JetBlue plans to become the lone carrier serving Portland, Maine, from New York Kennedy, starting May 23, but other major airlines serve the New York metropolitan area from Portland, mostly with 50-seat regional jets.
Continental says it will return to its full flight schedule at New Orleans by May, and it claims it will be the first airline to restore all of its pre-Hurricane Katrina service. The airline currently has 99 weekly departures from New Orleans, including 77 to Houston, 14 to Newark and eight to Cleveland, providing about 20% of all seats in the market. By May, it plans to boost the weekly total to 111 flights.
Executives in the regional jet industry are applauding India's plans to invest $12.5 billion to upgrade its secondary airports, saying the move will pave the way for new routes that are likely to require smaller aircraft.
Frontier plans to fly 10 Airbus A320s by the end of 2011, adding the largest member of the Airbus narrowbody family to its fleet. The last delivery date in the airline's purchase agreement with Airbus was scheduled in 2008. The expansion of that deal pushes deliveries through 2011. Frontier ordered six A320s and converted eight existing A319 orders into four A318s and four A320s. By yearend 2011, Frontier plans to fly 11 A318s, 49 A319s and 10 A320s.
Swiss International Air Lines plans to launch a third daily frequency between Zurich and New York Kennedy on May 1, to be operated with an Airbus A330-200. The carrier recently announced that a second frequency on the JFK-Zurich route would start March 26, with the introduction of its summer schedule. All of the Swiss' operations to the U.S. are now code shares with United, in replacement of the previous accord with American. Swiss will officially join the Star Alliance in April.
Continental is revising its first-quarter cash forecast upward slightly, to between $1.9 billion and $2 billion. The airline is targeting 8.1% growth in capacity this year, with mainline up 7.6% and domestic mainline up 3.6%. Continental expects ex-fuel unit costs to be down 11.5% from 2001.
Lufthansa has renewed its accord with SAS Ground Services for three years. The SAS subsidiary will provide the service for Lufthansa at Copenhagen Airport in Denmark, Oslo Gardermoen, Bergen and Stavanger in Norway, Stockholm-Arlanda and Landvetter-Gothenburg in Sweden. The operations concerned include some 12,000 departures per year in Scandinavia. "Lufthansa is SAS Ground Services' biggest customer outside the SAS Group," the company said. -MT
Mexican airport operator ASUR reported a sharp drop in fourth quarter profits to 6.2 million pesos (US$592,000) compared with 201 million pesos in the same 2004 period, largely due plummeting traffic at Cancun and Cozumel airports after Hurricane Wilma hit the cities.
The European Union Court of Justice ruled that Ireland "failed to fulfill its obligations" to implement EU rules on flight times in the aviation sector.
The CEO of Mexican domestic carrier Aeromar is worried about how the Mexican economy will fare in the current low-cost carrier boom. "The imminent debut of half a dozen LCCs endangers Mexico's economy because the airline market doesn't have enough capacity to sustain these startups," Aeromar's Ami Lindenberg told Mexico City's El Financiero.
Continental says 175 Express flights were affected when a Houston Intercontinental terminal was closed due to a security scare on Wednesday. Of the total, 80 flights were cancelled and a "few dozen" flights were diverted to other Texas airports. The remaining flights were delayed. Mainline flights were not affected, the airline said.
European airlines recorded more delays in 2005 than in previous years, especially toward the end of the year, when weather and airport congestion caused most of the late flights.
KLM plans to boost its summer passenger capacity by 5.5%, compared with the 2005 summer schedule, by adding frequencies throughout its network and at least two new destinations.
Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company Ltd. (HAECO) is the 13th member of the Airbus MRO network the airframer launched in March 2005. Airbus refers customers to network members first (DAILY, April 25, 2005). Airbus has said that by 2007 about 75% of the maintenance performed on its aircraft will be handled by a company other than the operator.
While leading Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (LAB) was regrouping after a crippling nine-day pilots strike, (DAILY, Feb. 17), No. 2 carrier AeroSur quickly capitalized on the booming carnival traffic bound for neighboring Brazil and Argentina. With promotional three-day, all-inclusive packages of $554 to Sao Paulo and $512 to Buenos Aires, AeroSur's load factor is up to 80%. -LZ
Northwest management and its pilots' union yesterday reported that the recent round-the-clock negotiations have made some progress, including settling on the framework of an agreement that would allow the airline to acquire more aircraft with roughly 100 seats.
ILFC announced several leasing deals this week, highlighted in the chart below. Airline Aircraft Delivery Date/Term Air Berlin 3 Used A319s-100s March 2006-5 years each Air Madrid 2 Used A319-100s March 2006-6 years each Air Astana 1 Used 757-200ER April 2006-5 years Flyglobespan 1 New 737-700 February 2007-10 years Kingfisher 2 New A320-200s April 2007-9 years each Kingfisher 1 New A321-100 May 2007-9 years KLM 1 New A330-200 May 2007-6 years
A federal mediator will likely take over the contentious contract negotiations between FAA and its controllers, after the controllers union yesterday echoed FAA's earlier call for mediation.
Boeing this week promoted Ross Bogue, a 25-year Boeing veteran, to head three of its most important aircraft programs. Bogue will be VP-general manager for the 747, 777 and 767 programs and the Everett site, replacing Dan Becker, who plans to retire April 30.
Bolivia's intervention at troubled carrier Lloyd Aereo Boliviano, through the 90-day appointment of an inspector (DAILY, Feb. 21), may be extended for another 90 days, air transportation regulator Wilson Villarroel said last week.
Alaska Airlines yesterday decided to inspect its entire mainline fleet of more than 100 aircraft after multiple flights in recent weeks and months were grounded due to problems with pressurization systems.
Brazil's Varig last week extended contracts with Australia's AWAS-Ansett for the lease of nine Boeing 737s and with Germany's Bavaria for six other 737s in efforts to improve current cash flow as part of its restructuring. The carrier is also taking delivery in April of two leased Boeing 757s from Pegasus Aviation. -LZ
