The winning bid for the acquisition of bankrupt Italian low-cost carrier Volare will be unveiled on Feb. 1, said the company's temporary legal administrator, Carlo Rinaldini. Alitalia appears to be firmly in the lead.
U.S. scheduled airlines employed 437,014 workers in November 2005, down 6.4% from a year earlier, the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s Bureau of Transportation Statistics said yesterday. The biggest drop came at the seven network carriers tracked by BTS. These airlines saw full-time and part-time employee numbers decline by 9% in November to 290,352. The low-cost carrier employment total dropped 2% to 74,299, and regional carriers were unchanged at 59,301 employees.
Continental yesterday reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $43 million -- including special items -- and CEO Larry Kellner predicted a "significant loss" for the first quarter of 2006 as well, prompting a dip in the company's stocks on Wall St.
Charges at the Paris airport system will rise by 5% per year -- inflation included -- between 2006 and 2010, said French Transport Minister Dominique Perben. The increase, which will total 27.6% over the whole period, will be included in a regulation contract to be signed by the French government and airport management company Aeroport de Paris (ADP) before month-end.
Northwest yesterday officially asked the bankruptcy court to reject collective bargaining agreements with pilots and flight attendants, but it requested more time regarding the contract with ground employees as the union representing those workers takes the company's concession proposal to members for a vote. The airline lost about $475 million in the third quarter. Excluding unusual items, its loss would have reached $234 million.
Virgin America Director-Maintenance operations Yvonne Daverin has jumped to Alaska Airlines as the carrier's managing director-maintenance planning and materials control. Daverin plans to oversee inventory and distribution of Alaska's maintenance materials, direct scheduling for heavy checks of the airline's planes and handle vendor maintenance of components. Daverin also held positions at United, including general manager of the airline's Oakland maintenance center and manager of 737, 747, 757 and 767 fleet engineering. -LR
Embraer plans to ask its board of directors to approve an overhaul of its capital structure later this week and create a new company under the Embraer name that would eliminate the issuance of preferred shares and disperse share ownership, "giving all shareholders the ability to influence its management." Current controlling shareholders would see their capital stock reduced from 79.84% to 78.03%, resulting in a 2.3% dilution.
FAA late last week gave a nod to Alaska Airlines for maintenance of jackscrews on its McDonnell Douglas MD-80 aircraft just as the carrier launches a review of some of its ground-handling operations after some of the airline's planes were damaged by personnel from its ground-handling company. The agency started investigating Alaska's jackscrew maintenance after mechanics noticed a couple of dry screws on aircraft last year (DAILY, Oct. 3, 2005).
SR Technics signed a deal with Boeing to modify Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines powering three 747-400s slated for conversion into large cargo freighters to transport portions of 787 afor final assembly. Starting this month, SR Technics plans to perform ring case conversions of the PW4000 high-pressure compressors at its service center in Zurich.
The governing board of the SkyTeam Alliance this week approved Middle East Airlines, Air Liban (MEA), to undertake the preliminary steps necessary to become an associate member of the alliance.
Boeing named Korean Airlines the first modification center for the airframer's high-speed Internet service, Connexion. Under the three-year deal, Korean plans to retrofit planes flown by other airlines with Connexion. One of Korean's 747-400s was the 100th plane to receive Boeing's Internet service. All of the carrier's mid- to long-range planes will feature Connexion by mid-2007.
To the surprise of most analysts and observers, Airbus came out again as the market leader in 2005 with 1,055 net orders, compared with Boeing's 1,002.
Two of the largest U.S. biometrics companies -- Viisage and Identix -- merged last week, and the new entity is expected to be a dominant player in the market for biometrics. The all-stock transaction will see Identix shareholders receiving newly issued shares of Viisage. This transaction is valued at about $770 million. Heading the new company will be Viisage Chairman Robert LaPenta, who is also CEO of L-1 Investment Partners. The combined company is expected to have revenues of about $220 million.
World Airways is scheduled to meet with the Teamsters union on Jan. 23 in a last-ditch attempt to resolve a contract negotiations impasse with the cargo carrier's pilots. The airline and the Teamsters are in a 30-day cooling-off period since being released by the National Mediation Board. The cooling-off period expires at midnight on Jan. 27.
The European Parliament, voting on European Commission proposals to launch multilateral air talks with Moscow and Beijing (DAILY, March 15, 2005), said it would reject a multilateral air agreement between the European Union and Russia that did not include "the immediate and complete abolition of Russian overflight charges." "A comprehensive aviation agreement between the European Union and China, however, is considered desirable," the parliament said.
Worldspan and KLM reached a multi-year agreement for the airline to offer the GDS company the same fares and content available through its direct sales channels -- its web site and reservations agents -- without surcharges. KLM already uses a Worldspan product called Airline Source that gives Worldspan travel retailers and online users access to its reservations to book flights in real time and with last-seat availability. -LR
The multi-agency task force known as the Joint Program Development Office (JPDO) plans this spring to release the first detailed blueprints of what the future U.S. ATC system will look like, which will be the most significant products so far from this two-year-old office.
After experiencing serious problems last year due to high fuel prices, Aerolineas del Sur and Sky Airlines are poised to concentrate on growth in 2006. Santiago's El Mercurio reports ADS will close 2006 with eight aircraft, or double the current number, as it expands domestically to Copiapo, Temuco and Balmaceda in Chile and internationally to Buenos Ares and Lima. In the long term, the carrier plans to fly to Polynesia via Chile's Easter Island. ADS will also start code sharing with Air Plus Comet on the Santiago/Madrid route.
Frontier Airlines is in talks with two to three potential partners to forge code-sharing relationships in an effort to reach markets where the airline has limited or no exposure. The carrier has been focusing more attention on partnerships after a code share with Midwest Airlines ended in mid-2005, followed by a code-share deal with Virgin Atlantic that expired at the end of the year.
