioral recognition, targeted physical inspection and biometrics -- as part of a new, risk-based approach to screen employees with access to secure areas under a measure unveiled this week by the Transportation Security Administration, in partnership with industry associations.
All airlines will be allowed to operate free of charge at Brussels Airport every Friday of May 2007, as a "goodwill gesture" following the strike by firefighters and safety staff, which blocked the airport on April 13, said Brussels International Airport Co. (BIAC). The stoppage grounded 20,000 passengers and prompted Brussels Airlines to ask for compensation. "We are in no way liable for the events of last Friday, and we do not assume the blame," said BIAC. The airport company said the strike was "completely out of proportion." -MT
Answering to fraud allegations, Air Madrid President Jose Luis Carrillo told Spain's National Tribunal the company continued to sell tickets through Dec. 15 because its decision to suspend operations was made on the same day, when it was still functioning "normally." There was no intention to permanently close down the carrier, Carillo noted.
Continental last week activated interline eticketing with Air Europa, one of the associate members of the SkyTeam alliance. With this addition, Continental will have eticketing capability with all of its SkyTeam member and associate member airlines. Continental will continue to lead IATA carriers with 73 interline eticket partners. This takes Continental one step closer to eliminating paper tickets by the end of this year, as mandated by IATA. -JLM
