Crossair President Moritz Suter expects to sell the Saab aircraft that he will replace with new Embraer jets ordered this week. After some research, Suter found that the Saab 2000 "is a perfect little aircraft for DHL, UPS and Federal Express," with its 6.5-7 tons of payload capacity. "There are still some Lockheed Electras burning fuel like hell" in the cargo business, he noted.
Gulf Air, taking delivery of its first Airbus A330, will deploy the large twinjet on its core routes to London. The four-nation carrier will use Airbus's latest innovation to grow, but eventually it will replace all Boeing 767s with A330s. Gulf Air took delivery of the first of six A330-200s Wednesday at the Paris Air Show. It will receive four by yearend and two in early 2000, with options for six more, in a deal valued at US$550 million.
Air Europe today will inaugurate New York Kennedy-Pisa/Venice service. The first direct service in the market provides access to Florence and the Tuscany region. The Italian carrier, designated for the service under terms of the U.S.-Italy open-skies pact, will operate six weekly roundtrips on the route. Delta wants to serve the Kennedy-Pisa route when authority is available.
FAA, under the guise that it will "rigorously enforce" aircrew scheduling, is significantly changing the rules without assessing financial implications or giving industry an opportunity to comment, according to Jim Coyne, president of the National Air Transportation Association (DAILY, June 16). NATA and the Air Transport Association are planning responses to the FAA action. Coyne said the action "strikes at the very flexibility needed to perform on-demand air charter operations."
Carriers win short-haul travelers based on their experience at the airport, not aboard the aircraft, according to a study by Chicago-based Cambridge Group for United. The study based its conclusion on information from travelers who fly short-haul - trips of 500 miles or fewer - on United Shuttle, Alaska Airlines, Delta Express, Southwest, US Airways, Fasttrack by Northwest, BusinessOne by United and other airlines.
Flight attendants at Air Canada voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike yesterday if they fail to win pension and work condition improvements. Pam Sachs, president of the airline's Canadian Union of Public Employees unit, said 94% of voting members favor the strike authorization. The two sides agreed to resume talks today, she said. Negotiations, begun nine months ago, broke off May 27. The flight attendants dispute follows a crippling 13-day pilots strike in September 1998 that cost the airline about C$250 million (US$171.3 million) and led to a full-year loss.
U.S. Major Carriers Traffic May, 5 Months 1999 (000) May May % 1999 1998 Change Alaska Revenue Passenger Miles 939,000 940,000 -0.1 Available Seat Miles 1,385,000 1,368,000 1.2 Load Factor (%) 67.8 68.7
Delta and Southwest will honor scheduled interviews and training dates for U.S. Air Force pilots who had planned to leave the service but were caught up in the Kosovo-related stop-loss program invoked this month. Delta will "preserve the mutual benefit of the Air Force, Delta Airlines and the Air Force pilots and other personnel who are now or will in the future seek employment with Delta," Charles Tutt, Delta's flight operations director and chief pilot, said during a recent airline, National Guard and AF Reserve pilot symposium.
Air Transport Association yesterday unveiled its once-delayed, voluntary Customer Service Plan, intended to ease the volume of consumer complaints and head off demands for passenger rights legislation in Congress. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), who called the ATA reforms "very significant steps," served notice that he will watch how the voluntary plan plays out.
Organizations representing large and small repair shops reacted differently yesterday to FAA's announcement that it will strengthen its rules governing oversight of the shops in the U.S. and abroad (DAILY, June 17). "It is absolutely unobtainable for many small repair stations," said Ric Peri, manager of technical services for the National Air Transportation Association, which represents Part 135 operators.
TWA will make a competitive push to Latin America and the Caribbean, beginning Nov. 1, by adding 12 daily flights to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Chief Executive Bill Compton said yesterday that San Juan will become TWA's first "focus city," from which the airline will provide connecting service and expand flights to non-hub cities. TWA will launch nonstop service from San Juan to Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Santo Domingo and Aruba, using Boeing 757s and MD-80s. It also will increase flights from San Juan to its St. Louis, Boston and New York Kennedy hubs.
The U.S. and the U.K. "could be on the verge of a historic breakthrough" in achieving open skies, US Airways Chairman Stephen Wolf said yesterday at a lunch marking the "long-awaited" start of Charlotte-London Gatwick service. Wolf urged U.S. and U.K. government and business leaders to "work unswervingly toward this goal. It can be at long last accomplished." Timing, however, "is critical, and the time for an agreement is now.
American wants to start daily nonstop Chicago O'Hare-San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, service Nov. 1. The carrier asked DOT for an exemption to serve the dual-designation route, noting that no U.S. flag operates service in the city-pair. It plans to operate seasonal service using 133-seat MD-83 aircraft configured for 20 first-class and 113 economy seats. (Docket OST-99-5830)
Growth And Share and Of Traffic Between The U.S. And World Regions, 1994 to 1998* 1994 1995 1996 1997 Europe To/From U.S. Onboard Passengers 33,042,989 34,744,009 37,442,429 40,516,220 Seats 45,749,867 46,326,509 49,711,652 52,182,823 Load Factor (%) 72.2 75.0 75.3 77.6 Far East To/From U.S.
International Lease Finance Corp. said yesterday it has ordered 30 Airbus A318s as part of a transaction for 60 A320 family aircraft. ILFC's order is the first for the A318. ILFC also ordered up to 16 A319s, four A320s and 10 A321s, of which one A319 and two A320s were announced previously...Boeing said Emirates will lease a Rolls-Royce-powered 777-300 from ILFC. The 777 will join nine other 777-200s in service and two 777-300s to be delivered later this year.
American and Delta each applied at DOT for all 14 U.S.-France frequencies that become available April 1, 2000, while Tower Air requested two, which it would use for service to Paris from Los Angeles and/or Miami. Tower told DOT that France is its "second most important international destination," and it noted that most competitors "operate two to six times more flights to France than Tower" and do so from multiple gateways.
British Airways is offering customers who purchase a roundtrip economy ticket for travel June 22-Sept. 30 a free ticket good for travel Nov. 1-March 31, with Dec. 15-Jan. 15 blacked out. The offer is good from any one of BA's 22 U.S. gateways. Sample roundtrip fares are $598 from New York, Philadelphia and Boston, $638 from Baltimore or Washington and $778 from Detroit, Dallas/Fort Worth or Houston. Tickets must be purchased by June 30.
AirTran has dropped its Washington Dulles-Midway service, after terminating Dulles-Boston in March, but vows to continue flying Dulles-Atlanta despite competition from Delta, US Airways and United. President Robert Fornaro said Boston and Midway "were marginal to begin with." There are about 34 Dulles-Atlanta trips each day and AirTran offers by far the lowest fare on the route, up to 40% less than competitors, Fornaro said. It also carries considerable flow-through traffic into Atlanta.
Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group reported a 7.4% traffic decline on 8.9% more capacity for May, which pushed the load factor down 8.7 percentage points to 49.4% from the comparable month last year. Passenger boardings fell 30.7%.
Pegasus Aviation, one of the largest lessors of 727 aircraft, has ordered five firm and 10 option Super 727s, BFGoodrich Aerospace/Aerostructures Group said yesterday. The Super 27 program includes new nacelles from BFGoodrich and new engines from Pratt&Whitney. To date, 63 Super 27s, including 22 from Valsan, have been sold.
SkyWest traffic gained 35% and capacity 34.9% in May, boosting the load factor 0.1 percentage point to 53%. The St. George, Utah-based airline posted a 34.6% rise in passengers flown. Year-to-date traffic grew 42.4% and capacity 37.9%, resulting in a load factor gain of 1.7 points. Passengers flown were up 54.7%.
United's weak domestic traffic in April and May was a "one-time event, and there are "no other signs of softening in the industry," reviving the possibility of record earnings for the carrier, United Chief Executive Gerald Greenwald told The DAILY yesterday. United warned recently that second-quarter earnings could be lower than anticipated due to weak domestic load factors, but Greenwald said he still has the goal of achieving full-year record earnings of $11 per share.
The tentative offer TWA put before its flight attendants for ratification gives cabin crew a 20.5% pay raise over its 18-month lifespan, eliminates C scale wages and insures full back payment of $27 million under an arbitrated pay settlement, the Marx Award. The deal includes a 17% raise for those with 12 or more years of seniority, including 8.5% due under the award plus a 3.5% increase on Aug. 1, 2000.
Swiss regional carrier Crossair's planned fleet renewal could be worth up to $4.9 billion to Embraer, the companies said in Paris. Crossair is not only the launch customer for the Brazilian planemaker's 70-seat ERJ-170 and 108-seat ERJ-190-200 - it placed 30 firm orders for each and took options for 100 more, the breakdown of which is yet to be determined - it also ordered 15 49-seat ERJ-145s, and took an option for 25 more jets, either ERJ-145s or 37-seat ERJ-137s (DAILY, June 16).
