United and All Nippon Airways yesterday announced an expansion of their five-month-old code share to include ANA's new Tokyo-Chicago service and five additional U.S. domestic destinations. The expansion, with government approval, will become effective April 13, the day ANA begins the daily Tokyo-Chicago nonstops. The two carriers already code share on United's 14 weekly Chicago-Tokyo flights. Additional code sharing will include 35 weekly United flights from Chicago to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis and Miami.
Air France and Brazil's Transportes Aereos Meridionais (TAM) yesterday formed a code-share alliance for service between France and Brazil. TAM will begin four weekly Sao Paulo-Paris flights with Airbus A330s on June 9. Four of Air France's seven weekly Boeing 777 frequencies on the route will be part of the code share as well. Air France serves Sao Paulo-Rio de Janeiro three times a week on its own, and the remaining four days the "AF" code will appear on TAM's Sao Paulo-Rio service.
US Airways is offering double Dividend Miles for travel in four markets - Philadelphia-Los Angeles, Pittsburgh-Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta-New York LaGuardia and Atlanta-Boston. The offer is good for travel until March 31. From April 1-June 1, the airline will offer passengers 1,000 bonus miles for each one-way Atlanta-Philadelphia or Atlanta-Washington Dulles flight when they travel on unrestricted fares. Members must register at the US Airways Dividend Miles Service Center, 800-872-4738, to qualify for the double miles offer.
Yesterday was the last day for potential investors to place orders for Air France shares. French Minister of the Economy Dominique Strauss-Kahn said earlier that demand is strong and the highest price of the proposed bracket will be charged to purchasers: 14 euros (US$15.8) per share for individual investors and 14.2 euros ($16) for institutional investors. This share price values the French flag carrier at about 20.5 billion French francs ($3.5 billion).
United has installed gate boarding pass readers at 43 airports, and plans seven more installations by the end of March, including Los Angeles, Honolulu and Tokyo Narita. The airline has trained 3,000 employees on the equipment. Roughly 53% of United's North American departures have access to gate-based readers, which help expedite boarding and insure on-time departures. Prior to installing gate readers, Newark had 3%-6% of its flights delayed due to slow boarding, but now Newark's boarding delays are 1%-2%.
London City Airport, responding to the number of inquiries it receives on technical matters and ecological and environmental topics, has expanded its web site. The site, thought to be the first of its kind, includes sections on noise and air quality management, technical specifications and airport operating procedures. Information also is given on the airport's noise insulation scheme. The new site can be found at www.lcacc.org.
Seattle-based Horizon Airlines is offering The Wall Street Journal to passengers traveling to or from Boise, Portland, Seattle or Spokane. The newspapers are distributed to boarding customers from custom-designed carts placed near the boarding doors at Horizon gates.
Delta and its Air Line Pilots Association unit have begun talks on pay rates, rules and working conditions for Delta's new 777. Delta says its proposal would pay a captain $236.36 per hour and a first officer $161.43, the highest rates in the industry.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) yesterday introduced his promised Passenger Bill of Rights legislation and indicated an accelerated schedule for House consideration. He said he hopes to hold hearings on the bill this month and get the measure to the House floor in March. The Senate will consider similar legislation (DAILY, Feb. 8).
A fourth quarter net loss of C$149.7 million (US$100.5 million) brought down Canadian Airlines' profits, leading to a full-year loss of C$137.6 million ($92.4 million). The annual loss compares with a profit of C$5.4 million in 1997. The airline faced worse market conditions on several fronts and suffered from the temporary loss of the American designator code on a number of transborder flights.
The nation's controllers said yesterday that an agreement between FAA, the Air Line Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association on conditions that will permit land-and-hold-short operations (LAHSO) to continue at airports is "unacceptable and unachievable" (DAILY, Feb. 10).
Kansas City-based Vanguard reported no change in traffic and an 11% decline in capacity for January 1999, compared with the same 1998 month, which forced the load factor up 7 percentage points to 66.7%, the highest January load factor in the company's history. Vanguard flew 53.3 million revenue passenger miles and 80 million available seat miles. Passengers flown were up 6% to 113,323.
Indianapolis-based American Trans Air reported a 7.7% increase in systemwide traffic and a 5.6% gain in capacity for January 1999, compared with January 1998. The carrier flew 838.6 million revenue passenger miles and 1.2 billion available seat miles. Boardings grew 13.5% to 556,682 and block hours 6.4% to 13,892.
Gate-to-gate times on almost 75% of the routes to and from the 28 largest U.S. airports increased in the decade between 1988 and 1997, according to a report issued yesterday by the DOT Office of Inspector General (OIG). The OIG said it found that 1,544 of 2,115 domestic routes to the 28 airports showed higher gate-to-gate times, 113 of them by 10 to 20 minutes.
Northwest and its Air Line Pilots Association unit yesterday reached an agreement on pay rates for flying the A319. Under the pact, unanimously ratified by the union's Master Executive Council, A319 pilots will be paid the same as A320 pilots and come on line beginning in July.
Former DOT Secretary Samuel Skinner yesterday urged the House aviation subcommittee to go beyond the Clinton administration's planned increase in the passenger facility charge (PFC) from $3 to $5 and remove the PFC caps altogether.
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s U-2S/ER-2 high-altitude aircraft will receive this year's Collier Trophy as the top aeronautical achievement in the U.S. last year, the National Aeronautic Association said yesterday. The U-2S, flown by Air Force Air Combat Command on military missions, and the ER-2, flown by NASA for civilian research, are twice as heavy as the original, classified U-2 and can carry four times the payload. NAA will present the trophy at the Robert J. Collier Presentation Banquet, scheduled April 28 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel, Arlington, Va.
Lauda Air has signed a contract with Internet Travel Network (ITN) for new online booking software for the airline's web site. The capability, expected to be online this spring, will be updated later this year, so passengers flying with Qualiflyer group airlines - including Swissair, Austrian and Sabena - can book directly from Lauda's site.
The National Mediation Board declared an impasse Monday on contract talks between America West and its flight attendants, and told both sides to agree to binding arbitration or enter a 30-day cooling-off period. The flight attendants had asked NMB to release them from mediation. America West AFA unit President William McGlashen said the company has been "unreasonable.
Fuel Cost and Consumption U.S. Majors, Nationals and Large Regionals December 1997 - November 1998 Total Total Cost Cents Per Gallons (Dollars) Gallon 1997 December Domestic 1,168,132,879 698,017,009 59.755 International 408,454,312 275,597,787 67.473
LanChile traffic for December rose 15.3% on 14.8% more capacity, raising the load factor slightly to 64.4%. For 1998, LanChile's traffic grew 13.3% and capacity 16.1%, resulting in a 61.5% load factor, down 1.1 percentage points. The airline carried 3 million passengers last year, up 13.3%.
US Airways traffic for January dropped 0.5% on 1.1% more capacity, which forced the load factor down 1.0 percentage point to 62.3%. The airline blamed the decline on "unusually harsh weather" that "further complicated the transition to a comprehensive new computer system." US Airways was forced to cancel 8.6% of its scheduled service last month, versus its normal January average of 3%. US Airways said that as of the third week in January, operations have returned more or less to normal.
Delta Connection carrier Comair is expanding jet service between White Plains, N.Y., and Cincinnati March 2 with a fourth daily roundtrip. On April 4, the carrier will enhance its Tallahassee-Orlando nonstops by upgrading one roundtrip to jet service. Service in both markets will be with 50-seat Canadair RJs.
Delta traffic for January grew 3.7% to a record 7.8 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity rose 2% and the load factor increased 1.1 percentage points to 65.3%, also a record. Domestic traffic was up 2.4% on 0.3% less capacity, boosting the load factor 1.8 points to 65.2%. International traffic gained 8.3% on 11.2% more capacity, lowering the load factor 1.8 points to 65.7%. Delta boarded 7.95 million passengers last month, up 1.1%.
Omni Air International said the Defense Department Commercial Airlift Review Board has approved the carrier to transport DOD passenger traffic. Omni said it expects DOD contracts to become an important market for its DC-10 program. Omni operates three DC-10s and has contracted to purchase another from Lufthansa/ Condor for delivery in June.
