The Airbus A380 program will be delayed by another six months, French business newspaper Les Echos reported yesterday, news that may have contributed to a 4% drop in EADS shares yesterday. Airbus may confirm the delay on Sept. 29 following an EADS board meeting, the report said. The delay would mean that only four A380s could be delivered in 2007, instead of 25 according to the original schedule and nine following the first delay of the program.
Midwest subsidiary Skyway Airlines yesterday named David Reeve as the new chairman, CEO and president of the regional carrier, replacing James Rankin, who left earlier in the summer.
Boeing has started fabrication work on the vertical fin for the 787, which will be the largest major assembly part to be built in-house. Fabrication of the first composite stringers for the vertical fin began at the composite manufacturing center at the Boeing facility in Pierce County, Wash. The first completed fin is scheduled for delivery to the final assembly site in the spring.
Rockwell Collins last week unveiled the DPaves system, which is a digital upgrade to its Paves programmable audio/video inflight entertainment system that will be available in early 2008.
United on Friday signed a five-year agreement with Expedia that will allow the online travel agency to publish fares, schedules and inventory. "This renewed agreement with Expedia enables us to effectively meet our customers' travel needs while allowing both of us to achieve our economic goals," said Jeff Foland, United VP-North America sales.
The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners yesterday awarded a $575.6 million contract to joint venture company Clark/McCarthy to renovate the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. The contract includes installing an inline checked-baggage security system, renovating the terminal's interior and adding boarding gates to handle the Airbus A380. The project is the first major upgrade at LAX since the Bradley Terminal opened in 1984 in conjunction with the Summer Olympics held the same year.
Alaska Airlines in August had its first full month without any ground damage to its aircraft in nearly six years, which the airline attributes to new policies and procedures.
BMI British Midland yesterday unveiled plans to install lie-flat business class seats in its three Airbus A330s. BMI operates A330s on its transatlantic service from Chicago and Las Vegas to Manchester and from Barbados and Antigua to Manchester. The seats are expected to be installed by June 2007. The introduction of the "Perseus" seats represents a GBP2 million investment by the carrier. The seats are made by Aviointeriors of Italy, and the A330s will be fitted in a six-across configuration with a total of 16 seats in the cabin.
Aeroflot said yesterday its profit rose $81 million for the first six months of the year thanks to a 16% jump in revenues. The carrier did not provide comparable figures for last year's period. Meanwhile, Aeroflot's 30% shareholder, Alexander Lebedev, said he has signed an agreement with Boeing to keep 22 Boeing 787 production slots open for the airline. An order for the new jet has been delayed by the Russian government, which appears to be pressuring the airline to switch to Airbus.
China aviation officials are using Atlanta airport as a model for introducing precise approaches known as R-NAV routes at Beijing airport, says FAA Chief Operating Officer Russ Chew. The introduction of R-NAV in China will "simplify clearances, reduce frequency congestion, enhance safety, and increase capacity in anticipation of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games," Chew says. China is also introducing required navigation performance procedures to aid approaches to airports in Tibet and other mountainous regions.
A one-time $100 fee for applicants in Registered Traveler (RT) proposed by the Transportation Security Administration has come under fire from the Washington-based Voluntary Credentialing Industry Coalition (VCIC), whose members include vendors Verified Identity Pass, Fast Lane Option (FLO) RT and Unysis.
Qatar Airways yesterday signed a deal with CIT Aerospace to lease six new Airbus aircraft. The order includes one A320 and five A321-200s, which will be delivered in 2007 and 2008. "This transaction reflects our ability to meet the needs of our rapidly growing customer base in the Middle East," said CIT President Jeff Knittel. Qatar Airways is "growing at a phenomenal rate and in order to meet our expansion plans, we have looked carefully at ways to boost our fleet size," said CEO Akbar Al Baker. -SL
After spending nine months considering whether changes are needed to its airfare advertising rules and finding no consensus among airlines, the U.S. Transportation Dept. decided not to make any changes after all.
Korean Air yesterday signed a deal with one of China's largest logistics companies, Sinotrans Air Transportation Development Co., to form a China-based cargo joint venture company.
The U.S. Air Mobility Command this week awarded an estimated $2.3 billion in contracts to civil air carriers, slightly more than the $2.2 billion awarded last year.
The Italian government wants Alitalia to draw up a new restructuring plan and consider tighter alliances in Asia to escape possible collapse. The troubled Italian carrier last week announced that contrary to earlier projections, it would post a loss for the full year. The carrier recorded a EUR221 million net loss ($280 million) in the first half of 2006, compared with a EUR125 million loss in the same period last year. On Monday, Alitalia had to cancel 67 flights because of a four-hour strike that affected all modes of transport in Italy.
U.S. airline passenger numbers grew just 0.9% for the first six months of the year, according to statistics released recently by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Unsurprisingly, U.S. carriers' international passenger numbers grew fastest, up 5.9% in the first half of the year compared with 0.2% growth in domestic travelers. Traffic increased 2.6% while capacity dropped 0.6%. Load factor increased by 2.5 percentage points to 79.5%.
US Airways yesterday recruited Southwest executive and long-time aviation lobbyist Tom Chapman as its new VP-congressional and federal affairs, effective Oct. 16.
OnAir last week chose ECS to develop a way to make its inflight cell phone system easy to retrofit and install on Boeing 737s, following a major deal with Ryanair. The contract covers all hardware adaptation, engineering development and management of the technical certification and approval process with authorities including the FAA and the European Aviation Safety Agency. Designed as an "aircraft-neutral system," the first Mobile OnAir system was tailored to fit the Airbus A320 Family of aircraft. OnAir is a joint venture between Airbus and SITA.
