TSA holds job application fairs this week in 10 cities for security screener positions at 15 large airports. The daylong fairs are in Atlanta for Hartsfield; Boston for Logan; Chicago for O'Hare and Midway; Dallas for DFW and Love Field; Fort Myers for Southwest Florida International and Naples Municipal; Las Vegas for McCarran; Minneapolis/St. Paul; New York for LaGuardia and Kennedy; Newark, N.J., and the Washington, D.C., area for National and Dulles.
Unisys Corp., McLean, Va., has been selected by the Transportation Security Administration to be its vendor for the TSA Information Technology Managed Services program, which will supply TSA with information technology and telecommunications services including for headquarters and field employees. Those services include hardware and software services, Help Desk, network/security operations, and business process reengineering support, TSA said.
Transportation Security Administration's announcement of the selection of 47 federal security directors (FSDs) brings to 118 the total number of FSDs named, with the agency expected to have 158 FSDs oversee security at the 429 U.S. commercial airports. The latest batch -- the largest number announced at one time and the first since 24 were named July 19 -- will be responsible for 149 airports, with 16 of the most recent group of FSDs covering four or more smaller airports. Miami and Washington Dulles are among the largest airports gaining FSDs.
FAA announced a contract solicitation for stand-alone tower display systems (SATDS) at smaller airports, and said it will accept only Raytheon or Lockheed Martin products, currently being certified. SATDS is intended as an interim system until the standard terminal automation replacement system (STARS) tower display workstations (TDWs) are installed. The system is intended for use with control towers not associated with a terminal radar approach control (TRACON) facility.
United yesterday announced four new officer appointments, three of them filling currently open positions. Senior VP-Finance and Chief Financial Officer Jake Brace will become executive VP and remain CFO. Managing Director-Corporate Planning Bob Merz will become VP-financial planning and analysis, reporting to Brace. Assistant Treasurer Jeff Kawalsky will become VP and treasurer. Senior Director Governmental Affairs Mark Anderson will become VP-governmental affairs. -AS
United is winning support for its $1.8 billion loan guarantee application among House and Senate lawmakers, who have either signed support letters to the Air Transportation Stabilization Board or sent their own letters under separate cover.
Malaysia Airlines plans to acquire new aircraft to replace its Boeing 737-400s, currently deployed on regional routes. With demand for seats on the rise due to the booming travel market in the region, the 737s are now too small for these routes, according to MAS Managing Director Md Nor Yusof. The routes are Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Singapore, Hanoi, Phuket and Kaoshiung. Md Nor said MAS has the right to increase capacity but does not have the type of aircraft to match demand and frequency.
America West and Hawaiian last week announced a reciprocal code-share agreement linking service between America West's Phoenix hub and the islands of Hawaii, Oahu, Maui, Kaui and Molokai. The arrangement is to become effective Oct. 11, when Hawaiian begins Honolulu-Phoenix nonstops.
Triumph Group bought flight surfaces repair operation Aerocell Structures from TIMCO Aviation Services, Inc., the companies said. Purchase price was $10 million. Triumph will put Aerocell into its Airborne Nacelle Services, Inc., operation, which is part of the parent company's Aftermarket Services Group. TIMCO, which sold Aerocell as part of its strategy to focus more on airframe heavy maintenance, said it used the revenue to repay $7 million of senior term debt and to boost its working capital.
Frontier last week reported a net loss of $2.9 million for the quarter ended June 30, well down from the $7.7 million profit achieved in the same period last year. Operating revenues dropped 9.3% to $111.8 million, and operating expenses increased 3.2% to $115.6 million.
SAS has successfully negotiated an agreement with its three cabin crew unions on a new one-year pay deal. Neither side revealed details of what was reached. SAS said, however, that work hours for charter flights have been extended from ten to 12 hours. Also, "with the new agreements we have created one of the most important prerequisites for profitable expansion in the future," SAS CEO Joergen Lindegaard said. -JF
EVA Airways has taken delivery of its fourth Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft through a lease with Atlas Air. EVA plans to use the aircraft beginning September 1 on an additional flight between Taiwan and Hong Kong. The added capacity enables EVA to reach the 600 tons per week granted to the carrier through a traffic rights agreement between Taiwan and Hong Kong. The airline said it also plans to the aircraft on flights to Singapore, Brussels, Dallas/Fort Worth and Atlanta.
The industry-backed Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) has opposed the Japanese government's plans for privatizing Japan's three major airports -- Narita, Kansai and Nagoya. Tokyo ATAG Director Martina Priebe said only a user-driven approach to privatization will permit the development of an appropriate infrastructure and keep charges at acceptable levels. "Privatization must not be an excuse to bail out troubled airports at the expense of consumers and the airlines," Priebe said.
NTSB is calling for several measures that would help minimize the risk of opening exit doors when planes are over-pressurized following reviews of several incidents in which crewmembers were killed during evacuations.
Boeing faces a major uphill battle in sales of its latest 747 variant, the 747-400ER, as market demand for widebody aircraft erodes while carriers continue to struggle financially. Resuscitation of the market could take at least 18 months, said Paul Nisbet, president of JSA Research. "Things are pretty bad," he said. "Until airlines repair their balance sheets there will be no surge in orders. That's not good news for the 747."
ATA last week reported a second quarter loss of $22.8 million excluding special items, compared with a $5.5 million profit in the same period last year. Including special charges, the loss was $57.9 million. Operating revenues were $318.5 million, an 11.2% decrease from last year, and operating expenses -- excluding special items -- decreased 1.8% to $334.1 million. CEO John Tague blamed "extremely competitive" pricing in the Chicago market for the revenue performance.
Regional pilots are slated to picket their own union's national headquarters today to protest negotiators' alleged failure to represent regional pilots' interests properly against those of mainline pilots.
House Appropriations transportation subcommittee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) wants DOT Secretary Norman Mineta to retract his testimony blaming lack of funding for the Transportation Security Administration's inability to meet its deadlines and mandates. "A number of your statements were misleading or inaccurate, in my judgment, and should be retracted," Rogers said, saying he was "very disappointed" in Mineta's July 23 comments to the panel (DAILY, July 24 ).
The a day before FAA Administrator Jane Garvey stepped down from her post on Sunday, she gave Boston Logan Airport something to remember her by -- the federal stamp of approval on the airport's proposed new runway. The long-awaited record of decision (ROD) on the runway project did not make any adjustments to a restricted-use compromise that had been crafted earlier this year, but it did include fresh requirements for a noise study and for the development of a peak-pricing plan.
A final report due out today from New Zealand's competition authorities could favor price controls at Auckland Airport but not at Christchurch or Wellington. The competition regulator, known as the Commerce Commission, released a draft report a year ago favoring limited controls, noting the airports -- the country's three largest -- face "insufficient constraints" on their market power.
FAA will soon name three airports for "possible implementation of new federal policies or...legislative proposals" relating to demand management. Logan will be one of them, and the agency is still finalizing the other two. New York LaGuardia will not be included in the three -- FAA sees its efforts to implement demand management there as a separate issue.
