US Airways flight attendants and customer service employees are on target to receive new uniforms by summer 2007. The airline has tapped independent designer Stan Herman to design uniforms for the merged airline. Herman has designed uniforms for JetBlue, United and FedEx and is a three-time Coty award-winning designer. He has also served as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America since 1991.
Bombardier will likely debut its touted 900x before a stretched Q400 turboprop as the airframer firms up the necessary design changes and discussions with potential customers continue. The company has put more emphasis on stretching current aircraft models since scaling back its plans for the new C-series aircraft family earlier this year. Previously, Bombardier said it's evaluating a 100-seat version of the 86-seat CRJ-900 and a 90-seat version of the Q400 turboprop that's currently offered in a 70- to 76-seat configuration (DAILY, March 15).
Alaska Airlines expects to make lump sum payments to flight attendants during the second quarter as part of severance packages agreed to in the recently ratified attendant contract.
Alaska's 40-Mile Air must continue to operate its unsubsidized service at Chisana, Alaska, until June 7, when the U.S. Transportation Dept. expects to have decided on whether it will select a new carrier -- Ellis Air Taxi -- for the service or award 40-Mile Air subsidy.
U.S. major airlines saw domestic unit revenue and yields increase by double digits in April, and a leading analyst said the rise is one of the largest recorded in the past 25 years. Domestic yields for seven of the largest carriers were up 12% for April, just below the 12.4% increase recorded in February, the Air Transport Association said yesterday.
Aeroflot plans to launch a capital increase worth $500 million, the airline's CEO Valery Okulov said yesterday. The proceeds are to be used for the takeover of more Russian domestic carriers, such as Dal Avia and Vladivostok Avia. Both carriers are government-owned, while the state also holds a 51% stake in Aeroflot. The share is expected to be diluted to below 50% as a result of the capital increase. -JF
Iberia's new low-cost airline will launch service from Alvedro Airport to Frankfurt and Paris, starting in October, the mayor of La Coruna, Galicia, announced last week. Authorities in the city of Santiago de Compostela, 80 kilometers south, boasted similar news just a few days earlier. "We live in an open world where the cities compete", noted Xose Sanchez Bugallo, the mayor of Santiago.
Great Lakes' decision to continue serving Pierre, S.D., despite the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s selection of Big Sky for essential air service, prompted strong reproach from the department and spoiled one of Big Sky's EAS opportunities. Great Lakes and Big Sky offered service proposals that were nearly identical (DAILY, May 15), but incumbent Great Lakes wanted $576,891 in subsidies per year versus the $379,616 request from Big Sky. After DOT chose Big Sky, Great Lakes decided it would continue its Pierre-Denver service.
Flight delays are no more likely at small airports than at large ones, but the delays are longer and there are more cancellations, the DOT inspector general's office reported this week. Responding to an August 2005 question from the Senate Commerce aviation subcommittee, the IG turned to January-March 2006 data from five hub airports -- Chicago O'Hare, Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Salt Lake City and Washington Dulles -- and 14 small-hub and non-hub facilities. Statistically Different
Singapore Changi was named the World's Best Airport in the 2006 World Airport Awards, according to an independent survey by Skytrax. Rounding out the top five airports were Hong Kong, Munich, Japan's Kansai and Seoul Incheon. San Francisco, Vancouver and Denver were tapped as the top three airports in North America.
The Chile-based LAN group of airlines report systemwide passenger traffic increased 7.l% in April over the same month last year. Capacity grew 5.7%, attributable to long-haul operations to the Asia /Pacific being partially offset by less offer to the U.S. and the Caribbean, while load factor increased to 69.2%. International passenger traffic accounted for 87% of all traffic. Increase in short-haul capacity was concentrated on regional routes and domestic operations in Argentina.
United and the airlines of the TACA Group can now code share on each other's flights, thanks to newly won authority from the U.S. Transportation Dept. (DAILY, March 2). The TACA group of carriers includes El Salvador's TACA, Costa Rica's LACSA, Guatemala's AVIATECA, Nicaraguense de Aviacion, TACA de Honduras and Peru's Trans American Airlines. LACSA, which operates under its own 'LR' code, will soon begin to use TACA's code.
Capital Cargo is encountering trouble getting the Mexican government to sign off on some of its new scheduled cargo services from Toledo, Ohio. The current dormancy period is slated to end June 12, but Capital Cargo wants the U.S. Transportation Dept. to extend the dormancy period for another 90 days beyond that date, should it not win the necessary approvals from Mexico.
South African Airways has tapped Marc Cavaliere, former VP-sales and distribution at Spirit Airlines, as its new executive VP-North America. Cavaliere will be based at SAA's U.S. headquarters in Fort Lauderdale.
Foreign investors are allowed to acquire a stake in airports in China or team with Chinese companies to bid for airport construction projects under the country's 11th five-year civil aviation development plan, from 2006-2010. In the next five years, China will invest 140 billion yuan (US$17.5 billion) to build 42 new airports, including in five in the southwestern province of Yunnan, and upgrading several others across the country. The investment is more than the 120 billion yuan contributed by the Chinese government in 1990-2005.
Didier Gosuin, a member of the Belgian parliament, has lodged a complaint against the Belgian state for failing to apply European legislation on airport noise at Brussels Airport.
AirTran and Midwest today in Long Beach, Calif., will take delivery of their final Boeing 717s, which are also the last to be built by Boeing, marking the end of the manufacturers' commercial aircraft production in California.
Airbus North America Chairman Allan McArtor said the European manufacturer "guessed wrong" in the initial design of the A350 and that by summer it will develop an aircraft that will be more competitive and even dominant against Boeing's 787.
