FAA yesterday ordered airlines to improve their inspections of the turbofan engines in use on almost all today's jet transports. The agency told airlines to do "enhanced" inspections of critical life-limited parts. The airlines also must include the enhanced inspections in their continuous airworthiness maintenance programs. FAA said the airworthiness directives were prompted by its study of "in-service events involving uncontained failures of critical rotating engine parts that indicated the need for improved inspections."
Association of European Airlines Traffic February 1999 February 1999 Passenger Data % % Pts. RPKs Change ASKs Change Load Change (Mil) 99/98 (Mil) 99/98 Factor 99/98 EUROPE 8,122.6 6.0 14,020.3 4.0 57.9 1.1
US Airways' service between Boston Logan and Washington Reagan will be operated by US Airways Shuttle. The DAILY April 13 incorrectly said the operator would be US Airways' low-fare carrier, MetroJet.
Travelocity.ca, recently introduced in Canada, offers features tailored to the Canadian market including Canadian news and information, such as fare sales, rail schedules and traveler advice; popular vacation spots for Canadian travelers; pricing in Canadian dollars and local ticket fulfillment, and bilingual customer support 24 hours a day.
Southwest gave out 927,000 free travel awards last year, up nearly 19% from the 782,000 given in 1997 and up 88% from the 494,000 in 1996. During the same period - 1996-98 - Southwest's revenue increased 22%.
Boeing Commercial said it will digitize all principal maintenance manuals so they can be accessed on compact disks. Maintenance documents traditionally are published on paper and microfilm. Tom Schick, executive VP, said, "We will offer this new digital tool for all Boeing and Douglas-built airplane models to help our customers streamline their maintenance processes." Compact disks will hold what are now multi-volume, loose-leaf binders that take up many feet of shelf space.
DOT granted Delta an initial two-year exemption to provide scheduled combination service between any points in the U.S. and any points in the U.K. except London Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Delta told DOT it is expanding its U.S.-U.K. third-country, code-share service with Air France and plans initially to display its designator code on Air France flights between Paris and Birmingham. (Docket OST-99-5391)
China Airlines' board voted officially to confirm Sandy K.Y. Liu as the company's president. Liu has been acting president for five months, and Chairman H.I. Chiang said he has "worked hard and performed admirably in the difficult environment brought on by the Asian financial turmoil and the devaluation of the local currency." As acting president, Liu was instrumental in implementing CAL's fleet renewal and simplification project, which seeks to increase efficiency and operating profits by reducing the number of aircraft types in CAL's fleet from seven to five.
Delta's summer schedule will include more long-haul flights between Atlanta and the western U.S. and new Canadair Regional Jet service by Atlantic Southeast to the Southeast and Islip, N.Y. Delta will increase Atlanta flights by one per day to Denver and San Antonio beginning June 1, San Francisco July 1 and San Diego July 15, bringing Denver and San Francisco service to seven roundtrips per day apiece, San Antonio to six departures and seven returns to Atlanta, and San Diego to four departures and five returns.
American Trans Air is forecasting that its military revenues for fiscal 2000 will increase 60% over the current fiscal year, to $200 million. The increase in military business is part of a strategy to "improve our presence in the military market and in turn to take full advantage of our new long-range capabilities resulting from the acquisition of L-1011-500s," said Chief Executive John Tague. He also intends to shift the company's revenue to sources "less sensitive to economic cycles and fuel prices."
Comair will expand nonstop jet service from its Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky hub to 11 cities with the start of its summer schedule. The Delta Connection carrier will add one roundtrip jet flight on June 1 to Bangor, Maine, for a total of four daily flights, and to Columbia, S.C., for a total of six. Houston Hobby will have daily service and Sarasota/Brandon, Fla., will have daily seasonal flights.
MetroJet will expand service between Boston Logan Airport and Washington Reagan on July 9, offering hourly flights each weekday between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. The current hourly service between Dulles and both Boston and New York LaGuardia will become part of the US Airways Shuttle in the next few months. MetroJet also will add four daily nonstop roundtrip Atlanta-Raleigh/Durham flights beginning Oct. 2. MetroJet has seven other flights between Atlanta and Dulles.
Midway converted three Canadair Regional Jet options to firm orders valued at $65 million. Its firm orders total 26 CRJs, 12 of which have been delivered.
The U.K.'s Swanwick air traffic control center passed its technical transfer milestone at the end of March, slightly ahead of schedules published last year, National Air Traffic Services reported. The facility has been turned over to engineers for integration into NATS's operational systems, including radar, flight data processing and communications. This will take more than a year.
Frontier reported March increases of 36% in traffic, to 164.3 million revenue passenger miles, and 29.3% in capacity, to 259.6 million available seat miles, boosting the load factor 3.1 percentage points to 63.3%. Passengers flown grew 37% to 187,520. Year-to-date RPMs climbed 34.9% and ASMs 30.6%, pushing the load factor up 1.8 points to 58.9%. Enplanements were up 36%.
Singapore Airlines will join the Star Alliance, "it's just a matter of when," according to a source at one of the current member airlines. Star Alliance carriers will meet May 2 in Sydney, and at recent meetings, they have chosen new members.
AirTran will add a fifth nonstop flight between Jacksonville, Fla., and Atlanta and a fourth nonstop between the Piedmont Triad, Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem, and Atlanta on May 16. Fares in both markets start at $49 one way.
British aviation safety researchers will build a facility simulating current and future widebody aircraft cabins for passenger evacuation testing, the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority said yesterday. The #390,000 (US$625,000) facility, 20 meters long and 15 meters wide, will replicate sections of current two-aisle aircraft and, with further development, double-deck configurations like that of the prospective Airbus A3XX.
U.S. Major Carriers Pacific Share of Service Fourth Quarter 1998 Total Revenue Departures American 743 Delta 1,022 Northwest 5,714 United 5,483 Total 12,962 Average Number of Seats Per Departure American 231
British Midland is adding service to Germany and Hungary and will begin a second daily flight to Warsaw April 25 under its expanded summer schedule. The carrier recently began three daily flights from London Heathrow to Stuttgart and Hannover. Service to four of British Midland's five German destinations is in cooperation with Lufthansa. The carriers also introduced twice-daily Frankfurt-Edinburgh flights. On May 28, British Midland will begin daily roundtrips to Budapest.
LanChile posted healthy traffic and cash increases last month. March traffic rose 14.9% on 9.1% more capacity, which raised the load factor 3.5 percentage points to 68.4%. International traffic increased 24% on 19% more capacity, resulting in a 69.8% load factor, while domestic traffic fell 7.9% on 13.4% less capacity, lifting the load factor 3.8 points to 64%. LanChile's international passenger count has risen 24.3% during the first quarter, to 531,000, while domestic totals fell 8.8% to 626,000.
Vanguard reported a 1% decline in traffic on 5% more capacity for March, reducing the load factor 5 percentage points to 69.3%. The Kansas City-based carrier flew 63.8 million revenue passenger miles and 92.1 million available seat miles. The carrier flew 136,214 passengers, essentially the same as in March 1998. Year-to-date RPMs climbed 4% on 2% fewer ASMs, raising the load factor 4 points. Enplanements rose 7%.
Flight attendants at Reno Air are unhappy about the way American's Association of Professional Flight Attendants plan to merge Reno's 460 cabin crew into APFA's rank and file. Reno flight attendants, represented by the Teamsters, say the integration plan, which was approved by American last week (DAILY, April 12), short-changes them on seniority bidding and they plan to launch a campaign to pepper APFA leadership with e-mail messages, telephone calls and petitions to convince them to change it.
