New Air Corp., which will announce its new name this morning, also will unveil plans to become the first carrier to offer live satellite-based television on all seats of its Airbus A320 fleet.
Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration will approve a second ground-handling company at 10 of the island's airports. A CAA official said the airports qualifying for a second facility are Chiang Kai-shek Airport, Kaohsiung Airport and domestic airports at Taipei, Hualien, Makung, Tainan, Taitung, Taichung, Kinmen and Chiayi. The official added that, in the future, airlines will be permitted to provide their own ground services only at airports that do not have a professional ground service provider.
Air Lanka's revenue passenger kilometers for June jumped 25%, and year-to-date RPMs rose 25.7%. Freight volume showed its highest growth of the year with a 13.8% surge last month. Air Lanka carried 107,826 passengers in June, up 17.6%.
Lucas Aerospace signed a five-year contract under which Mesaba Airlines returns Lucas's electrical line replaceable units for service and recertification and pays for anticipated repairs and overhauls on a cost-per-flight basis. The contract is valued at $3 million.
Mesaba Airlines saw a 37.8% gain in traffic on 33.7% more capacity for June, which raised the load factor 1.8 percentage points to 61.6%. Passengers carried by the Minneapolis-based regional surged 31.9% for the month. Year-to-date traffic climbed 31.9% and capacity 28.4%, boosting the load factor 1.5 points while passengers carried jumped 30%.
Garuda Indonesia will only make one stop on its Denpasar-Europe services, using Boeing 747-400 aircraft, beginning Oct. 1. Flights to London and Amsterdam will stop only at Bangkok, eliminating Frankfurt. Garuda will introduce nonstop services to Europe April 1, 2001, when it takes delivery of 777 aircraft early in the year. Bachrul Hakim, executive VP-commercial, said the move will put the carrier in face-to-face competition with Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and British Airways. Hakim noted that the reduced stops will make the routes more profitable.
Luxair will end its nonstop service between Newark Airport and Luxembourg Nov. 1 after launching the four weekly flights March 30. Luxair's board took the action despite heavy traffic on the route. The airline projected load factors of up to 97% on flights to Europe during July and August, but the board did not believe the flights would be profitable as soon as hoped.
Air France's traffic for its fiscal year first quarter ended June 30 jumped 22.3% on capacity growth of 20.9%. That compares with average traffic growth of 11.6% in the first quarter of the previous two years, when the carrier raised capacity by an average 10.5%. Air France will boost capacity 9.2% this summer by adding flights to the U.S., Latin America and Europe. At the same time, rivals are trimming or canceling expansion.
Passenger traffic figures at BAA's U.K. airports indicate the company is on course to achieve records this summer. Total passengers in June reached 10.9 million, up 6.5% over last year. Mike Hodgkinson, group airports director, said various anomalies affected May's figures, such as timing of the spring half-term holiday for schools and the Kosovo conflict.
Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a Delta subsidiary, posted an 18.1% gain in traffic on 20.3% more capacity for June. Load factor fell 1.1 percentage points to 59%. Passenger boardings grew 10.7%. Year-to-date traffic jumped 18% and capacity 21.2%, pushing the load factor down 1.4 points.
LOT Polish Airlines will cancel flights on Jan. 1 because of lack of demand for flights and not because of concern about Year 2000 computer breakdowns, as it said earlier. Andrzej Wysocki, LOT director of promotions and public relations, said the airline canceled up to 90% of its flights on Christmas Day and New Year's Day in recent years because loads were light. He said the same situation would apply this year. "We plan to cancel flights on Jan.
Southwest's initiative to start daily service from Hartford Bradley Airport Oct. 31 is the latest step in the carrier's aggressive Northeast expansion and another strike against US Airways. Southwest will operate 12 nonstops from Hartford, Conn., to Baltimore/Washington, Chicago Midway, Nashville and Orlando. Southwest has been slowly expanding its service in the East Coast market, with flights from Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., Islip, N.Y., and, most recently, Raleigh/Durham, all US Airways markets.
Rep. William Lipinski (Ill.), ranking Democrat on the House aviation subcommittee, yesterday introduced a bill directing the FAA to issue a regulation limiting airline passengers to two pieces of carry-on baggage.
Japan Airlines (JAL) will start operating Tokyo-New York-Sao Paolo service in November to boost revenue and operational efficiency. JAL currently flies from Tokyo to Sao Paolo via Los Angeles, but it will halt the service when it starts operating three roundtrip flights weekly via New York. JAL officials told The DAILY it believes there are more business travelers flying to Sao Paolo from New York than from Los Angeles, though both are lucrative routes for U.S. carriers.
SAirGroup unit Swissport International made a takeover offer worth $155 million for Alpha Airport Group's ground-handling unit DynAir. The move makes Swissport the world's largest airport-services company. SAirGroup said the takeover still is subject to approval by British shareholders.
SabreTech yesterday was indicated on murder and manslaughter charges by federal and Florida state authorities in connection with the crash of ValuJet 592 following a three-year investigation. SabreTech counsel Kenneth Quinn said the company will "vigorously defend" against the charges. The federal grand jury indictment charges SabreTech with third-degree murder and manslaughter in the May 11, 1996, crash into the Everglades. All 110 aboard perished.
U.S. Carriers Labor Expense First Quarter 1999 Major Carriers % Of Total Labor Operating Expenses Alaska 118,103,000 33.71 America West 112,359,302 24.34 American 1,194,544,000 33.28 Continental 492,753,000 27.85 Delta 1,110,050,000 34.54
American filed separate applications with Sabena and Swissair for reciprocal code sharing under U.S.-Belgium and -Switzerland open-skies pacts. American and American Eagle want authority to display Sabena's code on flights between any points in the U.S. and between the U.S. and Belgium and points in third countries. American and Sabena and its subsidiaries Sobelair and Delta Air Transport seek blanket authority for Sabena to display American's designator code on flights between any points in Belgium; between the U.S.
Frontier Airlines has leased a Boeing 737-300 from Sweden-based Indigo Aviation, with another to come later. The aircraft will enter service this week, replacing a 737-200 that Frontier plans to retire later this month.
Delta Connection carrier Comair posted a 30.6% jump in traffic on 28.1% more capacity for June, compared with the same 1998 month. The resulting load rose 2 percentage points to 70%, the carrier's highest to date. Boardings surged 19.5% to 649,636, also a record.
American will start flying three Boeing 727 roundtrips per day between Miami and Tampa, beginning Nov. 1. American Eagle, which serves the route with 13 daily roundtrips, will reduce its schedule to eight trips a day.
Taiwan's second designated carrier, Angel Airlines has taken the Ministry of Transport and Communications to task for restricting the carrier's domestic services. Approval for international services is also being hampered and delayed by bureaucracy, according to Angel, whose chairman, Somchai Benjarongkakul, said if the government were sincere in its aviation liberalization policy, it should allow the carrier to fly to every airport in Thailand.
Paul Galis has been named FAA acting deputy associate administrator for airports. Galis succeeds Quentin Taylor who retired July 2. Kate Lang will serve in Galis's previous position as acting director, office of airport planning and programming.
U.S. Carriers Labor Expense First Quarter 1999 Major Carriers % Of Total Labor Operating Expenses Alaska 118,103,000 33.71 America West 112,359,302 24.34 American 1,194,544,000 33.28 Continental 492,753,000 27.85 Delta 1,110,050,000 34.54
Atlantic Coast Airlines yesterday reached a conditional agreement with Fairchild Aerospace to acquire up to 110 of its 328JET and 428JET aircraft. The contract will remain conditional until partner United provides its approval for ACA to operate feeder jet aircraft with fewer than 50 seats as United Express, or until ACA waives the condition itself.
