WestJet CEO Clive Beddoe feels confident in handing over his role as president to Sean Durfy, who has been executive VP-marketing and sales of the airline since December 2004, noting this appointment should bring more success than his attempt to transfer his duties to Stephen Smith in 1999. Beddoe noted yesterday that bringing someone in from the outside "cold turkey" didn't work. Smith was a former president of Air Onatario before assuming the presidency in early 1999; he left the company in late 2000. He then headed Air Canada's Zip subsidiary.
AeroRepublica this week in Bogota unveiled its new livery, logo and brand that align the carrier's image more closely with that of its parent, Copa Holdings. The new image will keep the company's name but "leverages AeroRepublica's most valued attributes" and introduces Copa Airlines' logo, livery and overall image, Copa CEO Pedro Heilbron said (DAILY, Aug. 21).
FAA this week approved the first child safety harness that can be bought by passengers for use on commercial aircraft. The harness, manufactured by AmSafe Aviation, incorporates belt and shoulder harnesses secured by straps around the seat back and attachments to existing lap belts. The harness is an alternative to hard-shelled child seats that are the only other child restraint parents could carry onto aircraft.
American reached an agreement with the Transport Workers Union for a $95-million balance sheet improvement at the carrier's 10 line maintenance bases. The improvement -- to be achieved by 2008 -- will come from cost reductions and new revenue generation, said Boeing VP-Line Maintenance Danny Martinez. Finding new third-party maintenance work is a major goal of the program. TWU and American agreed to establish eight working groups tasked with achieving the cost savings and revenue improvements.
US Airways was hit with a $150,000 fine from the U.S. Transportation Dept. for failing to ensure that space was available in the cabins of 83 aircraft to secure a standard-size wheelchair.
Singapore Airlines last week signed a code-share deal with Star Alliance partner South African Airways that gives SIA customers access to additional African destinations.
Jetstar plans to replace Qantas mainline service on flights from Townsville to Sydney Oct. 29, offering five weekly flights on Mondays, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday instead of the current three. Jetstar also plans to keep its three weekly flights between Melbourne and Townsville and its daily route from Brisbane to Townville.
European Commission's aviation negotiating team and representatives from EU member states canceled their long-planned visit to Washington next week. When the meeting was scheduled, it was expected that the two sides would discuss the final rule to ease restrictions on U.S. airline foreign ownership. After DOT postponed issuing a final rule, the EC decided that next week's meeting should also be postponed. Informal correspondence, however, will continue.
Malaysia Airlines will keep its Rome, Zurich and Los Angeles routes, doing away with an earlier plan to drop them, thanks in part to a turnaround plan that improved passenger loads and yields on the routes. The gains prompted the airline to upgrade the five weekly Boeing 747 flights to Los Angeles via Taipei to daily service with the winter schedule, starting Oct. 2, noted CEO and Managing Director Idris Jala. The airline is also keeping an eye on the Rome and Zurich services as it considers increasing the frequencies next year.
Bundeskartellamt, the German competition authority, cleared Air Berlin's acquisition of DBA without imposing any conditions, as it considered that the airlines' activities were largely complementary. In addition, the authority welcomed "the reinforcement of Air Berlin on markets which remain dominated by Lufthansa," noted Bundeskartellamt Chairman Ulf Boege.
United this fall plans to abandon its plan to make San Antonio a focus city with point-to-point regional jet service due to relatively weak load factors during the six months that it experimented with increased capacity at the airport.
The European Commission is investigating alleged attempts by European Union airlines to hide flight cancellations in order to avoid paying compensation imposed by European Union legislation, claim Spanish members of the European Parliament. Inigo Mendez de Vigo, a member of the right-wing party Partido Popular (PP), claims there have been "repeated incidents of that kind on behalf of some companies, such as Spain's Iberia.
US Airways and Southwest yesterday became the latest airlines to report stunted August unit revenue growth due to the terrorism scare and new security procedures.
World Air Holdings recorded a net loss of $7.5 million in the June quarter, compared to a profit of $5.5 million last year, with the turnaround mainly due to less military flying. Revenues at subsidiary World Airways dropped $24.7 million in the quarter. Gains in commercial revenue and revenue from subsidiary North American offset the loss from military flying, and overall revenue was up $4.8 million to $176.7 million.
Greek Transport Minister Michalis Liapis and General Administration of Civil Aviation of China Director Yang Yuanyuan this week (Sept. 5) signed a preliminary agreement aimed at launching direct air services between Greece and the People's Republic of China. Experts representing both nations are scheduled to meet in Athens in October to hammer out a more detailed agreement.
KLM will increase the frequency of its Boeing 777-200ER services between Amsterdam Schiphol and Chengdu, central China, to three times a week from twice weekly, starting Dec. 1. The increase is motivated by "the strong rise in demand on this route," said KLM.
San Francisco Airport is set to begin an active RFID bag-tracking pilot program with Korean Airlines and Asiana Airlines flights into Incheon International Airport. "About six months ago, Korean Airlines, Asiana Airlines and Incheon International approached SFO and asked if the airport would be interested in participating in the pilot program," said spokesman Michael McCarron. Incheon has a common-use RFID system to track bags, and a similar system will be used at SFO.
Negotiations to end the deadlock between labor unions at Lloyd Aereo Boliviano and U.K.-based TAA came to a halt last weekend, and unions are now asking the consortium to return equity shares.
Four major unions representing ground and flying staff have called for a 24-hour strike at Alitalia today in a conflict over the restructuring efforts of the troubled Italian carrier. Alitalia recently announced that it is planning on tightening its current rescue plan (DAILY, Sept. 6). Federmanager, the Italian employers' federation, slammed the strike as "useless and counterproductive." The union's behavior is "unbearably corporatist" and "incompatible with the current situation" of the airline, said Federmanager.
Frontier's CEO envisions the 10 Q400s ordered from Bombardier as an important feed to the carrier's Denver hub once its new subsidiary launches operations with the turboprops. Deliveries of the aircraft start in May 2007, with all planes scheduled to enter service by the end of that year. Frontier also took options on 10 of the 74-seat turboprops.
Industry analysts believe the departure of Boeing Commercial Airplanes head Alan Mulally will cause little turbulence for the organization, as the two men charged with replacing him are expected to follow the successful blueprint they helped Mulally create.
American cut its domestic mainline capacity 4.8% in August, with traffic dropping 4.1%. Overall mainline traffic was down 1.4% on a 1.9% capacity cut, and international mainline traffic and capacity were both up 3.7%. Mainline load factor rose 0.4 points to 81.9%. American Eagle traffic gained 9.3% in August, as capacity grew 3.8% and load factor increased 3.7 points to 74.3%.
SAS next April will launch four weekly Airbus A340 services from Stockholm to Beijing. "Since our direct routes to Shanghai and Beijing from Copenhagen are highly appreciated, we see great potential in the Stockholm-Beijing route," said Lars Lindgren, president of Scandinavian Airlines International.
