Canadian Airlines last week successfully began booking travel for Jan. 1, 2000, the carrier said, and it encountered no computer problems booking on its oneworld partners. Its web address is www.cdnair.com.
Delta is launching weekly web fares at deep discounts on tickets purchased at www.delta-air.com for weekend travel. Delta will post special fares for roundtrip travel on Wednesday, beginning today, for travel the following weekend. Delta customers soon will be able to register on Delta's web site to receive automatic electronic mail notification of special deals available from their area. Customers can specify they would like to receive e-mail notifications only when specific destinations are featured.
British Airways yesterday hit a speedbump in its ongoing efforts to cut costs and improve profitability, losing #68 million ($113 million) in the December quarter, its fiscal third. The airline achieved a higher operating margin, 4.3%, but took a charge against earnings of #117 million ($194.5 million) due to Japanese yen debt used to fund aircraft purchases. BA arranges many aircraft leases in Japan, but an 18% rise of the yen against the pound in the final three months of 1998 forced a negative re-evaluation of the airline's yen exposure.
Gemini said it is acquiring three former British Airways DC-10-30s that will be converted to freighters at Alenia's Aeronavali facility in Naples. The purchase will expand Gemini's fleet to 11 DC-10-30 freighters for lease to its customers, including Swisscargo, DHL, Air France, FedEx, Asiana and Challenge Air.
Tower Air reported a 7% increase in traffic on 7.6% more capacity for January 1999 compared with the same 1998 month, depressing the load factor 0.4 percentage points to 77%. Tower flew 396 million available seat miles and 305 million revenue passenger miles. Passengers flown gained 21.7% to 140,000, and total block hours flown declined 21.2% to 2,672.
Philippine Airlines (PAL) will increase its Cebu-Tokyo Narita flights by two to daily frequency, effective March 24. Last week, PAL boosted the flights from three to five and doubled its flights to Seoul from two weekly to four. It will increase Manila-Singapore flights from 10 to 14 on April 2 and to 17 on June 1. PAL has a strong hold on the 25,000 Filipino domestic maids traveling from Singapore.
American Chairman and Chief Executive Don Carty said yesterday he would not rule out obtaining a court order forcing pilots back to work by the Presidents Day weekend if they do not stop a job action that grounded 240 flights on Sunday and about 500 yesterday. Pilots have been calling in sick in what the Allied Pilots Association (APA) terms a "grassroots action" in response to stalled talks over the Reno Air acquisition. Pilots claim that since Dec. 23 the company has been violating APA's contract scope clause and flying a low-fare airline within the airline.
Sen. John Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce aviation subcommittee, and four other Democratic senators have introduced a bill that would create a five-year, $100 million pilot program of grants for local initiatives by as many as 40 small and underserved communities to attract and promote air service.
The European Union's proposed non-addition noise rule, which Northwest said is discriminatory and aimed at excluding hushkitted U.S. aircraft from the European aviation market, would "mark the end of international respect for global aircraft performance standards and encourage even more discriminatory rules designed to advance parochial interests," U.S. enginemaker Pratt&Whitney told DOT, joining U.S. carriers, manufacturers and associations rallying behind Northwest's complaint.
TWA traffic for January fell 7.8% on 7.1% less capacity, which lowered the load factor 0.4 percentage points to 62.6%. Domestic traffic was down 4.5% on 3.4% less capacity, reducing the load factor 0.7 points to 62.3%. International traffic dropped 23% on 24.5% less capacity, resulting in a load factor of 64.7%, up 1.3 points. TWA said severe weather in St. Louis in early January resulted in a loss of 76 million revenue passenger miles. If the airline had operated those flights, traffic would have risen 1.7%.
The Northwest-Continental alliance may decrease competition in certain markets and could potentially harm consumers, according to a General Accounting Office report to Congress. The American-US Airways and United-Delta alliances may increase operating and marketing entry barriers for certain airlines, GAO said in an expansion of an earlier report to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, and Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), chairman of the aviation subcommittee.
China Airlines is studying the feasibility of purchasing as many as eight new freighter aircraft. While reports published in several leading dailies said the carrier is looking at eight new 747-400s, a company spokesman stressed that the plan still is in the initial stage and that neither the number nor the type of aircraft has been decided. "We believe that the outlook for cargo operations is extremely favorable," he said. "However, any major investment must be undertaken only after a thorough study is concluded.
Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced plans to permit easier importation of certain petroleum products, including jet fuel. Under new regulations, local petrochemical companies will be allowed to import liquefied petroleum gas, fuel oil and jet fuel for resale on the domestic market. The action will break the monopoly on sales of these products long held by the Chinese Petroleum Corp. Taiwan announced plans earlier for the complete liberalization of its oil and gas markets before the end of 2000.
DOT sent the Clinton administration's FAA legislative program to Congress yesterday, proposing an air traffic control system operated as a performance-based organization (PBO) with what a senior FAA official described as a "steady, reliable stream of funding" from user fees and a gradual reduction of excise taxes by 50% or more. Non-ATC operations would be funded by excise taxes. Eligible airports would be able to increase their passenger facility charges (PFCs) from the current cap of $3 to $5.
Boeing 747 Systemwide Aircraft Utilization Per Day Third Quarter 1998 B747-100 United Total Number of Aircraft Operated 6 6 Total Fleet Operations Departures 11 11 Block Hours 63 63
Boeing said yesterday it has reached the firm design configuration stage in development of the 737-900, the longest of the next-generation 737s. At 138 feet two inches, the Dash 900 is nearly nine feet longer than the 737-800 and will accommodate 18% more cargo volume. The passenger cabin area will be about 9% larger but capacity will be the same as the 737-800's, 189 passengers, because Boeing would have to add another emergency exit to increase it. The requirement for an aisle to the door would have minimized the number of seats that could be added, Boeing said.
Northwest amended its exemption application for U.S.-Mexico code sharing with Continental to add two city-pairs, Newark-Mexico City and Houston-Cancun, opened by the Jan. 26 U.S.-Mexico cooperative marketing annex.
Qantas, in an unprecedented test of passenger loyalty, plans to charge its frequent flyers a fee for account keeping. Effective June 1, the airline will charge its members A$20 (US$13) every two years to recover some of its program administration costs. Members who fail to pay within 30 days from the effective date will have their accounts suspended. Several regular Qantas passengers told The DAILY in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore that the move is a slap in the face for their loyalty. "The situation now is take-it-or-leave-it for the customer.
Northwest traffic fell 6.8% last month on 6.8% less capacity, which left the load factor unchanged at 66.2%. Domestic traffic fell 5.3% on 5.4% less capacity, keeping the load factor at 62.2%. International traffic declined 8.8% on 8.8% less capacity, resulting in a load factor of 72.3%, unchanged from January 1998. Cargo traffic was down 5.1% to 163.9 million ton miles.
Singapore Airlines continued its string of international airline awards in January, winning 23 separate best-airline accolades from publications and groups in Europe, Asia and North America. It nearly swept the Jan. 19 OAG awards in Hong Kong, with 11 gold awards. The honors came as the carrier launched a S$500 million program to upgrade aircraft interiors.
Ranking House Transportation Committee member James Oberstar (D-Minn.), annoyed by European Union plans to impose restrictions on hushkitted Stage 3 aircraft (see Page 224), plans to introduce a bill today removing the noise waiver that allows supersonic Concorde flights to the U.S.The bill bars operation of any supersonic civil transport to the U.S. if it does not comply with Stage 3 rules.
