Two U.S. Senators this week urged the General Accounting Office to take a close look at rising computer reservation booking fees and provide suggestions for possible legislation to address the situation. According to a letter obtained by The DAILY, Judiciary Committee members Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) suggest that the airlines' recent decision to cut base commissions is a result of soaring fee increases by the four major CRS companies.
South African Airways plans to a fifth weekly flight between Johannesburg and New York Kennedy, effective July 1. The additional service will operate every Monday from Johannesburg, stopping in Ilha do Sal in the Cape Verde Islands and arriving Tuesday at JFK. The return flight will operate nonstop from JFK to Johannesburg. After Sept. 11, the daily service was cut to four weekly flights, but SAA now aims to return to daily service on this route, which was first introduced in July 1997.
The International Association of Machinists says it will participate in concession talks requested by United if the carrier's ramp and public contract workers represented by IAM ratify a management contract proposal today. This would leave the Association of Flight Attendants as the only major labor group avoiding United's concession talks.
A task force of security experts from the DOT will inspect Simon Bolivar Airport at Maiquetia, Caracas, May 9-15 and review the report on safety oversight issued earlier this year by FAA on improvements made in facilities to comply with ICAO regulations. All this information will be assessed to determine Venezuela should be upgraded from Category 2 to Cat 1.
A commercial court ordered SN Brussels Airlines to modify its fare structure on African routes, as it found that the Belgian airline that was created on the remains of Sabena was guilty of abusing a dominant position. SN Brussels Airlines will have to pay a fine of EUR500,000 (US$453,000) for each flight unless it agrees to increase its Sunday fares to the level of weekday fares, the court said.
FAA this week will begin testing a new walk-through explosives de-tection portal made by Smiths Detection-Barringer. The device, called the Sentinel II, can process about seven people a minute and could replace the current system of hand-wanding selected passengers at airports. The system would not scan carryon bags. Company President Ken Wood said that the testing at the FAA's technical center in Atlantic City will likely be followed up by operational testing. No purchase decision has yet been made by the TSA.
Cathay Pacific plans to create more than 1,300 new Hong Kong-based jobs over the next two years as the airline boosts capacity and adds six new aircraft to its fleet. Cathay will recruit new pilots and cabin crew necessary to operate three previously ordered Airbus A340-600s due for delivery this year and early 2003, plus three new A330-300s and three Boeing 777-300s that were ordered last month for delivery in late 2003 and early 2004. The airline plans to recruit 200 cabin crew this year and 800 more in 2003-2004.
During the first 100 days of this year, international ticket sales dropped 52% as result of Argentina's economic crisis. Scheduled charter carrier Air Plus stopped flying early in May after losing half a million dollars since January, and Qantas and Air Canada are about to follow suit. KLM suspended service in 2001. Others, among them United, British, Iberia and Alitalia, drastically reduced frequencies. Qantas will no longer fly from Auckland and Sydney with its own aircraft. Passengers must now transfer in Santiago to a plane leased from LanChile.
All Nippon Airways this year plans to become a managing holding company to facilitate "decisive management practices." As part of its corporate strategic plan for fiscal 2002 and 2003, ANA plans to centralize the decision-making and management for all ANA Group divisions. ANA's managing holding company will differ from a traditional holding company in that it will "conduct operations in addition to managing the entire group," the company said.
GE Engine Services signed a 20-year deal to maintain GE CF6-80A3 engines that power 31 FedEx Airbus A310s. The value of the deal was not disclosed. Work will be done at GEES's GE Caledonian Ltd. shop in Prestwick, Scotland.
Online travel site SideStep signed a partnership with Airlines.ca, a Canadian online agency. Through this link, SideStep will make net fares from airlines.ca available to its customer base. Airlines.ca will promote a customized, co-branded edition of SideStep to its users. Airlines.ca is the flagship site of Montreal-based Netgroup Travel.
Continental plans to launch nonstop flights from Newark hub to Omaha and Oklahoma City, starting Nov. 1. The airline will offer three daily roundtrips on the Newark-Omaha route and two daily roundtrips on the Newark-Oklahoma City route. The Continental Express-operated flights will be the first with the new extended-range version of the 50-passenger Embraer ERJ-145 ExpressJet.
Fine Air is close to emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after a U.S. bankruptcy court confirmed the company's reorganization plan. Fine Air has been operated under Chapter 11 protection since September 2000, and the court's approval of its plan "was the final step" for the company to emerge from bankruptcy. At the same time, the carrier named Richard Haberly as its president and CEO, effective immediately.
The pilot community hopes the two-day NTSB hearing on the February 2000 crash of an Emery Worldwide DC-8 freighter will call attention to what one pilot called "absurd" differences in scheduled passenger airline regulations and the rules that most cargo carriers follow.
AeroMexico plans to resume nonstop service from New York Kennedy to Monterrey, with continuing service to Guadalajara, effective July 8. The airline, which discontinued nonstop flights between JFK and Monterrey after Sept. 11, currently serves the JFK-Monterrey market with daily one-stop service over Atlanta. SkyTeam partner Delta will add its code to the new flights. AeroMexico will operate the new flights with a MD-88 four days a week.
Twinjet Aircraft Sales Ltd. applied at DOT for a foreign carrier permit and the ability to operate charters between points in the U.K. and points in the U.S., and between points in the U.S. and points in other countries. Twinjet, incorporated under the laws of England and Wales, operates two corporate jets, a 34-seat Airbus A319CJ and a nine-seat Challenger CL604, used for executive and celebrity charters worldwide. (Dockets OST-02-12274, 12275)
With the Summa Alliance being implemented this month in Colombia by Avianca, its subsidiary SAM and Aces, AeroRepublica is slated to take over the No. 2 spot. In market-share terms, this means that Summa will have 77% and AeroRepublica 20%.
JetBlue's April load factor grew one percentage point to 83.9% despite capacity that more than doubled from the same month last year. The carrier's departures rose 79.4% to 3,418 in the month but it managed to operate a near-perfect completion factor of 99.9% compared to 99.8% last year. JetBlue flew 447,565 revenue passengers in the month.
Low-fare, low-cost Gol Airlines, founded in January 2001, in April reached an 11.9% domestic market share in Brazil, behind TAM and Varig, according to official figures issued by the Civil Aviation Department (DAC). Load factors for the same month increased to 64%, 10 points higher than the average for other carriers. Overall domestic traffic was up 5.2% in April.
JetBlue over the next six months plans to add 21 new daily flights from Long Beach, Calif. as part of an aggressive capacity expansion that will start in August. The airline yesterday notified the airport's manager that it now expects to use all 21 of its remaining allocated slots by October, much earlier than the original May 2003 deadline it promised to the city. JetBlue currently operates five slots of its 27 at Long Beach with two daily roundtrips between Long Beach and Washington Dulles and three daily flights between Long Beach and New York JFK.
Delta's wholly owned subsidiary Atlantic Southeast Airlines yesterday selected Macon, Ga., as the location for a new 7,500-square-foot maintenance training center. The facility will be built on land adjacent to ASA's existing 60,000-square-foot maintenance headquarters at the Middle Georgia Regional Airport. Construction of the facility is expected to begin this summer and will include three classrooms, office space and support facilities. The training center also will include a 3,000-square-foot facility for equipment and parts storage.
Singapore Airlines will suspend its three-times-weekly flights to Karachi indefinitely after today due to the prevailing security situation in the country.
