Singapore Airlines asked DOT for an exemption for two slots at Chicago O'Hare so that it may continue during the summer its twice-weekly all-cargo service, which it operates on a Singapore-Taipei-Anchorage-Chicago-New York Kennedy-Brussels-Mumbai-Singapore routing. The carrier already has exemptions from FAA for one of the flights. (Docket OST-99-5055)
Iberia posted traffic increases of 7.4% for December and 6.7% for 1998, flying 32.5 billion revenue passenger kilometers last year. The load factor was 63% in December and 71.5% for the year. Full-year freight volume rose 5.8% to 766.5 million ton kilometers. Iberia flew 21.75 million passengers in 1998, up 5.5%.
Olympic Airways took delivery of the first two A340-300s, with two more scheduled to be delivered later this year. They will replace Olympic's 747-200s on routes to North America, Australia, the Far East and South Africa.
Northwest Airlink said last week it is moving its scheduled airline operations from Drake Field, Fayetteville, Ark., to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Its final day of operation at Drake Field will be March 14.
Britten-Norman said it has received approval to purchase Romaero, which has built more than 500 Britten-Norman Islander aircraft over the past 30 years. Romaero also built, under license, the BAC-111. Britten-Norman said it intends to upgrade Romaero's facilities, expand its maintenance, repair and overhaul capabilities, increase sales efforts and explore opening large cargo facilities. "With tremendous labor cost advantages and proven manufacturing abilities, we believe Romaero can deliver sustainable growth to Britten-Norman."
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) is considering introducing a "Passenger Protection Act," or perhaps folding it into the major aviation bill he plans to introduce late this month, a committee source says. Shuster told reporters last week he was disturbed by reports of how stranded passengers were treated during the Northwest pilots strike. He also told them of his own experience on a recent flight to Pittsburgh in which he was told that the airplane would be diverted to Columbus because bad weather had shut down the airport at Pittsburgh.
United Flight 895 from Chicago to Hong Kong took a new path over the North Pole and Russia recently, saving 21 minutes and 10,000 pounds of fuel by flying north of headwinds that normally slow aircraft on the route. The new path should be in regular use this year, and United hopes China will be equally receptive to new long-haul flight paths.
Iberia will increase frequencies to Latin America by 30% this year, Marketing Manager Enrique Donaire said Friday in Madrid. Iberia will start a three-times-weekly service to Guayaquil, Ecuador, next month and launch direct routes to Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile; San Jose, Costa Rica, and Bogota, Colombia, this year. It also intends to boost frequencies to other Latin American points. Donaire said the carrier will increase its business-class capacity on transatlantic routes by 50% this year.
Lufthansa Technik assigned Hans Indlekofer responsibility for bringing in new VIP customers; Peter Huijbers, product management; Andreas Kehl, customer service in Japan, North Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao; Henry Seeger, customer service in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Jim Stoecker, point of contact with airlines in North America.
Eliminate slot controls, frequent flyer programs and perimeter rules to increase competition, Denver-based airline consultant Michael Boyd suggested Friday at The Boyd Group-sponsored Forecast 99 in Arlington, Va. Speaking to airline industry and airport representatives, Boyd predicted that mega-carriers will continue to dominate this year and new entrants will be few. He said the current competitive environment and industry economics do not favor new airlines.
Trying to make the air travel experience smell better, British Airways is pumping the aromas of fresh-cut grass and the ocean into London Heathrow Terminal 4 from beneath the floor. The fragrances were chosen from a group of 100 options that probably did not include jet fuel.
Derco Aerospace promoted Lisa Champagne to VP-marketing and customer support; Stephane Dermond to VP-sales and Paul McBride to VP-business development and product support.
Boeing said it is using electronic commerce to deliver a rapidly growing share of technical information airlines need to maintain their fleets. It said that by the end of 1998, operators of a large majority of more than 10,000 Boeing transports used the Internet or dedicated network facilities to access support services. Boeing said its PART Page is the industry's "first web site for ordering and tracking spare parts shipments." The site last year handled 1.6 million transactions, "more than double the volume of the previous year," Boeing said.
DOT - Approved an initial two-year exemption for Northwest to provide scheduled combination services between Newark and Houston and Antigua and Barbuda, which Northwest, having requested the authority for an indefinite duration, intends to operate under code share with Continental...Approved a one-year exemption and authority renewal for Eurowings Luftverkehrs to conduct code-share operations with Northwest and KLM over the Amsterdam-Germany segments of Northwest's and KLM's U.S.-Amsterdam-Germany scheduled flights...Approved an initial one-year exemption for Itapemirim Tr
National Governors Association last week wrote House and Senate leaders including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) urging quick action to renew the Airport Improvement Program (AIP), for which the current authorization expires March 31. The group outlined its position in a letter signed by association Chairman Thomas Carper, Democrat governor of Delaware; Republican George Pataki, governor of New York and chairman of the group's committee on economic development, and others.
Even though Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) would authorize $2.410 billion for the fiscal 1999 Airport Improvement Program and House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) proposes $2.347 billion, the final amount will be no higher than the $1.950 billion in the FY '99 DOT appropriation passed last year.Authorizers continue to use figures in the neighborhood of $2.4 billion based on a budget projection. "It's symbolic," one congressional source acknowledged.
Air France is chartering six aircraft from other airlines because 10 of its airplanes are grounded by a partial strike of its maintenance staff. The carrier also has had to subcontract some maintenance operations with Lufthansa. The French company's maintenance staff has been protesting for three weeks against changes in wages paid for work on nights and weekends. Air France does not consider the action serious enough to postpone its partial privatization, launched last week.
A Johns Hopkins study issued Friday concludes that the Global Positioning System can, with some improvements and augmentations, "satisfy the performance requirements to be the only navigation system installed in an aircraft and the only service provided by the FAA for operations anywhere in the National Airspace System" (DAILY, Jan. 15).
