Santa Barbara Airlines in June will start service from Caracas five times a week to Madrid and beyond to Santiago de Compostela and Tenerife, announced Francisco Gonzalez, president of the four-year-old carrier.
United flight attendants this month will begin wearing an updated uniform with a "more contemporary look," the company said. The new shirts and blouses are sky blue rather than white and become the carrier's first new uniform in almost 12 years. While the cost of this became an internal issue, "in the final analysis, it would have cost more to cancel the project than to continue as planned because the garments had already been manufactured prior to the end of September," said Nancy Rickert, manager-flight attendant standards and policies, in a memo to employees.
DOT Secretary Norman Mineta yesterday said that Washington National Airport will return to its pre-9/11 capacity by April 15. The move completes restoration of the nation's commercial aviation system. Mineta said the return of DCA to pre-attack levels is a "major milestone in our nation's recover from the tragedy we experienced just six short months ago." DCA re-opened on Oct. 4 and has been returning to full capacity in phases.
American, in its latest move to battle JetBlue, is seeking four more slots and slot-constrained Long Beach Airport. There are 41 airline slots at the airport, and JetBlue has been given the rights to 27. But JetBlue is using just three of its slots, each of which is considered both a takeoff and landing slot, contrary to other slot definitions.
Alaska Air Group said it had $605 million in cash and short-term investments as of Feb. 28. In a securities filing, Alaska said its full-year 2002 capacity will be up 8% compared to 2001 and Horizon Air's capacity will rise 12.7%. The company has 20% of its fuel requirements hedged in the second quarter and 35% hedged for the second half of the year.
NTSB has adopted the final report on the October 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, concluding that the relief first officer put the plane into an unrecoverable dive for undetermined reasons, The DAILY has learned.
U.S Major Carriers Productivity, In RPMs And ASMs Per Employee Third Quarter 2001 Revenue Available Passenger Seat Miles Miles Total (000) (000) Employees Alaska 3,328,625 4,687,446 9,531 America West 4,958,734 6,701,760 12,187
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) expects to report a profit-after-tax of $55 million for the current fiscal year, up from $45 million last year. AAI said it achieved the positive results despite incurring a loss of about $1.2 million due to the cancellation of overflights by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) from and to India. S.K. Narula, officiating chairman of AAI, told media that it had set a target of achieving 20% growth per annum in revenue. This will be the fourth straight year that AAI will be reporting a profit.
U.S. airports are on track to spend some $300 million in security enhancements this year -- about three times what has been spent at peak times in the past -- and the lack of some desperately needed standards make calculating costs for additional mandatory projects impossible, a top FAA airport funding official said this week.
United has asked a Boeing 747 captain to brief top Japanese accounts on the airline's high safety standards in an effort to stimulate travel. "The primary concern of the Japanese people is safety," said Mark Schwab, VP-Pacific North. After President Bush's visit to Japan, a delegation of Japanese is in Washington and New York this week to kick off a "Travel to America" campaign.
Former American Chairman Bob Crandall will be the Wings Club's featured speaker next month on March 20 in New York. For more information on the lunch event, contact Alison at 212-867-1770 or visit www.wingsclub.org.
Delta and Korean Air Lines (KAL) yesterday filed for antitrust immunity that would build upon their alliance and recently revived code-share agreement (DAILY, Feb. 15). If approved, the carriers would coordinate schedules, routes, and network planning as well as marketing and sales efforts on transpacific routes, Delta said in a release.
The post-Sept. 11 downturn in tax revenues from air travel has left the Aviation Trust Fund about $2.6 billion short in funding for FAA's fiscal 2003 $14 billion budget request, and more will have to come out of the General Fund, Inspector General Kenneth Mead told the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee yesterday.
Lufthansa's supervisory board has named Wolfgang Mayrhuber vice chairman of the group in a move that is likely to clear the way for the executive to succeed Juergen Weber as chairman in 2003. Mayrhuber runs Lufthansa's airline business as a member of its executive board. He formerly was chief executive of Lufthansa Technik and was widely tipped to have been preparing for his new role. Weber, whose contract runs until 2003, has not made public when he will step down. Along with announcing Mayrhuber's appointment, Lufthansa released preliminary figures for fiscal 2001.
The newly created Belgian charter carrier Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium operated its first flight yesterday, European travel group Thomas Cook announced in Brussels. Thomas Cook, which is 50% owned by Lufthansa, decided to launch its own carrier in Belgium following the bankruptcy of CityBird, its main local air transport service provider. Thomas Cook actually hastened the bankruptcy of CityBird, last October, when it withdrew from purchasing the Belgian carrier.
FAA, the Defense Department, and U.S. Customs Service are working together to identify mutually beneficial homeland security-related projects and will begin linking them in budget requests, starting in 2004. First on the list: surveillance.
America West this week installed self-service check-in kiosks at two additional airports. The kiosks are now in use at Los Angeles International Airport and John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif. The units were launched in Phoenix and Tucson, and the kiosks now average 700 uses per day.
FAA issued an emergency airworthiness directive that, among other things, limits Bombardier CRJ700 operations to within 60 minutes of an alternative airport and adds 3,000 lbs. to mission fuel requirements. The changes are needed to protect against fuel starvation caused by uncommanded fuel transfers from wing tanks to the center tank, FAA said. The AD is based on a March 7 Bombardier advisory that Canadian regulators mandated the next day.
Continental, in the race to lure business travelers back to the skies and boost lagging yields, unveiled plans to spend at least $15 million in install new business-class seats across its fleet of Boeing 777s. While overall yields have remained depressed longer than expected, President Larry Kellner told The DAILY in New York yesterday that the airline's efforts to retain key corporate customers will pay off, and he expects unit revenues will start to show year-over-year improvements in May.
The predictions all seemed so apocalyptic. Former CEO James Goodwin warned, "United may perish." Midway Airlines actually did, sort of, but is now back from the abyss. US Airways MetroJet is gone, along with Shuttle by United. Capacity has been cut, aircraft retirements accelerated and new deliveries deferred. Thousands of people are on the unemployment line as the airlines contract. It's been called a crisis by industry executives and the federal government, and Congress has appropriated billions of dollars to "save" airlines from bankruptcy.
U.S. airlines yesterday received a 60-day extension of war-risk insurance coverage from the government, a move that allows normal operations while government and industry search for a long-term solution. Existing coverage would have expired March 20, and if there was no extension carriers may have had to ground aircraft. Air Transport Association members are forming an insurance entity that would cut their costs to half what private companies were changing.
U.S Major Carriers Productivity, In Revenues and Expenses Per Employe Third Quarter 2001, In Dollars Total Total Operating Operating Revenues Expenses Total (000) (000) Employees Alaska 484,355 467,872 9,531 America West 482,423 583,349 12,187
Delta AirElite Business Jets this week added a five-seat Citation CJ1 to its fleet of charter aircraft through a new charter management agreement. The aircraft is based at the Tallahassee, Fla., Regional Airport. While it has no plans to follow UAL's business jet initiative, Delta said it is adding business jets to its fleet through charter management agreements. These deals enable Delta AirElite "to increase aircraft availability without large capital commitments and to offer on-demand corporate charter service with a large base of high-quality corporate jets."
Infraero, the Brazilian government's agency in charge of airport infrastructure, has budgeted $385 million for 2002, or almost four times as much as the $105 million it has been historically investing. Most funds are earmarked for airports in the state of Sao Paulo. In 2001, Infraero posted $145 million profit, 34% higher than the previous year, and this encouraged larger investments.
Southwest will take two Boeing 737 deliveries in June and use the added capacity to further expand its growing Chicago Midway network. Southwest will launch three daily nonstops between Chicago Midway and San Diego on June 9, pushing to eight the number of new flights added between Midway and the West Coast this year (DAILY, March 6). Also on June 9, Southwest will add two daily frequencies between Phoenix and Orange County, Calif. The new planes, part of 19 deferred last fall, will bump the carrier's all-737 fleet to 366, including 14 taken in 2002.
