The European Parliament is expected to back new rules creating a single license for all European Union air traffic controllers, as Parliament's transport committee this week nodded through the draft legislation. The new rules aim "to ensure high safety standards and make it easier for air traffic controllers to work outside their home country," a Parliament source said. There is a shortage of about 1,800 air traffic controllers in Europe, the Parliament estimates, and job mobility is expected to help alleviate the problem.
Dragonair yesterday reported it flew a record number of passengers and carried a record amount of freight last year. The airline transported more than 5 million passengers in 2005, an increase of 9.9% from 2004. Cargo volumes climbed 12.5% to top 385,000 metric tons. "The results are good, considering the difficult operating environment we endured, with record prices for oil and greater competition," said CEO Stanley Hui. "Traffic for both passengers and cargo continued to be underpinned by demand to and from the China Mainland."
ASA will introduce nonstop Delta Connection service between Atlanta and Kingston, Jamaica, on June 8, pending approval from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. The carrier is seeking an exemption to operate flights directly, via intermediate points and beyond. ASA will use 70-seat CRJ-700s for the daily service [OST-2006-23689].
Frontier will hold out service to Canada through its code share with Horizon, starting on or around May 24, as it won from the U.S. Transportation Dept. an exemption to operate between any point in the U.S. and any point in Canada. Initially, Frontier will offer service from Denver to Canada through the Horizon code share, but it wants exemption authority to launch its own service, if necessary [OST-2006-23558]. -ARS
Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi Airport is expected to open by July, predicted Thailand's Prime Minster Thaksin Shinawatra, despite several new problems, such as fire that broke out last week at Thai Airways' catering building and runway repairs.
Northwest management and its pilots met yesterday after the bankruptcy court judge earlier in the week recessed the Section 1113c hearing until Jan. 31, encouraging both sides to reach an concession deal.
Delta this summer plans to launch a new nonstop point-to-point flight from Raleigh/Durham to Los Angeles. The service will start on June 8 and will be operated with a 150-seat Boeing 737-800. "In 2006 Delta is continuing to aggressively transform its network, especially expanding into new or underserved routes," said Bob Cortelyou, VP-Network Planning. Delta will be the only airline serving the route nonstop.
The National Transportation Safety Board this week said failure of the pilots to properly conduct a non-precision instrument approach in instrument conditions caused the crash of a Jetstream BAE-J3201 flown by Corporate Airlines as American Connection in October 2004.
Air Canada parent ACE Aviation Holdings plans to sell about 23.5 million units of the Jazz Air Income Fund at about C$10 per unit in a long-awaited initial public offering of the regional carrier. Assuming an over-allotment of the units is exercised, the Jazz Fund will own 22% of the company and ACE will keep a 78% stake. The deal values Jazz at C$1.2 billion. The IPO is expected the first week of February, and the units will trade under the symbol JAZ.UN.
Emirates this year will launch daily service to Copenhagen, representing the airline's first service to Scandinavia. Starting Oct. 3, the carrier will offer four weekly flights on Tuesday, Wednesdays, Thursday and Saturday, but the service will increase to daily flights, starting Oct. 29. The carrier will operate an Airbus A330-200 in a two-class configuration. The new passenger service will also offer more than 14 tons of cargo capacity per flight, which will supplement the existing freight-only service to Gothenburg.
Mesa's CEO thinks interest in code shares for the carrier's new Hawaiian airline is mounting, but he acknowledges the softening of the 50-seat aircraft market that Mesa plans to tap for its Hawaiian flights isn't progressing at the expected pace. The airline plans to launch an inter-island carrier in the first quarter or early in the second with four to six 50-seat regional jets.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. will likely release the final version of its foreign ownership proposal in early March, a senior DOT official says. DOT in November released a notice of proposed rulemaking that would loosen DOT's legislative interpretation to make it easier for foreign companies to protect their investments in U.S. airlines. The comment period for the NPRM closed Jan. 6.
Royal Air Maroc recently created a maintenance subsidiary at the Marrakech-Menara Airport that will specialize in Airbus A320 Family and Boeing 737 work. The new subsidiary Aerotechnic Inudstries is part of the airline's Vision 2010 strategic plan. The initial outlay is about MAD70 million (US$8 million) for the construction of a hangar with two aircraft positions. The company named Youssef Jroundi general manager of Aerotechnic. Since 2001, he has been in charge of the production planning and control department. -SL
Southwest's Board of Directors approved the repurchase of $300 million of the airline's common stock based on a closing price of $16.76 Jan. 18. The company has 804 million share of common stock outstanding.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. is "in the final stages" of preparing a new financing model for the FAA, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said yesterday. The financing proposal will be a crucial part of the FAA reauthorization proposal that is likely to be debated on Capitol Hill this year. DOT "opened the dialogue on finding a better finance mechanism" last April, and "soon the Bush Administration will propose a new, cost-based financing system for the FAA," Mineta said at an Aero Club event in Washington, D.C.
LTU International Airways is not part of Rewe Group's core business, said Rewe executive board member Norbert Fiebig, who added that the company would not oppose a strategic investor taking over the airline. Rewe does not consider tourism as part of its core business, but Fiebig points out that many other tour operators don't own airlines, either.
KLM plans to launch weekly service from Amsterdam and Chengdu in Central China on May 28. The new flight will be operated twice weekly with a new Boeing 777-200ER and will be flown in cooperation with partner China Southern. Chengdu is the carrier's fourth Chinese destination after Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
