Aeronautical charting involves "critical flight safety issues," says the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, protesting plans to transfer charting to DOT's Administrative Services Center, which handles parking services, employee fitness centers and urine collection services. "Just because [the center] has a print shop does not mean it has the expertise to collect and publish safety-related aeronautical data on a timely basis," according to AOPA President Phil Boyer.
Rockwell Collins presented to Iowa State University an endowment to fund a scholarship honoring retired president and alumnus John Cosgrove, and named Gary McGraw and Rodney Mickelson corporate engineers of the year.
Despite commission cuts and caps imposed during the past year by major airlines, commissions paid out in January were down only 4% year-over-year, from $427.1 million to $408.2 million, according to Airlines Reporting Corp. Domestic commissions declined 5% and international 4%, and average weekly sales per agency location climbed 3%.
Swissair has become the Swiss public's favorite corporation, according to a survey published Thursday by daily newspaper Le Temps in Geneva. "Swissair benefited from a reaction of support" after one of its MD-11 aircraft crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia last September, killing 229 people, said Manuela Duss, who managed the survey for Swiss polling company IHA-GFM. "The good results registered by the company have also had a positive impact," Duss said.
FAA officials, including Monte Belger, acting deputy administrator, will give briefings on the agency's proposed fiscal 2000 budget at an Air Traffic Control Association symposium Wednesday at the Crystal City Hyatt Regency Hotel, Arlington, Va.
Airbus and Fokker Aircraft Operating Costs Third Quarter 1998 Dollars Per Block Hour A320-100/200 America West Northwest United Average A300-600 Crew Cost $347 $829 $610 $616 $816 Fuel&Oil 369 442 482 441 937
Helicopter Association International named winners of 1998 Aviation Maintenance Technician Scholarships: William Stearns, Shasta College, first place; Kyle Shelley, Purdue University, second; Jeremy Prengaman, Lane Community College, third, and Ramandeep Singh, University of New York at Farmingdale, fourth.
Austrian Airlines wanted to celebrate 10 years of transatlantic service by rolling prices back to 1988 levels on its long-haul routes. "But we found it was much more expensive then," said Paul Paflik, Austrian's director of airline alliances.
The Regional Airline Association says it plans to tell Congress the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act of 1999 (H.R.700), introduced recently in the House and Senate, "is an unwarranted and unjustified overreaction to isolated events which would introduce increased costs and administrative burdens." RAA said its staff will provide Congress with statements, arguments and other positions on why it does not want the bill to go forward. "We would not attribute anything we use to individual carriers unless that is desired," RAA pledged.
Northwest appointed Fay Beauchine VP-passenger sales and customer relations, Lizabeth Shultis VP-reservations sales and services, John Temple VP and general manager of subsidiary MLT and Susan Edberg managing director-international advertising and WorldPerks marketing.
Charles Hunnicutt, DOT assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs, continued last week to advocate a single, beyond-open-skies world aviation market. Speaking in Washington at a commercial aviation conference on defining global networks, Hunnicutt said multilateral structures are superior to bilateral agreements as long as competition is not restricted. Bilaterals are "grounded in public policy concerns" but limit growth and free-market development and penalize carriers and their customers.
Approved an Air Fax charter using a Skyservice Airlines A320 for one roundtrip carrying 180 passengers on a Toronto-Andrews Air Force Base, Md.-Merida, Mexico-Andrews AFB-Toronto routing, carrying the White House press corps on a presidential trip to Mexico, Feb. 14-15...Approved a Saudi Arabian Airlines charter using an MD-11 for a one-way flight carrying electronic broadcast material in a Los Angeles-Brussels-Jeddah routing Feb.
Airbus and Fokker Systemwide Aircraft Utilization Per Day Third Quarter 1998 A320-100/200 America West Northwest United Total Number of Aircraft Operated 29 59 49 137 Total Fleet Operations Departures 141 185 205 531
When the Clinton administration sent its $10.1 billion fiscal 2000 FAA budget to Congress this month it included a little-noticed request that Congress commit to $1.9 billion in advance appropriations, largely for air traffic control modernization in fiscal years 2001-2007. The advance appropriations request, spelling out administration intentions for the six fiscal years, in effect asked Congress to fence off funds in the requested amounts, a step House and Senate Appropriations committees have been reluctant to take in the past.
The massive military exercise being conducted this week along the eastern seaboard will involve the jamming of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals but "will not compromise safety," the Navy said Friday (DAILY, Feb. 19). The joint U.S.-NATO exercise, called a "navigation warfare demonstration," is being conducted by the U.S. Atlantic Command, said Navy Capt. Dave Barron. It is scheduled to start today and run through Feb. 27 and will cover the area from Jacksonville, Fla., to Atlantic City, N.J.
America West said last week it will continue seeking a contract agreement with its flight attendants, represented by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), although the two sides have been released into a 30-day cooling-off period that ends at midnight March 19.
After more than two weeks of disrupted flights and growing discontent among passengers and airline crews, India's federal government began a crackdown against a work-to-rule strike by more than 800 air traffic controllers. Civil aviation officials announced the firing of six controllers Friday, including senior officers of the Air Traffic Controllers Guild against whom the government also initiated criminal proceedings for disrupting airport services and endangering passengers and aircraft.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Roger Koch, former owner of Aircraft Modular Products, established the Edward W. Stimpson Endowed Scholarship Fund.
Delta's customer service levels "are now back to pre-Leadership 7.5 levels," Chief Executive Leo Mullin told The DAILY, referring to the mid-1990s cost-cutting program that wound up degrading the airline's image with travelers.
