American yesterday reported a $291 million net profit for the second quarter, a substantial improvement from last year's $58 million profit and the carrier's best quarterly result in six years. Very strong revenue performance outweighed the usual headaches of rising fuel prices. American is enjoying "solid revenue momentum," although "fuel costs continue to raise the bar in terms of revenue generation," CEO Gerard Arpey said. If fuel prices had remained at second-quarter 2005 levels, this year's profit would have been $665 million, said the airline.
ILFC yesterday announced it is exercising options for six Boeing 737-800s, two 777-300ERs and two 787s. The 737 and 777 orders are scheduled to begin delivery in the first quarter of 2009, with the 787 deliveries to start in early 2012.
Korean Air through the end of August plans to boost frequencies to several points, including Phuket, Ulan Bator and Prague, due to strong holiday demand.
Air France and Brazilian carrier TAM extended their code-sharing agreement to cover six new destinations in Brazil. TAM will operate services under an "AF" flight number to Goiania, Iguaçu, Londrina, Natal, Porto Seguro and Vitoria, via connecting hubs in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The code-share agreement with TAM, which was initially signed in 1999, "is set to develop further over the coming months," said Air France. -MT
Etihad plans to launch daily nonstop service from Abu Dhabi to New York JFK on Oct. 26 with one of its new Airbus A340-500s with 240 seats. The carrier earlier this year hoped to start service July 1, but the launch slipped to this fall (DAILY, March 13). Etihad will operate from JFK's Terminal 4, and New York will be the carrier's second North American destination in addition to Toronto.
Changi and Sheremetyevo airports have formed a joint venture company to manage and operate the new Terminal 1 building under construction in Moscow. Scheduled to open in 2007, the new 520,000-square-foot terminal will handle 5 million passengers a year and generate S$110 million (US$69.1 million) in revenue annually. The partners also plan to bid on managing Terminal 1, owned by Aeroflot subsidiary Terminal AOA, and Terminal 2, currently under expansion.
ILFC followed up an order earlier this week for the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 with an order for the General Electric GEnx to power 24 Boeing 787s. The leasing giant tapped Rolls for Trent 1000s to power 20 planes. It also ordered GE90 115Bs for six Boeing 777-300ERs on order and two GE90-94Bs for two 777-200ERs. Deliveries of 777 engines start this year, followed by GEnx powerplants in 2010.
Narita International Airport Corp. (NAA) yesterday was assigned an AA- rating from Standard & Poor's, putting the company, together with Hong Kong Airport, in the top echelon of S&P's ratings of world airports.
Air Canada yesterday reported that an arbitrator issued a wage review award for about 5,000 customer sales and service employees and crew schedulers, represented by the CAW.
The $2.9 billion O'Hare Modernization Program, which began construction in October 2005, will award more than $408 million in new construction projects by August, Executive Director Rosemarie Andolino tells The DAILY. The program has already awarded $327 million in contracts, and is welcoming bids from construction contractors all over the country.
Boeing received a major boost for its new 747-8 program with an order for 10 freighter versions of the aircraft from Emirates, the largest order to come out of the Farnborough Air Show so far.
Frontier Airlines, which in May became the first U.S. low-cost carrier to fly into Canada despite competition from United, sees greater opportunities ahead in the cross-border market. The Denver-based carrier started service to Calgary on May 26 with two daily flights operated by Frontier JetExpress carrier Horizon Air. But the quest for the Calgary service began in 1997 at Airport Council International-NA's Jumpstart air service development conference, said Leslie Gavin, manager of passenger air service development at the Calgary Airport Authority.
The European Commission unveiled a series of proposals aiming at modernizing the legislative package that led to full liberalization of air transport in the European Union in 1997 and confirmed its intention to impose the publication of all-inclusive fares (DAILY, July 18).
Jazeera Airways inked an engine maintenance deal with Lufthansa Technik covering the CFM International CFM56-5B2s powering its Airbus A320s. The 10-year, power-by-the-hour deal is valued at US$70 million. Add-on services to the deal include spare engine support and aircraft-on-ground repairs.
International Aero Engines won follow-on business from Vietnam Airlines after the carrier ordered V2500 engines to power 10 Airbus A321s. The airline already flies five V2500-powered A321s.
Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) struck a five-year deal with Kingfisher Airlines to maintain PW127F engines powering the carrier's 35 ATR 72-500s. In addition to performing hot-section inspections and basic unscheduled removals, P&WC also agreed to supply seven spare engines to Kingfisher.
FAA Administrator Marion Blakey and European Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot agreed to coordinate their respective programs for the modernization of navigation -- the U.S.'s Next Generation Air Transport System (NGATS) and Europe's Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR).
Complexity and complacency may have combined to put Airbus' high-profile A380 behind schedule, as engineers and managers at all levels only partly grasped the severity of the production bottlenecks being caused by imprecise modeling of wiring plans for the giant plane. The problem caused two schedule slips in the program, and erased more than 14 airplane deliveries from parent EADS' balance sheet -- a EUR500 million problem each year between 2007 and 2010 (DAILY, June 14). 300 Miles Of Cables
Airbus announced a substantial deal for up to 20 aircraft from Libyan carrier Afriqiyah yesterday. The memorandum of understanding includes orders for six A320s, three A319s and three A330-200s, as well as options for five A319s and three A330-200s. The acquisitions are part of a "long-term expansion strategy" for Afriqiyah, which began operating in December 2001. The new aircraft will be put on routes from Tripoli to other African and Middle-Eastern destinations, as well as flights to European cities.
Two Alaska Airlines union groups this week both ratified new four-year contracts covering more than 3,700 airline employees represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
China's Xinhua Airlines Group plans to list the corporation in the second half of next year either on Nasdaq stock market or the London or Hong Kong stock exchanges; the group includes Hainan Airlines, Xinhua Airlines, Shanxi Airlines and Chang'an Airlines.
