American and the City of Chicago told DOT its tentative choice of Delta's Atlanta-Rome proposal for a U.S.-Italy service opportunity (DAILY, Feb. 24) does not take into account which U.S.
A third lawsuit against American's Allied Pilots Association is seeking partial refund of tickets for passengers stranded during the union's January sickout. The latest suit, filed on behalf of a Fort Worth couple, is asking for damages that could total more than $100 million. The sickout, spurred by AMR Corp.'s acquisition of Reno Air, led to thousands of flight cancellations and stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers. The suit seeks at least 50% refund of ticket costs for all affected passengers.
Fedex Pilots Association's new officers already are facing disgruntled members. Some pilots want details about why one board member was asked to resign recently, but it happened during an executive session and the board won't talk about it. New VP Wally Huggins said the issue is becoming a distraction and asked members to back off. He says giving out details would only damage "a guy that was working his butt off to help this union. We were also honor-bound, most of us anyway, to keep our mouths shut."
DOT granted Delta temporary authority to begin selling and marketing nonstop Atlanta-Rome service pending a final award. At Delta's request, the department shortened the answer period for its show-cause order tentatively selecting Delta for U.S.-Italy frequencies available April 1 (DAILY, March 2). (See related story on Page 384.) (Docket OST-98-4854)
Approach and landing accidents involving transport aircraft are occurring at a rate of 15 a year outside the Commonwealth of Independent States, according to a special issue of Flight Safety Digest. Flight Safety Foundation says that if this rate continues and air travel grows as projected, there will be 23 fatal approach and landing accidents per year, nearly two a month, by 2010.
SkyMall promoted Christine Aguilera, Scott Dastrup and Mark Schneider to executive VP, and named Robert Digan chief operating officer of the skymall.com subsidiary and Stephen Peterson chief financial officer.
Seeking to protect its members' interests, the Independent Association of Continental Pilots (IACP) asked DOT to accept it as a party in American's and Delta's request that the department reconsider the one-year exemption granted Northwest and Continental from certificate transfer requirements for international route authority.
DOT - Approved an amendment to indefinite-duration authority previously granted to Air Canada and SAS to permit SAS to place its designator code on any U.S.-Canada transborder services operated by Air Canada and to permit Air Canada to place its designator code, on a blind-sector basis, on any flights operated by SAS between the U.S.
Comair is expected to have 80 regional jets in its fleet by August, accounting for 93% of its capacity, says Jim Parker, managing director of Robinson-Humphrey. It has options for 115 more RJs, and unlike other regional affiliates, it is not hamstrung by its mainline carrier's pilots contract. Delta's Air Line Pilots Association deal does not limit the number of RJs its feeder airlines operate, a situation that could change during the next round of talks. Based on Comair's RJ orders and options, Parker predicts the carrier will grow 12%-15% over the next five years.
Traffic at Continental continued in February to outpace the carrier's considerable capacity increases. Traffic rose 14.9% on 11% more capacity during the month, which boosted the load factor to a record 70.5%, up 2.4 percentage points over February 1998. Continental is one of several airlines presumed to have benefited from American's 6,500 flight cancellations during last month's pilot sickout, since the two carriers' service overlaps in Texas, the New York area, across the Atlantic and to Latin America.
Aloha Airlines flight attendants, represented by the Association of Flight Attendants, have applied for federal mediation by the National Mediation Board in their contract negotiations with the company. "Negotiations are at a crawl," said Aloha Master Executive Council President Peggy Gordon. "At this speed, flight attendants won't see any improvements at work until the new century." Negotiations, dating from August 1998, have stalled over pay, benefits and staffing of new routes to the South Pacific, according to the union.
Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA) finally cajoled a second regional airline into switching to the new facility from Fayetteville Drake Field, but only after easing some of its high costs. Northwest Airlink Express Airlines I agreed to make the move after XNA agreed to waive a head fee on all passengers above the benchmark level established at Drake Field the previous year. As a result, Airlink carrier Mesaba will introduce 69-seat Avro RJ85 regional jet service from Memphis, joining American Eagle's Chicago O'Hare service with ERJ-145 regional jets.
Varig reported increases of 4.2% in January traffic and 7.9% in passengers carried, to 992,694. The airline's freight volume plunged 23.35% to 69.8 million freight ton kilometers. The passenger load factor was 71.7% on international flights and 67.4% for domestic service.
Summary of U.S. Major Carriers Domestic Traffic August 1998 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles % (000) Change (Miles) (000) Change Alaska 1,283 4.09 866 1,110,677 6.26
U.S. Air Force pilots have concluded tests of an autonomous landing guidance system that could enable C-130 aircraft to land in zero visibility. In tests from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the AF said, test pilots used the system to fly a C-130H in increasingly challenging landings, culminating with a touchdown at a fog-bound, below-minimums airfield in Fresno where the ceiling was 50 feet and the runway visual range about 700 feet. The restriction for C-130s with current landing systems is a ceiling of 200 feet and RVR of about 2,600 feet.
TWA will launch daily service May 1 from St. Louis to Richmond, Va., and Portland, Maine. Richmond will receive two daily nonstops operated with DC-9s, with 16 seats dedicated to Trans World First, and Portland will have daily direct service with MD-80s, with 20 seats in TWA's domestic first class. Passengers on both routes will accrue double frequent flyer miles May 1-June 30.
