Air Canada will start nonstop service between Washington Reagan and Ottawa Aug. 3, using 50-seat Canadair Regional Jet aircraft. The service, Air Canada's 50th new route since the U.S.-Canada transborder agreement, will be available on business days. United will offer code-share services on the route.
Mesaba Airlines flew 116.9 million revenue passenger miles in May, up 37.8%. Available seat miles rose 31.3% to 206.5 million, and the load factor gained 2.7 percentage points to 56.6%. The number of passengers jumped 38% to 459,500. For the quarter to date, passenger traffic rose 30.3%, capacity 35.1%, load factor 2.1 points and passengers boarded 35.9%.
Denmark Friday cast a lone veto on extending the current intra-European Union duty- and tax-free regime, blocking the "will of 14 other" EU members, according to Philippe Hamon, director general of Airports Council International-Europe. Failure to reverse the EU directive, which required a unanimous vote, means the end of duty-free shopping for passengers traveling between European Union countries as of July 1.
Senate Appropriations Committee clearly had misgivings about the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) and the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), even though the two were funded at requested levels. Some of the "continuing problems" with FAA's two largest procurements, STARS and WAAS, "fuel concern that the agency hasn't turned the corner yet in the administration of major procurements," the committee said in its transportation appropriations report.
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey named Louise Maillett acting associate administrator for the Office of Airports. Maillett, deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Policy, Planning and International Aviation, succeeds Susan Kurland, who joined US Airways.
US Airways will close its aircraft doors five minutes before the departure time beginning June 15 to boost its on-time departure rates. The carrier is asking passengers to be on board and seated 10 minutes prior to departure. For the past six months, 95% of US Airways on-time departures arrived on time - within 14 minutes of scheduled arrival time.
AirTran enplaned 15.6% more passengers in May than in the same 1998 month and flew 0.9% more revenue passenger miles. Capacity declined 6.5%, driving the load factor up 4.7 percentage points to 64.7%. For five months, the carrier reported 7.5% more RPMs and 2.9% more capacity. The load factor gained 2.7 points to 63% and enplanements jumped 24.6%.
British World Airlines has extended its wet-lease contracts with Jersey European Airways on two British Aerospace ATPs. The leases were originally agreed to earlier this year and now are extended to October for one and September for the second. One of the 66-seat aircraft is operating on JEA's Southampton-Guernsey route five times a day, and the other is based in Glasgow, serving Birmingham and the Channel Islands. British World Airlines is a subsidiary of the publicly listed BWA Group, specializing in European wet-leasing and charter flights.
National Air Transportation Association, notified Friday, along with other industry groups, by FAA that the agency intends to strictly enforce flight and duty time rules for pilots on reserve, says this an "indication that pressure is building for the FAA to act on a new rulemaking proposal." NATA says FAA is being pressured by both the National Transportation Safety Board and by pilot unions to implement stricter rules.
Consumers who depend on the Global Positioning System for locations in the air, at sea or on land may experience problems during an end-of-week (EOW) rollover Aug. 22 and by Year 2000 problems if consumer GPS receivers and applications are not Y2K-ready. The problems include the inability of receivers to locate satellites, resulting in receivers not working, receivers will take more time than usual to locate the satellites, receivers will appear to be working but will display inaccurate positions, times or dates.
Travelocity.com reported gross sales of more than $128 million for the first quarter, up 156% from the comparable period last year. The Sabre Group's travel web site also registered 1.2 million new members in the quarter and 3.8 million unique visitors - those who visit the site once - in March.
American yesterday still had not identified all passengers that were aboard Flight 1420, which crashed Tuesday night at the Little Rock, Ark., Airport (DAILY, June 3). The carrier said it "will not release any additional passenger names until the medical examiner has completed the identification of the remains and announced the identities of the fatalities." Bob Baker, executive VP, said Wednesday that American had not been able to talk to 21 passengers or their relatives or verify whether they were in medical facilities.
U.S. and French transportation representatives will meet June 29-30 in Washington to discuss intermodal code sharing, under which airlines would code share - and offer frequent flyer miles - on the French railroad system.Air France is offering its passengers such an option, and "U.S. carriers are interested," according to a State Department official.
KLM's operating income for fiscal 1998-99 fell to 425 million Netherlands guilders (US$200 million) from NLG811 million ($381 million) the previous year. Earnings per share were down 10%. The airline agreed to pay a dividend of NLG1.50 (70 cents), representing a payout ratio of about 40% of net income, excluding the net results from the sale of holdings.
SITA won a major contract with Lufthansa to provide the airline with a global communications network. The five-year contract, valued at $215 million, aims to cut the airline's infrastructure costs, standardize its information technology worldwide and ensure Year 2000 compliance. In addition, SITA received a two-year, $32 million contract to link Lufthansa staff throughout the world to its central host system in Frankfurt. The project gives Lufthansa the Internet Protocol standards it needs for the future.
KLM's corporate services unit, Traxxer, has signed a marketing agreement with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Internet Travel Network. ITN and Hooffdorpp, Netherlands-based Traxxer jointly will market and support ITN's flagship Global Manager online booking technology.
FAA scheduled two job recruitment fairs June 9 and 10 in the Chicago area at which it plans to hire 250 to 300 electronic technicians for its Airways Facilities Division, which installs and maintains air traffic control equipment. FAA said electronic specialists are needed to support a number of areas, including radar, navigational aids, telecommunications, automation and environmental systems and equipment.
British Airways franchise partner CityFlyer Express will begin service from London Gatwick to Shannon in October with one flight each weekday and one on Sunday. Flights will use British Aerospace Avro RJ100s and Shannon is CityFlyer's third city in Ireland after Dublin and Cork. CityFlyer will accept two more RJ100s in July and August, taking its RJ fleet to seven among a total of 18 aircraft.
The Communications Workers of America yesterday asked the National Mediation Board for an immediate rerun of an employee vote on representation. Last week, a federal appeals court invalidated the first CWA election, which occurred in September 1997. CWA wants NMB to act in time to send out new ballots for an election by July 1. The union said passenger service agents at the airline have not had a raise in nearly seven years. US Airways has pledged to give agents wage and benefits improvements that were agreed to in bargaining.
While FAA is on target to be Year 2000-compliant by its projected date of June 30, the Senate Appropriations Committee warns that testing isn't the final step and told FAA it "must undertake" contingency planning if everything does not work as expected on Jan. 1, 2000. The committee, in its report on FY 2000 transportation appropriations, directed the contingency planning and told FAA it expects to receive status reports from the agency on the effort. The reports would be included in regular reports FAA provides the committee.
The Emirates Group, comprising Emirates and ground-handling and travel unit DNATA, reported profits of $117 million, up 15.6%. Group revenue rose 8.8% to $1.3 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31. The airline contributed $1.2 billion to group revenue and DNATA's share was $154 million. The airline's profits increased 19.3% to $85 million, while DNATA's profits grew 6.6% to $32 million. "It was an extremely tough year," said Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum.
The 10 largest U.S. carriers posted an on-time arrivals record of 75.7% in April, not as good as March's 78.1% or April 1998's 79.1%, according to DOT's latest Air Travel Consumer Report. Northwest was first, 80.6%, TWA second, 80.3%, and Continental third, 78.4%. America West was eighth, 71.6%, United ninth, 70.9%, and American 10th, 69.7%. Alaska improved from 10th in March to sixth in April, 72.5%.
United Express carrier Atlantic Coast Airlines will expand regional jet service between its Washington Dulles base and Indianapolis by adding early-morning departures in both directions, starting July 11. The new flights, operated with 50-passenger Canadair Regional Jets, mean "business travelers can spend the entire day in the nation's capital and still return home that same evening," said VP-Sales Angie Shermer. United Express offers 584 daily departures from Dulles and Chicago O'Hare.
Alaska Air Group said traffic declined by 0.1% for Alaska Airlines in May to 939 million revenue passenger miles. Capacity rose by 1.3% to 1.4 billion available sat miles. Load factor was 67.8%, down from 68.7%. Passengers carried rose slightly. Through May, traffic was up 7.3% to 4.6 billion RPMs, capacity was up 6.1% to 6.9 billion ASMs, load factor rose to 66.9% from 66.2%, and passengers carried rose to 5.3 million from 5 million.
