VivaAerobus, the latest entry into Mexico's highly competitive low-cost carrier market, will take off on Nov. 30, serving nine initial destinations located mainly on the border area with the U.S., while competing with legacy rivals Aerolitoral and Aviacsa.
Copa last week arranged for financing for 10 new Embraer 190s that are being delivered this year and next. The loan, totaling $240 million, comprises a senior and a junior tranche. The junior tranche is to be financed by Natexis Transport Finance and NORD/LB and the senior tranche will be financed by the three mandated lead arrangers. The loan will finance aircraft scheduled to be delivered both to Copa Airlines and AeroRepublica.
Comair management and pilots resume contract negotiations in Washington Wednesday and Thursday. Air Line Pilots Association leaders tell members some minor progress has been made, but the big economic issues remain open. Management has asked the bankruptcy court for permission to impose concessions if the two sides fail to close a deal. Comair tells the court it has "clearly gone as far as it can go to reach a compromise with ALPA."
U.S. carriers and airports have low expectations for the informal government-to-government talks between the U.S. and Japan, scheduled Nov. 7 in Tokyo. For its part, the State Department says it hopes to move closer to the full liberalization outlined in the 1998 MOU and wants to hear about expected plans to expand capacity at Narita and Haneda airports.
ExpressJet's new subsidiary, ExpressJet Corporate Aviation, is officially registered with the U.S. Transportation Dept. The airline plans to fly 10 ERJ-145s for corporate customers by May 2007. It should soon reveal homes for the remaining 59 planes coming offline from Continental in December.
Mesa, Republic Airways Holdings and SkyWest stand to be the biggest beneficiaries of the latest regional airline bidding bonanza, analysts predict, once the shakeout in the U.S. regional airline industry is resolved in the next few months.
30 Years Ago Nov. 10, 1976 -- After eight years of theorizing under Republican administrations, "I hope we can return to the more traditional and more realistic view that all modes of transportation have some aspects of a public utility and that there is no purely free market competition either attainable or desirable in transportation," Rep. Brock Adams (D-Wash.) told the Association of Local Transport Airlines. 20 Years Ago
AirCell last week officially received Federal Communications Commission frequency license, which will allow the company to move ahead with its plan to offer broadband service to U.S. airlines and business jets, starting in early 2008.
US Airways on Friday reported that October passenger unit revenues jumped more than 10%, showing that business travel appears to have recovered to levels before the August terrorist scare. For mainline-operated flights, traffic increased 4.6% from October 2005. Capacity was up 1.9%. The passenger load factor was 76.8% versus 74.8% in the same month last year. For America West-operated flights, RPMs for the month were 1.9 billion, down 4.8%. Capacity was 2.4 billion ASMs, down 5.4%, leading to a flat load factor.
Fewer than 5% of Korean Air passengers use the Connexion by Boeing inflight Internet service, reports Keehong Woo, VP-strategy development for the passenger business division. The carrier installed Connexion on 29 planes at a cost of about $400,000 per plane. Airline executives are in talks with Panasonic Corp. about a replacement service. Connexion is closing its doors by yearend.
Hawaiian Airlines' parent Hawaiian Holdings reported a $7.8 million third-quarter profit, unchanged from last a year, a small victory for the carrier, which has battled high fuel prices and intense competition.
Southwest plans to hire 550-600 pilots next year and continues to troll the used market for more aircraft. It is also pushing to grow earnings 15% in 2007, but analysts at Raymond James note it is not clear how it can meet that target as its fuel costs are expected to rise $300 million in 2007 and "capacity appears poised to rise again" next year. They point out Southwest's already efficient cost structure "leaves little room for additional economies of scale."
Continental's October consolidated unit revenue rose between 4.5% and 5.5%, slightly below what one financial analyst predicted. Mainline revenue per available seat mile is estimated to have increased between 5% and 6%, which was less than the 7% forecast by JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker, who called the result "disappointing." However, the October gain was slightly above the September 2006 increase of 4.8%. Baker estimates that Continental's October yields and revenue rose 2.7% and 12.4%, respectively.
Air New Zealand on Friday was in shock after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) issued a draft proposal rejecting the carrier's request to code share with Qantas across the Tasman.
Eleven Muslim staff employed at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, Roissy, have lodged a complaint with the administrative tribunal of Cergy-Pontoise near Paris in an attempt to reverse a decision by the local police authorities barring them from access to reserved areas at the airport.
Ethiopian Airlines last week switched to the Sabre global distribution system, which the carrier hopes will boost sales and make bookings easier for travel agents.
Nominations for the Charles B. Ryan MRO Award for Business Innovation are due Nov. 15. Nomination forms and information are available at: http://www. aviationnow.com/conferences/mro_ryanawardform.pdf
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board of directors has re-elected Mame Reiley as chairman. Reiley was appointed to the board in 2002 by former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner. H.R. Crawford was re-elected vice chairman, and Gregory Wolfe will remain secretary.
Quelling months of speculation about the fate of its recently relaunched regional arm, British Airways said it is selling BA Connect to U.K. low-cost carrier Flybe. BA debuted BA Connect at the end of March, and by July reports were surfacing that BA was considering a sell-off of the regional carrier (DAILY, July 25). In September, BA Connect executives noted that the parent company's commitment to the regional carrier wasn't open-ended, and that BA CEO Willie Walsh had made it clear the regional arm needed to return to profitability (DAILY, Sept. 12).
Ryanair plans to debut a new route March 27 from Nottingham to Rimini, in Italy, offering three weekly flights. Ryanair said Rimini is its 29th destination from Nottingham. The carrier also highlighted that its service from the airport has grown from five destinations to 29 in under a year.
