Marsans/Air Plus Comet group Chilean subsidiary Aerolineas del Sur (ADS) will add six passenger aircraft to its fleet by December to open new domestic routes from Santiago to Balmaceda, Copiapo and Temuco, and launch international flights to Buenos Aires.
U.K. airports saw 3.9% passenger growth in June, with long-haul and European routes experiencing the largest increases. The only major market that did not improve was European charter flights, which saw a 7.5% drop in passenger numbers. European scheduled traffic rose 8%, transatlantic grew 2.9%, and other long-haul routes rose 8.2%. The fastest growing individual market was U.K.-India, which had 55.4% more passengers than a year earlier, BAA said.
The committee assessing bids for the $600 million expansion and management concession of Bogota Eldorado Airport (DAILY, June 26) has postponed the announcement of official results until July 24, said Colombia's civil aviation department (Aerocivil). The extra time will allow the committee to review additional information from bids submitted on July 11.
SAS Component plans to close its facility in Stavanger, Norway, during the third quarter after major customer SAS Technical Services detailed plans to close its maintenance base at Sola near Stavanger. SAS Component said the closure would affect 98 staff in Stavanger, and it plans to transfer work to its other three locations - Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. Earlier this year, ST Aerospace bought 67% of SAS Component for EUR80.4 (US$102 million).
Mexico sold 49% of Toluca Airport to OHL, one of Spain's largest construction groups, Mexican airport regulator Manuel Ortiz told DAILY affiliate AvNews Latin America & Caribbean. Some analysts say the move will help propel plans to upgrade Toluca for low-cost carriers and other airlines eager to serve it as an alternate for Mexico City.
JetBlue plans to fly its new Embraer 190 planes between Boston and JFK to Columbus, Ohio, in October, placing its 100-seat planes in competition with smaller regional jets flown by American and Delta. Four daily nonstop flights from JFK to Columbus start Oct. 3, followed by a single daily flight from Boston on Oct. 18.
Ownership at Spirit Airlines has undergone a major shift as Oaktree Capital Management cedes its majority stake to Indigo Partners and Indigo Managing Partner William Franke takes over as chairman. Despite giving up major control under its new deal with Spirit and Indigo, Oaktree made its third investment in the airline in just three years. The company invested $70 million in Spirit last year after its initial $125 million outlay in 2004 that gave Oaktree its controlling stake.
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise this week hired former Honeywell Chairman and CEO Bob Johnson as its own new CEO. DAE, formed in February, plans to build a $15 billion global aerospace, manufacturing and services corporation. "The group will grow through a series of phased developments to produce an integrated aerospace cluster," based at Dubai World Central, which is the new airport and logistics city in Jebel Ali. Johnson retired earlier this year as chairman of Honeywell and was president and CEO from 1999.
Chile-based LAN group of airlines reports systemwide passenger traffic rose 6.4% in June from the same month last year with 8.2% capacity growth. Load factor was down 1.2% to 68.6%. International passengers accounted for about 89% of total traffic. Domestic passenger traffic in Chile grew 4.3% and capacity 6.0%, for a 1.0% decrease in load factor to 58.1%. Cargo traffic in June increased 8.9% and capacity 6.7% for a 1.4% increase in load factor to 67.1%.
Airports, including Norfolk, Akron-Canton and Louisville, are using their web sites to provide a convenient service to attract local passengers. Louisville unveiled its booking engine as part of a new web site design -- flylouisville.com -- in October 2005, said spokesman Tom Tyra. "After comments from our customers and staff, we found the most frequent question we got from airport callers was how much it cost to go to specific cities," he said. "We wanted to give people the ability to comparison shop whether they bought from our site or not."
TAM Brazil carried 47.6% of domestic passenger traffic Brazil in June, attributable to massive flight cancellations by financially crippled Varig. TAM also saw international traffic grow 37.9% in June from the same month in 2005. TAM's domestic load factor went up 13.2 percentage points to 78.2%.
FAA has introduced a new traffic flow initiative that should reduce the need for ground delay programs at busy airports during thunderstorm season, agency officials said yesterday.
BAA BAA plc has named board member Stephen Nelson as its new CEO, effective immediately. Nelson takes over Mike Clasper, who will remain as an adviser for BAA for a year. The new CEO joined BAA in September 2005 after serving as marketing director for food retailer J Sainsbury plc. He was named to the BAA board in April 2006.
Copa subsidiary AeroRepublica plans to start direct daily service from Bogota to Panama on Aug. 3. "With daily service between Bogota and Panama, AeroRepublica expects to cover the growing need of business and leisure travelers, which has increased by approximately 20% in the last three years due to favorable business conditions between both countries," said AeroRepublica President Roberto Junguito. In addition to the new AeroRepublica flight, Copa offers two flights of its own on the route that carry the AeroRepublica code. -SL
UPS and Philadelphia Airport firefighting personnel have modified their procedures in the aftermath of a fire that significantly damaged one of the carrier's DC-8 cargo planes on Feb. 8. During a hearing on the incident conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board this week in Washington, investigators and Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Personnel pointed to changes in operations implemented since the event.
President Bush has nominated Col. Calvin Scovel to be the new DOT inspector general, filling the spot Ken Mead vacated when he retired in February. Scovel is currently senior judge for the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals. Previously, he was chief defense counsel of the Marine Corps. His nomination will go before the Senate Commerce Committee for confirmation. Deputy IG Todd J. Zinser has headed the agency since Mead's retirement.
Beirut Airport remains closed after the Israeli Air Force attacked the facility as part of military operations in Lebanon. Officials said it is too early to assess the damage and whether it would take days or weeks to repair the runway. Israel claims the airport is used for smuggling weapons, a charge the airport authority denies.
Southwest plans to launch service from Washington Dulles to two of its largest cities in October -- Las Vegas and Midway -- along with Orlando and Tampa, churning up competition with United and fellow low-cost carriers JetBlue and Airtran. Southwest said it would begin with 12 daily flights from the airport -- seven to Midway, one to Las Vegas, two to Orlando and two to Tampa, with connecting flights to 35 other cities.
Northwest has regained the Memphis-Cozumel and Detroit-Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo markets after retaking exemptions it won last year but let go dormant in light of its reorganization and the devastating effects of Hurricane Wilma in the region (DAILY, June 30). It's déjà vu for the carrier, which at this time last year was applying for the markets (DAILY, July 7, 2005).
Virgin America's goal to launch operations by yearend may still be attainable following a U.S. Transportation Dept. decision yesterday that the carrier had submitted enough information to evaluate its certification application.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. could give its decision on expanding the antitrust immunity that covers United's participation in the Star Alliance to LOT, TAP Air Portugal, Swiss and Air Canada next month if it sticks to the procedural schedule it issued this week. DOT wants to receive answers to the application by Aug. 9 and replies by Aug. 18 [OST-2005-22922].
AAR predicts hitting its 10% operating margin target by the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year after profits skyrocketed 127%. Operating margins reached 8% during the fourth quarter of FY2006, while margins for the full year were 7.2%. Profits for the full fiscal year jumped from $15 million to $35 million.
Lufthansa Cargo has no plans to order the freighter version of the Airbus A380, COO Karl-Heinz Koepfle says, and is now looking at Boeing aircraft to expand its freighter fleet. "The A380 isn't suitable as a freighter because you need special ground-handling equipment off both decks," Koepfle tells reporters in Frankfurt. His comments are a blow to Airbus' freighter plans, particularly since Lufthansa has already ordered 15 passenger A380s.
