German leisure carrier Blue Wings yesterday confirmed an order for 16 Airbus A320s and four A321s. The aircraft are to be used from Blue Wings' Duesseldorf base on routes to the Commonwealth of Independent States and Turkey. Blue Wings is partly owned by Alpstream AG, an affiliate of the Russian National Reserve Corporation.
The number of modern aircraft parked in the desert is down 3.5% to 552 planes in mid-October, compared with last month, according to the Airclaims fleet database. The number of parked Boeing 757s decreased 2% to 35 aircraft from 37. "We would not be surprised if the number significantly shrank, given FedEx's recent announcement to acquire 90 757s to replace its current 727-200 fleet," said Merrill Lynch.
FAA's Air Safety unit was yesterday awarded the ISO 9001:2000 certification by the International Organization for Standardization, becoming the largest federal entity to achieve this coveted rating. Other individual government offices have been awarded ISO9001:2000, but the FAA rating was achieved across many lines of business and different sites in the U.S. and overseas. The Aviation Safety organization has been working toward ISO registration since 2001.
ACE Aviation Holdings firmed up plans to spin off part of Air Canada, with proceeds totaling about $200 million, followed by a secondary offering of an undetermined size.
European Union transport ministers reached an informal "political" agreement on new draft rules for aviation security in the EU that will make existing rules adopted in the aftermath of 9/11 more flexible. Finland's Minister of Transport and Communications Susanna Huovinen "believes that a consensus about the contents of the regulation will be reached [with the European Parliament] by the end of this year," said the Finnish government, which chairs the EU government until the end of December.
The combined work force of U.S. airlines dropped 3.1% in August, although the decline was smaller than it has been in recent months, the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s Bureau of Transportation Statistics says. The largest decline -- 4.7% -- came from the seven network carriers, which have seen drops every August since 2002. Low-cost carrier employee numbers fell 0.8% for the month, and regionals were down 2.8%.
US Airways Executive VP of Operations Al Crellin plans to step down Nov. 15. Crellin was one of the few executives who worked for US Airways before the merger with America West and moved to the Phoenix headquarters. He joined Pacific Southwest Airlines in 1971 and was serving as the carrier's VP of Customer Service when US Airways bought the carrier in 1988.
Southwest won't estimate how much revenue the lifting of restrictions on connections from Love Field should bring in, but CEO Gary Kelly said he'd be disappointed if it's not more than the $50 million Southwest currently nets from its ATA code share. U.S. President George Bush's signature on the law that officially repealed the Wright Amendment enabled Southwest to offer flights to 25 cities from Love via connections in the nine states covered by the law.
Japan Airlines and Malev Hungarian Airlines, which are both slated to join the oneworld alliance next year, will expand their code-share agreement on Oct. 29 to include daily roundtrip flights operated by Malev between Amsterdam and Budapest. The new intra-Europe, code-share flights are supposed to provide smooth connections with JAL's daily service between Tokyo and Amsterdam. Last year, JAL and Malev launched a code-share agreement that let JAL place its flight numbers on daily flights operated by the Hungarian airline between Frankfurt and Budapest. -SL
CSA Czech management recently held a meeting with representatives of all its unions about new talks on more cost cuts as the carrier works to return to profitability. Management made clear, however, that the new talks "will not lead to any reopening of any of the collective agreements," which are valid through the end of 2007. Instead, the negotiations are part of the airline's two-year strategic plan to turn a profit. The unions have asked senior management for a financial analysis of the strategic options under consideration.
Singapore low-cost carrier Tiger Airways yesterday ordered eight more Airbus A320s, more than doubling its total order for the model. Tiger now has 13 A320s on order, in addition to the seven it already operates. The new orders will be configured for 180 all-economy seats and will be powered by IAEV2500 engines
Six multinational consortiums qualified to bid for the build, operate and manage (BO&M) contract for the new passenger terminal at Amman's Queen Alia Airport in Jordan. Among the bidders are Aeroports de Paris, Vienna Airports and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad. The new terminal will have a passenger-handling capacity of 10 million and cargo capacity of 750,000 tons. The existing terminal has a capacity of 3.2 million and 220,000 tons, respectively. Work on the new terminal is expected to start next July and wrap up in June 2010.
After years of following a strategy of non-investment, British Airways yesterday launched a lengthy process to finally replace its aging long-haul fleet, sending manufacturers a request for proposals for the replacement of 20 Boeing 747-400s and 14 767s. The RFP is only the beginning of what is likely to be an investment cycle spanning years. BA currently operates a fleet of 114 long-haul aircraft, among them 57 747-400s, 43 777s and 14 767-300s.
Korean Air recently shelved its plans to launch a domestic low-cost carrier because the barriers are too high to make the operation profitable; instead Korean Air will focus its resources on the international business traveler.
Aer Lingus pilots have so far raised their stake in the airline to 2.24% in an attempt to fend off the hostile takeover bid launched by Ryanair (DAILY, Oct. 6). Irish Airline Pilots Pensions Ltd. said that it bought 300,000 shares of Aer Lingus Group at EUR2.9 (US$3.64) per share. Irish press reports say unions want to acquire up to 6% of the airline's capital, using financing from employee pension funds.
FAA, in a report issued following its latest inspection visit to Colombia, confirmed that the country's civil aviation department (Aerocivil) meets international air safety standards through formal, effective oversight of air carriers and implementation of sophisticated technology to meet unforeseen circumstances, and thus its Category 1 status in the IASA program is upheld.
Aer Lingus CEO Dermott Mannion believes that Ryanair's takeover attempt of the Irish carrier will fail; "Ryanair's bid won't succeed," he said in an interview.
Pemco finalized a credit agreement with Wachovia and Compass Banks lasting until Aug. 31, 2007, after its current credit line expired Oct. 15. If Pemco wins a contract with the U.S. Air Force for the KC-135 programmed depot maintenance, the lenders agreed to boost the amount of the facility. Previously, Pemco was looking at its options after it failed to log $1 million in revenue, a requirement in its debt covenant (DAILY, Aug. 18). Pemco also finalized the sale of its Pemco Engineers subsidiary, based in California, to Global Aerospace. -LR
Honeywell, releasing its most optimistic business-jet forecast yet, predicts shipments of some 12,000 new aircraft valued at $195 billion by original equipment manufacturers through 2016. Honeywell's 15th annual Business Aviation Outlook, to be unveiled this week at the National Business Aviation Association convention in Orlando, Fla., also forecasts that business-jet makers will top 1,000 deliveries in a single year for the first time in 2007.
