Aer Lingus was forced to cancel all but a few flights today after employees voted for a 24-hour strike. Approximately 20,000 passengers will be affected by the strike that was called last Friday by the largest public sector union in Ireland, IMPACT.
Air Canada will lease six Airbus A319s and three A320s from International Lease Finance Corp. for 10 years. The carrier last week announced the purchase of 12 A321s and two A319s from Airbus.
DOT approved cooperation agreements that include antitrust immunity for Malaysian Airlines/Northwest and SAS/Icelandair. MAS/Northwest's request was unopposed, and DOT, finding that, with no city-pair overlap, competition would not be adversely affected by immunizing the alliance, issued a final decision. MAS is required to report U.S.-Malaysia origin-and-destination data -- the carriers provide the only service in the market.
Correction: The fiscal 2001 transportation appropriations conference report in FAA facilities and equipment funded the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) at $74.8 million and provided total funding of $111.8 million in landing/navaids appropriations. The DAILY erroneously stated that the $111.8 figure was the funding for WAAS (DAILY, Oct. 9).
Continental plans to add seasonal daily service between Newark and Anchorage next summer. Beginning June 14, 2001, a daily flight will operate between Newark and Anchorage with a Boeing 757. Continental claims this flight will be the only nonstop service offered between the New York-area and Anchorage.
U.S. Major Carriers Traffic September 2000 (000) September September % 2000 1999 Change Alaska Revenue Passenger Miles 884,000 907,000 -2.5 Available Seat Miles 1,411,000 1,459,000 -3.3 Load Factor (%) 62.7 62.2 America West
After conducting its own inspections of threaded fasteners, the DOT Inspector General says its findings "suggest a systemic weakness" in FAA's oversight process, even when safety issues are "brought to the agency's attention." The OIG said FAA provided it with a list of fasteners used in critical applications from several sources including engine mount bolts, landing gear bolts and bolts used inside jet engines. Similar parts from end-user inventories were then shipped to Hill Air Force Base for testing by certified technicians," the OIG said.
Kenneth Mead, DOT inspector general, will speak Oct. 23 at the monthly International Aviation Club meeting at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, with lunch beginning at noon. Reservation information is available on IAC's web page at www.ga2online.com.
U.S. and Jamaican officials agreed late Friday to open skies for all-cargo services following meetings in Washington during DOT's International Transportation Symposium last week.
Aerolineas Argentinas stockholders, who Friday saved the carrier from bankruptcy by approving a nearly $700 million salvage plan, yesterday named Emilio Cabrera the airline's new CEO. Under the agreement between Spanish majority shareholder SEPI and the Argentine government, which holds 5%. SEPI will put up $650 million and the Argentine authorities $32.5 million, up from $20 million (DAILY, Oct. 16). Total debt 10 years after privatization stands at $847 million.
LastMinuteTravel.com recently added five new airlines to its growing roster of international providers. Austrian Airlines, AeroMexico, BWIA, Swissair and Sabena plan to use the Atlanta-based site to offer consumers direct access to time-sensitive inventory.
United, American and Delta each grew in the first nine months of 2000, but all lost traffic market share, according to DOT data (see tables, Pages 7-8). TWA and Alaska both lost share as well, while Southwest, Northwest, Continental, Southwest, ATA, US Airways and America West gained share.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) have knocked the 2001 appropriations conference report for what Shuster calls "unprecedented earmarking" of discretionary airport improvement funds. McCain said, "I realize that as members of Congress, we travel a great deal. However, I don't believe that experience supplies members with the necessary wisdom to replace FAA's judgment."
DOT granted British Airways an exemption for London Stansted/Glasgow Prestwick-Anchorage cargo service. BA also gained authority to commingle cargo on the U.S.-U.K. routing with London-Osaka service. Atlas Air will operate the service under a wet-lease for BA. (Docket OST-00-7968)
AIRCRAFT TRANSACTIONS FOR JULY 11 - AUGUST 1, 2000 Seller/ New Type / Previous Operator Owner Engine Operator Boeing TWA First Security Boeing Bank NA 717-200/ BR715C American Aerolineas Universal Turbine Boeing
Kotaite has asked FAA Administrator Jane Garvey to depend on ICAO to audit countries on aviation regulations. "It is costly to do the same work when you have the same objectives and standards," Kotaite said. FAA has been hesitant to adopt this view, he said. "Basically, there is no difference in our standards and procedures, he said. Garvey has "expressed full support of the ICAO audit program," but it is "not necessary to have two audits," he said. If countries do not correct problems uncovered in an audit, ICAO will publish the results.
AeroMexico traffic for September rose 23.6% on 17.9% more capacity, and the carrier's passenger count gained 18.7% to 753,834. In the first nine months, traffic grew 20.7% to 10.8 billion revenue passenger kilometers, while capacity rose 15.8% to 15.8 billion RPKs.
TAM wants to amend its authority in order to display American's code on flights between Sao Paulo and Navegantes, Brazil. The U.S. recently selected Navegantes as an additional code-share service point for U.S. carriers under the U.S.-Brazil bilateral. TAM has authority to place American's code on flights between various points in Brazil under the carriers' code-share arrangement, without local traffic rights. (Docket OST-00-8028)
Continental's third quarter profits rose 31.7% to $137 million due to record traffic and loads despite higher fuel prices. "It was a super quarter in what promises to be a banner year," said CEO Gordon Bethune, highlighting the carrier's on-time performance in challenging summer weather conditions. The airline, easily beating analyst expectations, also met its goal of a 10% operating margin for the second time this year, reporting a 9.7% margin. Revenue swelled 15.8% to $2.6 billion from $2.3 billion, and yields grew 8.8% to 12.98 cents.
Northwest and Continental have forged an interline electronic ticket network, knocking down another barrier to e-ticketing. The inability to transfer e-tickets from one carrier to another traditionally has been a hurdle to customer acceptance of booking with e-tickets. The interline technology lets customers use e-tickets when their itineraries include travel on both carriers and allows both airlines to accept e-ticketed customers traveling on changed itineraries involving the other carrier with no need to convert to a paper ticket.
AAR Corp. announced the sale of its ownership position in Aerospan.com to SITA, its partner in the e-marketplace joint venture, announced in February. AAR will continue to use the service and will retain a small stake in the venture.
CanJet last week won a cease-and-desist order from the Competition Bureau against Air Canada alleging the larger carrier committed anti-competitive acts. Air Canada said it intends to appeal the order on legal grounds. The competition commissioner said that Air Canada has engaged in conduct that could constitute anti-competitive acts and it reduced its fares to target CanJet on five routes -- Halifax-Ottawa, Halifax-Montreal, Halifax-St. John's, Toronto-Windsor and Ottawa-Windsor.
TWA's yield management department has seen a 100% employee turnover in the last 18 months. Roughly 40% of the staff was terminated, with the remaining majority resigning or moving to other departments. TWA has since redefined job functions and is fully staffed with one of the "most talented yield management teams in the entire industry," said Managing Director David Minnelli.
