Chautauqua Airlines, a US Express carrier based in Indianapolis, on Wednesday launched nonstop service between Buffalo and Washington Dulles. The carrier operates three daily nonstop flights every business day and one on Sunday, using Saab 340 aircraft.
Charlotte, N.C.-based CCAIR, Inc., an independent airline - but being acquired by Mesa Air Group - that provides service as US Airways Express in the southeastern U.S., reported a 54.6% jump in traffic on 60.1% more capacity for February 1999 compared with the same 1998 month, which depressed the load factor 1.9 percentage points to 53.2%. CCAIR flew 13.9 million revenue passenger miles and 26.1 million available seat miles. Passengers boarded grew 23.8% to 61,954. CCAIR February Capacity, Traffic Up Sharply
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) opposes Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain's (R-Ariz.) bid to add 48 daily slots at Washington Reagan Airport, a key feature of the committee's proposed FAA reauthorization. Lott says other senators are concerned that 48 slots will jeopardize passing the bill in the Senate and reconciling it with the House measure, which permits just six. He urged the Senate to approve only the 24 slots that 92 senators backed last year before the bill died in conference.
DOT Office of Inspector General (OIG) says developing digital data link technology to meet growing demand for air travel will be a "complex, long-term effort" of "substantial but uncertain" costs. The technology has been under development at FAA for 15 years and was to be in use at selected air traffic control facilities by late 1996, the OIG said. Estimates now are that data link "will be in use at only one location in mid- 2002 - six years later than anticipated," the OIG said.
U.K.-based Suckling Airways plans to launch new service between London's close-in London City Airport and Dundee, Scotland. The service, the airline's first from London City, will comprise four daily flights operated with a new-generation Fairchild Dornier 328 airliner. The Scottish flag will be displayed on the aircraft's nose, and cabin decor and crew uniforms will have a tartan theme. To promote the launch of the service, Suckling is offering a roundtrip fare of #69, plus taxes, for weekend flights. The fully flexible business round-trip will be #284, plus tax.
Manx Airlines said it will honor all tickets sold by Emerald Airways on the Liverpool-Isle of Man service after March 28, when Emerald plans to withdraw from the route. Manx said it will boost service on the route to eight flights daily.
The ATR partnership is setting its sights on reducing maintenance costs by 17% before the middle of 2000. The manufacturer hopes to extend the interval for ATR 42 and 72 A-checks to 500 flight hours, while the C-check interval go up to 4,000 flight hours. "In addition, the program will significantly streamline and downsize the content of each maintenance check, reflecting the excellent in-service reliability achieved to date with the ATR fleet. A special focus will be on engine and vendor equipment," ATR said.
Continental Express and the city of Knoxville yesterday announced plans to build a new regional jet maintenance facility in the city. The carrier also said it would launch daily nonstoop service between Knoxville and Houston in July with plans to add service to Cleveland Newark by yearend.
FAA executives expressed confidence yesterday they will meet the June 30 deadline set more than a year ago to attain "100% implementation" of Year 2000 computer date changeover measures. Administrator Jane Garvey and Roy Long, Y2K program office director, said this does not mean there will be no disruptions, such as baggage system problems, on what Garvey said is "going to be an unusual day." But both likened the problems expected for airlines and airports to those produced by bad weather.
Rapidly expanding Air Wisconsin, a United Express affiliate, posted a 78.3% increase in traffic last month to 76.8 million revenue passenger miles, compared with February 1998. Available seat miles jumped 61.1% to 124.6 million, driving up the load factor six percentage points to 61.7%. Passenger boardings climbed 65.4%. Air Wisconsin Traffic Jumps 78.3 Percent Feb 99 Feb 98 2 Mths 99 2 Mths 98 RPMs 76,821,000 43,089,000 152,890,000 88,185,000
Alaska Air Group subsidiary Horizon Air will begin nonstop F28 jet service between Boise, Idaho, and Los Angeles, effective June 7, the regional announced. The carrier will use the 69-seat aircraft to operate three daily flights. Elapsed time is two hours.
DOT Secretary Rodney Slater said yesterday that DOT has had discussions with the Justice Department about dominant air carriers squeezing out new entrants into their markets, but proposed remedies would fall short of antitrust legislation. "We clearly have not made that recommendation," he said.
Average share price for eight publicly held regional airlines was off by 90 cents to $20.31 during February, but some issues were whacked by a lot more. Leading on the down side was Northwest Airlink Mesaba Holdings. Its stock was down $4.75, or 23.7%, on the month to close on Feb. 26 at $15.25. Mesaba was followed closely by Delta Connection/United Express SkyWest, down $4.63 to $31.44 per share, a 12.8% drop. Mesa Air Group saw its stock decline $2.38, or nearly 26%, to $6.81 per share.
Washington Dulles Airport-based Atlantic Coast Airlines, which flies in the eastern U.S. as United Express, reported a 50.7% leap in traffic on 42.8% more capacity for February 1999 compared with the same 1998 month, which pushed the load factor up 2.7 percentage points to 51.4%. ACA flew 65.7 million revenue passenger miles and 127.8 million available seat miles. Passengers flown increased 42.2% to 205,717. ACA Traffic, Capacity Jump In February Feb 99 Feb 98 2 Mths 99 2 Mths 98
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority will expand data collection on air rage incidents in an attempt to analyze the problem and find solutions to it. Beginning in April, human factors specialists in CAA's Safety Regulation Group will analyze information from U.K. airlines on all incidents involving disruptive behavior by passengers. Current data collection, which involves only incidents that could affect safety, produced 98 reports in 1998, 88 in 1997, 101 in 1996, 90 in 1995 and 87 in 1994.
Great Lakes Aviation filed at DOT to drop essential air service at North Platte, Neb.; Terre Haute, Ind.; Williston, N.D., and Iron Mountain/Kingsford, Mich., effective June 1.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) and senior committee members introduced their FAA reauthorization bill yesterday, saying it would improve air safety, increase airline competition and unlock the aviation trust funds to finance a safer, more efficient system. In some respects, Shuster's bill is similar to the Senate Commerce Committee's reauthorization, approved under the direction of Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.).
A class action suit filed at the U.S. District Court for Arizona charges America West, certain executives, directors and shareholders with illegally inflating the airline's stock price last year while insiders sold 97% of the shares they owned over a 90-day period. The suit, filed by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes&Lerach on behalf of America West share purchasers, alleges that false statements about the carrier pushed shares to an all-time high, 31 5/16, last April 21.
AirTran has introduced Net Escapes, promotional fares offered exclusively on its web site that provide deep discounts to different destinations each week. Tickets must be booked on the AirTran web site at www.airtran.com. Sample one-way fares currently offered include Atlanta-Knoxville, $39; Washington Dulles-Chicago Midway, $59, and New York LaGuardia-Savannah, $89, valid March 6-25 for travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
World Airways has reached an agreement with Premier Cruises to provide roundtrip passenger flight service once a week on Sunday evenings between New York Kennedy and El Pratt Airport in Barcelona. The contract calls for World to provide and operate MD-11 aircraft to transport passengers to and from cruises on the Mediterranean on Premier Cruises' Rembrandt ship. The agreement runs May 23-Oct. 18.
Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) yesterday renewed its call for FAA to require cargo airlines to equip their aircraft with Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS). ALPA repeated its proposal "in the wake of yesterday's [Tuesday's] near-midair collision between two large cargo aircraft over Kansas." The incident, involving a FedEx DC-10 and an American International Airways L-1011 flying at 33,000 feet about 30 miles west of Salina, Kan., is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Dragonair today will expand service from Hong Kong to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to three flights per week because of increasing demand on the route. Also this month, the airline will increase to four times daily the flights it offers on the Hong Kong-Shanghai route.
National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday it will hold a public meeting March 23 on a draft final report of its investigation into the USAir 737 crash near Pittsburgh. The hearing will be at the Springfield Hilton Hotel, Springfield, Va. USAir Flight 427 crashed Sept. 8, 1994, while on approach to Pittsburgh. All 132 aboard were killed.
U.S. major airlines' fleets continue to be older than fleets in Europe and Asia, but they are becoming younger as more airlines retire older jets. In a worldwide fleet study, Salomon Smith Barney found that the 10 U.S. majors had an average fleet age of 12.1 year, higher than Europe's 8.8 years and Asia/Pacific's 6.6 years. But the U.S. fleet average dropped 0.4 years from 1997. The U.S. majors had a total of 3,616 aircraft as of Dec. 31, averaging 362 aircraft per carrier, versus Europe's 199 and Asia's 70.
Polskie Porty Lotnicze (PPL), the Polish airport company, will launch a tender this year for construction of a new terminal at Warsaw's Okecie Airport. The new terminal will have an annual capacity between 6 and 7 million passengers. The existing terminal, which can handle 3.8 million passengers per year, was built by German construction group Hochtief.
