El Al plans to launch the only nonstop service between Miami and Tel Aviv on March 28. The flights will operate twice weekly on Tuesday and Saturday on a Boeing 767 in a two-class configuration. This new nonstop service is replacing the twice-weekly direct service from Miami to Tel Aviv that would stop at another U.S. destination. Passengers who want to fly to Israel on other days of the week can connect to an El Al nonstop flight from Newark or New York Kennedy to Israel.
Emirates plans to start service to Ethiopia next month with three weekly flights to Addis Ababa starting March 27. The airline will start daily service on the route Dec. 1. Emirates serves East Africa with double-daily flights to Nairobi and daily flights to Entebbe and Dar-es-Salaam. With the addition of Addis Ababa, Emirates' East Africa network will grow to four destinations served by 31 flights per week. Emirates will operate Airbus A330-200s to Addis Ababa.
Swissport plans to divide its service into five business units starting April 1. The split includes ground handling in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, headed by Nigel Daniel; ground handling in Switzerland and Germany with Urs Sieber at the helm; and ground handling-Americas, led by Richard van Bruygom. Cargo is headed up by Ludwig Bertsch and emerging business is led by Eric Bodenmann.
The New York-Bermuda market, a bastion for network carriers Continental, American and US Airways, gained another low-cost option as the U.S. Transportation Dept. awarded JetBlue an exemption to serve the U.K. territory.
Avianca and its subsidiary Sam recorded record traffic during the holiday season (Dec. 1-Jan. 22), flying 1.14 million passengers and operating an average of 260 daily flights in Colombia and to 21 destinations abroad.
World Airways and its customers have canceled most of its commercial flights, although the carrier denies a union claim that striking pilots have been locked out.
Alaska Airlines yesterday resumed flights at Anchorage after canceling some services the night before as a safety precaution due to volcanic ash at certain altitudes created by Mt. Augustine. Anchorage flight departures and arrivals resumed following sunrise, when the airline's "visual evaluation of the ash pattern confirmed safe flying conditions," the carrier said.
American plans to make another attempt to win antitrust immunity with British Airways, if the EU and the U.S. finalize an open skies agreement later this year.
Thai Airways yesterday was asked to delay the start of its management deal to run Shah Amanat Airport in Chittagong, Bangladesh, for one month while the government reviews the contract.
Venezuela's Santa Barbara Airlines is investing $6.2 million to upgrade the aircraft it uses for its transatlantic service between Venezuela and Spain, which accounts for 28% of its business.
UPS this week opened its expanded sorting hub at Cologne/Bonn airport, which represents the largest infrastructure investment the carrier has made outside the U.S. The expansion took more than two years to complete and almost doubled the original hub's sorting facility to 110,000 packages per hour. New automation technology is responsible for most of the speed increase, UPS said. The project also doubled the area of the sort facilities to 813,000 square feet. The carrier said it could easily expand the operation further to handle up to 165,000 packages.
AirTran plans to start service on more routes abandoned by ATA Airlines, including Indianapolis-Los Angeles in May. AirTran also expects to add San Francisco to the destinations it serves from Indianapolis. Flights to LAX start May 9 with a single daily roundtrip flight, followed by a second flight June 20. In May 2005, both ATA and Southwest offered a single daily roundtrip flight between the two cities. Northwest is scheduled to offer a daily roundtrip between the two cities in May when AirTran launches flights.
Boeing yesterday launched its 737-700ER with an order for two aircraft from ANA. The -700ER will have the longest range of the 737 family with the exception of the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ). ANA swapped two of its existing -700 orders for the -700ERs. The carrier placed 45 orders for the -700s in 2003, and has the right to substitute them for the long-range version. The first of the -700ERs is scheduled for delivery in early 2007.
Bombardier is casting a wide net in its aerospace product development now that the company has shelved plans to launch its proposed CSeries jet family after it failed to win customers. Staff assigned to the CSeries program will shrink from 350 to 50 employees, and current program head Gary Scott plans to oversee the much smaller project. Bombardier plans to spend about US$20 million in fiscal 2007 on the CSeries program. The remaining 300 staffers will be transferred to the company's business and regional aircraft divisions.
Strong growth in commercial and business aircraft production boosted Honeywell and Rockwell Collins avionics sales in the fiscal first quarter, and both companies expect the trend to continue.
American Eagle plans to operate nonstop service between Charleston and Dallas/Fort Worth, beginning April 3. The carrier will use 50-seat Embraer 145s for twice-daily flights.
FAA yesterday proposed that Boeing 757 operators install control wheel dampers and airlines that fly just -200s put vortex generators on left and right outboard flap leading edges to help mitigate the chances of "unintended roll oscillations" on final approach.
Peru's civil aviation authorities and LAN Airines reached a settlement on an inflight tourism video that was deemed "offensive" last April to the Peruvian people.
US Airways is considering acquiring three ATA Airlines' Boeing 757s as part of a possible plan to add more European flights. "It is something that the planning and scheduling team is reviewing," Andrew Nocella, VP-schedule planning and analysis, told employees in an internal publication. "The truth is we're not only looking at ATA's aircraft, but we're looking at a variety of ways to expand our Europe flying."
Morgan Stanley yesterday signed a deal to sell its AWAS aircraft leasing business to Terra Firma for $2.5 billion in cash plus the assumption of all liabilities, which was significantly more than the company predicted.
