America West applied for exemption to provide service to Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester, U.K., and Dusseldorf and Frankfurt, Germany, from Newark. The carrier wants to link its service to Newark from Phoenix and the West Coast with the U.S.-U.K. and U.S.-Germany service, to be operated by Continental under code share. (Docket OST-99-5613)
ARINC and the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) recently demonstrated technologies crucial to the future air navigation environment - VHF Digital Link Mode 2 (VDLM2) and satellite communications in an CNS/ATM (Communications, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management) environment. This first step toward the future environment was accomplished under the European Commission fourth European Framework Program's Airborne Air Traffic Management System.
Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee plans to hold hearings on predatory pricing practices by established carriers in the airline industry. While no date has been set, an aide to Sen. Herbert Kohl (Wis.), ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said the antitrust staff wants to hold the hearings next month. The panel unveiled its plans late Thursday, the same day the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against American charging it with monopolizing service at Dallas/Fort Worth. Subcommittee Chairman Sen.
Flight Safety Foundation's offer of an aviation safety audit for on-demand air charter providers was not a hit with the National Air Transportation Association. "This is an industry already heavily regulated by the FAA and subject to numerous audits," said NATA President Jim Coyne. Fatal accidents in this group over the past 10 years has been "statistically insignificant."
St. George, Utah-based SkyWest boarded 431,363 passengers last month, 56.3% more than in April 1998. Traffic was up 46.9% to nearly 91 million revenue passenger miles as capacity rose 42.1% to 170.7 million available seat miles. As a result, the load factor edged up 1.8 percentage points to 53.3%. SkyWest has code-sharing agreements with Delta at Los Angeles and Salt Lake City and United on the West Coast. For the first four months, SkyWest's passenger boarding improvement was even more dramatic - 61.2% to 1,670,277.
GE Engine Services obtained a $35 million contract to maintain and overhaul the JT9-7 engines powering PeaceAir's five 747-200s. The work will be done at GE's facility in Wales.
Completion of a new taxiway and support facilities has increased the flight-handling capacity of Taichung's Shuinan Airport by one-third, to 200 takeoffs and landings per day from 150. According to an airport spokesman, the increase in flight-handling capacity means a gain 2,500 passengers the airport can serve each day.
British Airways and its International Association of Machinists (IAM) unit have ratified a labor agreement covering customer service, reservation sales, telecommunications and engineering employees, IAM said yesterday. The two sides agreed to send a tentative agreement to IAM employees in an 11th-hour attempt to avert a strike. BA saw the proposal that passed ratification yesterday as a tentative deal, but IAM called it a final offer.
Veritas has received a contract from Airbus Industrie to provide backup and recovery of data generated by a variety of applications. Veritas Software France will perform data archival, disaster recovery and tape media management in support of new aircraft development projects.
British Civil Aviation Authority will carry out a higher number of inspections of long-haul aircraft arriving in the U.K. in the coming weeks, under a program of checks on foreign aircraft at U.K. airports. U.K. Aviation Minister Glenda Jackson ordered the checks following reports that a Malaysian Airlines aircraft landed at London Heathrow with "unusually low fuel levels" (DAILY, May 11). In a meeting between officials from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and MAS, the airline offered to provide the U.K.
FAA's estimate for funds expected from the proposed performance-based organization for air traffic control is "highly optimistic," DOT Inspector General Kenneth Mead said in testimony before the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee. Mead said the estimate - $1.5 billion from user fees in fiscal 2000, is optimistic because the user fee system will require FAA's cost accounting system to be in place and operating -- FAA agreed with the DOT IG's assessment but insisted the agency basically has the right approach.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) maintains that the National Transportation Safety Board has the authority to investigate air accidents like the 1996 TWA Flight 800 disaster, but "if clarifying language is helpful, he will consider supporting it to ensure the FBI would not commandeer a public safety investigation again," a Grassley spokeswoman said. Grassley charged at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing he chaired this week that the investigation "was commandeered" by the FBI, which pushed the now-discredited bomb or missile theory.
Federal Express Corp. received a one-year exemption from DOT to provide cargo service between Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo and Santiago, Dominican Republic. The carrier plans to operate the flights with aircraft chartered from Mountain Air Cargo. (Docket OST-99-5575)
American gave $250,000 to the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology to establish a professorship dedicated to storm warnings and weather safety.
FAA this week issued two airworthiness directives on Boeing 747 series aircraft. The first, directed at the 100/200/SP series, requires repetitive inspections for cracking of the wing front spar web. FAA said the AD is aimed at detecting fatigue damage, which could result in a fuel leak and increased fire risk. The second, directed at 200/300/400 series aircraft, requires replacing fuse pins in the nacelle strut with new, corrosion-resistant pins.
AlliedSignal will provide maintenance and overhaul service for its auxiliary power units in the Swissair and Sabena fleets and third-party fleets under SR Technics/Sabena Technics service agreements. The five-year contract, covering 173 APUs, is valued at $30 million.
DOT granted Alaska Airlines and Air China International permission to operate code-share service between the U.S. and China. Alaska will display Air China's code on flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Portland, Ore., Seattle and Anchorage, and Air China will show Alaska's code on flights from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to Portland. Air China's exemption is good for one year, while Alaska's authority will remain in effect indefinitely. (Docket OST-99-5549)
Fairchild said net earnings for its third quarter ending March 28 increased to $20.4 million from $2.4 million the same quarter last year, although the results are not directly comparable because of a disposition. Sales increased by 1.9% to $146.4 million, excluding the divestiture of Solair, sold on Dec. 31. Jeffrey Stiner, chairman, said that Fairchild Fasteners, the company's main operating unit, showed a revenue increase to $103.7 million from $102.9 million as shipments to Airbus members offset lower shipments to Boeing.
Boeing said yesterday it will consolidate St. Louis facilities and eliminate 6,500 to 7,000 local jobs by mid-2001. The decision follows a Greek government decision to buy F16s from Lockheed Martin and Mirages from Dassault instead of Boeing's F15.
TWA has exercised eight options of 31 it held on Stage 3 Standard Gross Weight Raisbeck Systems, with the balance contingent on outcome of disposition of the 727s in its fleet. TWA was launch customer for the Raisbeck system. Raisbeck has orders and options for 153, spread equally between the 727-100 and 727-200. The kit, which takes about 30 work-hours to install, does not increase empty weight or disturb the Boeing airframe or Pratt engines.
Although Vanguard Airlines VP-Marketing and Planning Russell Winter is "delighted" that the Department of Justice is suing American for its alleged predatory behavior, he doubts the country's second largest airline will completely cease bullying small competitors. "Being under scrutiny does not mean they will not continue with certain practices," he told The DAILY yesterday after the DOJ action.
