Gary Halbert was appointed as the new General Counsel of the National Transportation Safety Board, replacing Richard Battoochi, who retired in January. Halbert spent 27 years the in U.S. Air Force and most recently was director-executive issues at the Air Force headquarters.
USA 3000 won exemptions from the U.S. Transportation Dept. to operate scheduled seasonal service from Milwaukee to Puerto Vallarta and from St. Louis to San Jose del Cabo (DAILY, Dec. 13, 2005). Both flights are slated to launch in December [OST-2005-23278].
Air France yesterday moved to new location at Philadelphia Airport to streamline its operations at the facility. Air France passengers departing from Philadelphia will use international Terminal A-West to check in and board flights to Paris.
Pratt & Whitney said it will rake in more customers this year for its new CFM parts program as the Pratt-built parts for the engines make their debut early next year. The engine manufacturer has decided to build and supply parts for another powerplant -- the CFM International CFM56-3. P&W said it would offer parts for other CFM models based on demand. The first round of offerings should be available in January 2007.
EasyJet is planning to grow capacity at Glasgow by 19% after adding four new flights by the beginning of July. Daily flights to Berlin Schoenefeld start May 3, followed by weekly flights to Palma May 20. Daily flights to Alicante and Malaga start July 7. The carrier also plans to convert Glasgow to an all-Airbus base this summer.
Shuttle America applied to the U.S. Transportation Dept. for blanket authority that will let it put All Nippon Airways' code on Shuttle America's United Express flights. The carriers intend to launch the code share on March 6, with the Star Alliance member's NH code appearing on Shuttle America's flights to points in the U.S. and Canada.
Allegiant Air yesterday signed a broad marketing partnership with one the top online gambling companies that will lead to six aircraft getting a complete makeover as part of the aggressive advertising campaign.
FAA this week named Dr. Frederick Tilton as the agency's new federal air surgeon, replacing Dr. Jon Jordan, who retired last month. Tilton was the deputy federal air surgeon for the past six years. He will oversee the Office of Aerospace Medicine's work force of more than 400 doctors, research scientists, nurses and research workers, including those at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute in Oklahoma City. He will also oversee the 5,000 private physicians who administer FAA medical examinations as designated medical examiners.
The U.K. and Spanish air traffic control organizations yesterday signed a deal creating a joint-venture company that will develop a new version of Spain's ATC system for use by both nations. The Spanish ATC system is known as SACTA, and the new company will be called SACTA ATM. The company is jointly owned by the U.K.'s National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and Spain's Aena. The two organizations believe this is the first time two ATC providers have collaborated in a commercial joint venture like this.
Miami-based Latin American Airline Association (AITAL) reports passenger traffic for its member airlines increased 12.1% in 2005, reaching 119.5 billion revenue passenger kilometers . Capacity increased 8.1% to 168.3 billion available seat kilometers, while the passenger load factor jumped 2.5 percentage-points to 71%. AITAL member airlines carried 75.9 million passengers in 2005, up 14.4% from 2004, when 66.4 million passengers were carried. Cargo traffic also improved -- freight-tonne kilometers increased 3.2% from 2004.
Lufthansa Technik won new regional jet component business from Danish carrier Cimber Air and Air Nostrum. Cimber tapped the MRO company for a two-year deal to supply components for seven 50-seat CRJ-700s. Lufthansa Technik's deal with Air Nostrum is the MRO's first for a CRJ-900.
Airbus is preparing to flight-test winglets for its A320 family to determine whether it will offer winglets for its single-aisle range. Two different types of winglet will be flight-tested on Airbus's A320 development aircraft in March. One of the winglet sets will be made by Wichita, Kan., company Winglet Technology. JetBlue will provide one of the aircraft for the flight tests.
Aeromexico will become the first carrier to serve the Cleveland-Mexico City market, thanks to new exemption authority it won from the U.S. Transportation Dept (DAILY, Jan. 6). The airline planned to launch the twice-weekly service on April 1. Aeromexico also code shares on Delta's flights between the two cities that stopover in Atlanta [OST-2006-23510].
Operations are slowly returning to normal at Bolivia's Lloyd Aero Boliviano (DAILY, Feb. 13), but more of the company's woes could come to light with the appointment of an inspector tasked with examining the airline.
The LAN group of airlines reports that overall traffic rose 7.5% in January from the same month last year. International traffic, which accounts for 85% of the total, grew 9.3% on 9% more capacity, due to growth on routes to Europe, the South Pacific and between Latin American markets. International load factor and network load factor inched up by 0.2 percentage points to 77.8%. Domestic traffic numbers for Chile-based Lan, meanwhile, fell 2% in January. Load factor stood at 68.1%, due to schedule adjustments and increased competition.
Northwest plans to boost capacity from Indianapolis to several West Coast destinations only two weeks after AirTran said it would add flights to Indianapolis.
Delta yesterday won court approval of several concession deals the airline reached with aircraft creditors that will save the carrier $200 million annually.
Alfred Oetsch is expected to be named the new CEO of Austrian Airlines at the company's next board meeting on Feb. 27. Oetsch will succeed Vagn Soerensen, who is returning to his home country of Denmark at the end of the year. Oetsch, 52, is an Austrian Airlines Group supervisory board member and the CEO of Siemens Austria.
Boeing says it is preparing to sign a new air traffic management contract with FAA that will see the airframer undertake a six-year program demonstrating new procedures on transatlantic flights in coordination with European air traffic control organizations.
A bill was introduced in the House yesterday that would restrict FAA's ability to impose a contract on air traffic controllers if contract negotiations reach impasse. The bill, H.R. 4755, is a companion to similar legislation proposed recently in the Senate (DAILY, Jan. 27). The House bill was introduced by Rep. Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), and has more than a dozen co-sponsors from each party. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association supports the legislation.
Colombia-based Avianca will absorb its subsidiary SAM (Sociedad Aeronautica de Medellin) after years of operating as a separate entity only managed by Avianca. The change will represent less duplication of costs and additional income sources, but no current SAM employees will lose their jobs, says Avianca CEO Fabio Villegas.
TAM Brazil last week reported an $85 million net profit for 2005, 45.1% less than in 2004. Management attributed the drop to a 2004 change in the aircraft leasing system from commercial financing to straight operational that meant increased accounting results for $109 million. If such results had not been computed, net profit for 2005 would have been 73.5% higher.
