Malaysia Airlines plans to boost its current three weekly Boeing 777-200 Stockholm-New York flights to daily service. Managing Director Ahmad Fuaad Dahlan says the increase will be made in stages. He said the route provided a passenger feed for the airline, much like the Kuala Lumpur-Dubai-New York route, which the carrier stopped operating Oct. 31. "MAS currently has a high passenger load of 80% to New York. We reckon it would be higher during the peak season," Ahmad noted.
Frontier flight attendants are launching another effort to form a union under the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), and organizers say they will have enough authorization cards within a few weeks to ask for a vote. The campaign, launched today, marks the fourth time a group of Frontier attendants has tried to form a union. The last vote was held two years ago, with the union move rejected by only 11 votes out of more than 400. Now Frontier has nearly 800 flight attendants.
Mesa is in talks with airframer Bombardier on long-term refinancing of five CRJ-900s through a structured debt facility and an additional five -900s through leverage leases, CEO Jonathan Ornstein tells employees. "It's pretty remarkable we can finance aircraft," he says, given that other carriers are having challenges financing planes.
Spanair pilots plan to go on strike for seven days each in November and December. According to pilot union SEPLA, the pilots complain about a high number of free days that they have not been able to take in spite of management's official commitment. Also, pilots stand up against a plan to wet-lease aircraft without prior union agreement. Spanair is Spain's second largest scheduled carrier behind Iberia and owned by SAS Group. -JF
Delta on Friday shed some light on which departments will see the most job cuts in the next 18 months as part of its transformation plan unveiled in September.
To list an event, send information to Ron Brown at [email protected] (Bold type indicates new calendar listing in PDF format.) NOV. 9-10 -- Regional Airline Association Fall Membership Meeting, Wyndham City Center, Washington, 202-367-1170, e-mail [email protected], www.raa.org NOV. 9-13, -- Airport Consultants Council 26th Annual Conference & Exposition, Naples, Fla., 703-683-5900, Fax 703-683-2564, e-mail [email protected]
DHL plans to add a ground/air hub in California by the end of next year. Eight or nine aircraft will be based there, and the hub will sort packages that move among West Coast cities, so they will no longer have to be carried to and from DHL's major sorting hub in Cincinnati. A location for the California hub has not yet been decided, but negotiations are underway in various cities.
Southwest may be the only airline except regional carriers to make a profit in the fourth quarter, Calyon Securities analyst Ray Neidl says. The airline can grow capacity and maintain its profitable record despite high fuel prices and weak yields, Neidl predicted. He agrees with Southwest's belief that Philadelphia is still a growth opportunity.
The Air Line Pilots Association Master Executive Council at Delta will meet in a regular session this week in Fort Worth to determine the method for distributing the 30 million stock options if the tentative agreement is ratified. Voting is expected to close Thursday. The MEC also will elect the pilot director to serve on Delta's board.
International Aviation Club members next week will meet Daniel Calleja, the European Commission's new director-air transport. Making his first official visit to Washington in his new role, Calleja, previously chief of staff to European Union Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, will speak to the IAC Nov. 16 about U.S.-EU aviation relations.
Southwest last week gained two new gates at Philadelphia airport, adding to the four it already has there. The two new gates are in a different terminal than the other four, but the airline is reportedly negotiating to reconfigure its gate arrangement.
The parliamentary hearings of a reshuffled European Commission were expected to resume today, as incoming EC chairman Jose Manuel Barroso is seeking to install his new team as soon as possible. Commissioners designate Jacques Barrot for transport and Peter Mandelson for trade have not been changed.
Independence Air's October load factor rose to 52%, an improvement from September's 45% posting. Revenue passenger miles reached 181 million, compared with 139 million in September. Available seat miles grew slightly to 343 million from 314 million.
Raytheon has completed contract modification negotiations with FAA that will see Raytheon paid $204 million to extend the coverage and availability of the wide area augmentation system (WAAS). The new agreement means Raytheon will install 13 new WAAS ground stations in Canada, Mexico and Alaska. The company began this work earlier this year but had not settled with FAA on the exact value of the modification to an existing contract.
JetBlue's traffic rose 33.7% in October but fell short of the 37.6% capacity increase. As a result, load factor sank 2.4 percentage points to 83.1%. Departures grew 36.5% to 7,980. Completion factor was 99.9% and it posted an 86.7% on-time performance.
Title: Control of User Preferred Trajectories In A Constrained ATM Environment. Contact: Eva Contreras, +32 2 729 3727, [email protected]. Expires: Nov. 19 (documents will not be sent after Nov. 14). Posting: The work focuses on requirements of air and ground automation systems for the trajectory prediction function.
President Bush will be at Camp David this weekend considering changes to his second-term Cabinet, including the U.S. Transportation Dept. post, but DOT is not shedding much light on industry rumors about Secretary Norman Mineta's possible resignation. DOT Spokesman Robert Johnson says Mineta's in great health, "climbing into ferry boats and up the ladders of diesel locomotives," emphasizing that "the secretary serves at the pleasure of the President."
Grupo TACA this week confirmed that a 15-year- old male was convicted and sentenced for the murder of Latin American airline icon and former TACA President Federico Bloch (DAILY, April 28). A juvenile court judge in El Salvador sentenced Miguel B. (his last name withheld by the court) to five years in prison, the maximum allowed for minors under Salvadorian law.
Thales has successfully completed site acceptance tests for the Shanghai air traffic control center, part of the company's 100 million euro (US$128.8 million) contract to provide three ATC centers. The Shanghai center will provide en route and approach ATC for aircraft in the Shanghai Flight Information Region and includes tower positions at the two Shanghai airports. Shanghai is a major entry point into China and a hub for domestic traffic, and the Shanghai airports manage more than 700 aircraft movements a day.
Airline consumer complaints topped 5,500 in the first nine months of 2004, 17.4% more than the total of 4,736 complaints that the U.S. Transportation Dept. received from January to September 2003, according to the latest Air Travel Consumer Report. DOT got 592 complaints in September about airline service, which is down 25.2% from 791 complaints in August (DAILY, Oct. 11) but up 29% from the 459 complaints received in September 2003.
The number of aircraft operating with Chinese airlines is expected to more than quadruple in the next 20 years from the current 575. The China Aviation Industry Corp. 1 (CAIC1), a government agency under the purview of the Commission of Science and Technology and Industry for National Defense, estimates that the local airline industry will add 2,194 passenger aircraft by 2023. CAIC1 predicts 705 of the 2,194 aircraft will be 50- to 70-seat regional aircraft that will be used to link provincial capitals with smaller and medium-sized cities in the country.
After inaugurating three weekly Toronto-Lima services last week (DAILY, Oct. 27), Air Canada followed up on the next day with three weekly nonstops from Toronto to Buenos Aires, plus three more via Santiago, for a total of six. The carrier will also make its Sao Paulo service a daily offering on Dec. 1. All flights are operated with 224-seat Boeing 767-300ERs that feature Hospitality and Executive Class service, and are scheduled to offer quick connections both at Canadian gateways and Latin American destinations. -LZ
