Air France traffic for November rose 4.7% on 6.5% more capacity, which forced the load factor down 1.2 percentage points to 72.5%. Cargo traffic rose 0.2% to 442 million freight ton kilometers.
American has signed a code-share and marketing alliance with Venezuela's Aeropostale. If government approval is granted, American's "AA" code will appear on Aeropostale flights from Miami to Caracas - a route American currently serves - as well as on service to Maracaibo and Porlamar in Venezuela and between San Juan and Caracas. American also would gain access beyond the three Venezuelan points to other cities in Latin America.
Delta is offering holiday fares on its web site at www.delta-air.com for travel Dec. 15-Jan. 31. Passengers can earn up to 1,000 bonus frequent flyer miles for booking through Delta's SkyLinks reservations and using electronic ticketing. The miles bonus offer is valid for bookings and travel through Feb. 28. Roundtrip Internet fares include $118 Atlanta-Raleigh/Durham, $198 Buffalo-New Orleans and $158 Savannah-Washington Dulles. Separately, Delta is promoting Portland-Boston service introduced earlier this year with a $205 roundtrip, valid through April 2.
Harbor Air, Gig Harbor, Wash., has acquired a second Cessna Grand Caravan. Harbor Air, an Alaska Airlines partner, with the acquisition of its first Caravan last August, was the first scheduled airline in the continental U.S. to operate the aircraft since FAA's recent rule change allowing the single-engine turboprop to be operated in commercial passenger service in most weather.
British Aerospace Asset Management-Jets has sold two BAe 146-200 aircraft to Lombard Leasing, a unit of the Lombard Asset Finance Group. The price was more than $22 million. Both aircraft are on long-term lease to Eurowings until March and April 2004.
A U.S. delegation tried to persuade the European Union to delay its plans to ban hushkitted aircraft during a three-day visit to Brussels that ended yesterday, but the lobbying seems to be too late. The EU Council of Ministers reached agreement on the issue in October in Luxembourg, and the ban "is a done deal," the spokeswoman for EU Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock said yesterday in Brussels.
U.S. Major Carriers Domestic Share of Service Third Quarter 1998 Total Revenue Departures Alaska 43,352 America West 50,594 American 169,036 Continental 102,264 Delta 231,570 Northwest 107,718 Southwest 196,770 TWA 69,383 United 193,354
Cabin crew of former French airline TAT may strike and disrupt the traffic of British Airways' French subsidiary Air Liberte "in the coming days," said cabin crew union Syndicat National du Personnel Navigant Commercial this week in Paris. Last year, BA merged its two French subsidiaries, TAT and low-cost airline Air Liberte. Employees of the former TAT claim management wants to chop 40% off their salaries by 2002. TAT's management said the union's figures were wrong but confirmed that a "harmonization of pay" is planned.
Sun Airways, a new charter carrier, will begin operations Dec. 18 from San Juan with service to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. The carrier will offer $299 roundtrip fares on the routes, served with Boeing 727-200s painted in "Sun and Fun" purple and orange. The fares are 50% off prevailing fares, it said. Sun expects to add service to Washington Dulles and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, on Jan. 2, when it receives its second 727.
Continental Express President David Siegel, speaking as his company took delivery of the 100th ERJ-145, said CoEx looked at both the Bombardier CRJ and the ERJ-145 for over a year. "We preferred the Embraer jet and we preferred the Bombardier financing, but we went with the better aircraft," Siegel said. CoEx is committed to an all-jet fleet within five years but will remain flexible, he said, about whether to accelerate or decelerate phaseout of turboprops. He said CoEx would retire the entire Brasilia fleet but may keep some ATRs longer than expected.
Raytheon said it has completed installing, in partnership with Chile's air navigation service, two satellite navigation test bed reference stations in Santiago and Balmaceda. The test beds, the first of their kind in South America, will support evaluation of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) concept for improving the Global Positioning System in Chilean airspace. John Britigan, manager of Raytheon's Landing and Navigation Systems, said flight trials are being conducted this month to demonstrate the system's operational capabilities.
Northwest is offering customers from 40 cities a chance to shop at the Mall of America on Saturday with special roundtrip fares of $59-$99. Fares are available only through Northwest's web site at www.nwa.com, where passengers can make reservations and buy tickets online. Sample roundtrip fares to Minneapolis/St. Paul include $59 from Duluth and Sioux Falls, $89 from Kalamazoo and Rapid City, S.D, and $99 from Boston and Dallas/Fort Worth.
Flight reservations on Swissair's Zurich-Milan service have dropped by 25% to 30% since the inauguration of Milan Malpensa Airport, a Swissair spokesman said this week in Zurich. Unlike European Union airlines, which have won the right to resume one-third of their Milan operations at Milan Linate, the Swiss airline was forced to move all its flights to the new airport, which is 53 kilometers from the city. Efficient rail and road linkups between the city center and Malpensa are not yet operational. Swissair unsuccessfully challenged the forced move in court.
Japanese airlines are facing "serious challenges" after a significant drop in the number of Japanese traveling overseas, but the situation is expected to improve next year, according to All Nippon Airways Executive VP-Marketing Koji Yamashita. "In the middle of next year, we'll see some new trends," he said recently in Manila. Japanese carriers have been protected from domestic competition for nearly five decades, he said, and until they improve efficiency and competitiveness, carriers should not expect to be profitable.
Cincinnati-based Comair, Inc., which flies as a Delta Connection carrier, posted a 21.7% gain in traffic last month to 178.8 million revenue passenger miles as capacity rose 20.4% gain to 293.5 million available seat miles, compared with the same month last year. The load factor climbed 0.6 percentage points to 60.9%, and passengers flown increased 19.3% to 527,978. Nov. 1998 Nov. 1997 11 Mths 1998 11 Mths 1997 RPMs 178,797,000 146,952,000 1,887,586,000 1,619,320,000
Federal investigators are looking into an incident in which a US Airways 737 flew over a King Air and landed in front of it at New York LaGuardia Airport. FAA described the Dec. 2 incident as an operational error. The agency said the King Air turboprop was sitting on Runway 31 awaiting instructions when the US Airways 737 was given permission to land on the runway. The National Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating. A US Airways 737 was involved in a fatal accident Feb. 1, 1991, when it landed on top of a commuter airplane at Los Angeles.
Atlanta-based Atlantic Southeast reported gains of 18.2% in traffic and 9.7% in capacity for November 1998, compared with the same month last year, which boosted the load factor 4 percentage points to 55.7%. ASA flew 89.3 million revenue passenger miles and 160.4 million available seat miles. Passengers flown increased 12.5% to 342,471. Year-to-date RPMs climbed 13% on 2.4% more ASMs over the 11-month period last year, pushing the load factor up 5.3 points. Passengers flown grew 6.8%.
KLM said yesterday it did not know a passenger had AIDS when it decided not to let him continue to fly on the airline from Johannesburg to Amsterdam and then Washington. The carrier issued the statement after the passenger, not identified, and his family initiated a boycott against the Dutch airline. KLM denied adamantly that it has an anti-AIDS policy, saying it flies "every customer without discrimination."
EVA Airways, on the verge of applying for a listing on Taiwan's over-the-counter exchange, is trying to look more like a holding company than an airline to potential investors, according to analysts in Taipei. By being seen as a holding company, they say, the price of the company's stock, which is expected to be listed in the first quarter next year, would be less susceptible to the extreme fluctuations in price that airline shares often experience.
The Reno/Tahoe parties told DOT that the issue of Reno Air's "dedicated Reno-Chicago O'Hare slots is irrelevant to the continuing slot dispute" between United and American and their respective regional partners. United proposed that DOT consider withdrawing Reno Air's slots for use by American Eagle, which is seeking three O'Hare slots for Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C.-O'Hare service (DAILY, Dec. 8), citing American's planned acquisition of Reno Air. United affiliate Atlantic Coast Airlines wants slots for Savannah, Ga./Hilton Head, S.C.-O'Hare service.
Austrian Airlines will expand its code share with Delta to include Delta's Atlanta-Guatemala City nonstop, effective today. The move allows single-ticket booking to the Central American city rather than via Miami or New York. Delta partner Sabena added the same route earlier this year.
LanChile on Dec. 26 will begin offering three-times-weekly service from Orlando to Santiago, via Miami. The flights, to be operated with 767-300ERs, will depart Orlando on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Indianapolis-based American Trans Air reported a 5.2% increase in systemwide traffic on 0.2% more capacity for November 1998, compared with the same month last year. The airline flew 636.9 million revenue passenger miles and 957 million available seat miles. Block hours flown gained 3.3% to 11,845 and passengers flown grew 19.9% to 451,998. Charter service experienced a 25.7% decline in RPMs to 172.5 million and 27.4% less ASMs, 290.3 million. Block hours flown dropped 25.1% to 2,582, and passengers flown declined 7% to 95,890.
City of Dallas yesterday rebutted the City of Fort Worth's assertion on the DOT Love Field service interpretation proceeding that "there is absolutely no reason why the Texas court system cannot determine the federal law questions in this case." Dallas said, "While some critical questions of federal aviation law have been presented in both this proceeding and the state lawsuit, the two actions are not mirror images of each other." Fort Worth itself has noted that through- and double-ticketing - critical to service beyond Texas under the Wright and Shelby amendments
Used Regional Aircraft Transactions September 1998 Carrier No. Type Engines Previous Operator Air North 1 HS-748 Srs 2A Dart534-2 Air Manitoba Charter ATR 1 AA ATR 42-300 PW120 American Eagle ATR 2 AA ATR 42-300 PW120 Air Mauritanie Aviation Mar- 1 Cessna 208 PT6A-114 Aero Condor keting Group
