Southwest posted a 7.9% increase in November traffic on 6.6% more capacity, which raised the load factor 0.7 percentage points to 64.1%. Traffic for the first 11 months of 1998 rose 11% on 6.7% more capacity, resulting in a load factor of 66.4%, up 2.6 points. So far this year, Southwest's average length of haul has grown 6.6% to 597 miles from 560. Nov 98 Nov 97 11 Mths 98 11 Mths 1997 RPMs 2,539,174,913 2,354,005,837 28,810,486,674 25,959,256,307
DOT said Friday that Northwest and Continental's plans for a joint frequent flyer program can proceed, now that the carriers have complied with DOT's request that the program be modified. A department spokesman said he could not elaborate on how the program was modified since it involves proprietary matters submitted confidentially by the carriers. Northwest and Continental had to submit the frequent flyer program to DOT under new statutory authority that requires them to do so 30 days before it takes effect.
Jet fuel prices fell last week to 38 cents per gallon in the U.S., down 5% from the prior week, according to BT Alex.Brown. During the past two weeks, jet fuel was 29% lower than a year ago, just at the point in the year when fuel prices tend to begin inching upward due to winter pricing of petroleum's middle distillate, which also is used to make home heating oil.
Alaska Air Group subsidiary Horizon Air flew 100 million revenue passenger miles last month, up 42.3% from the same 1997 month. Capacity climbed 32.1% to 158 million available seat miles, driving up the load factor 4.5 percentage points to 63%, compared with 58.5% in November 1997. Boardings were up 32.3% to 380,800. Nov. 1998 Nov. 1997 11 Mths 1998 11 Mths 1997 RPMs 100,000,000 70,000,000 1,000,000,000 803,000,000 ASMs 158,000,000 120,000,000 1,600,000,000 1,300,000,000
European Competition Commissioner Karel van Miert will be a keynote speaker at the American Bar Association's Forum on Air and Space Law Update Conference Jan. 22, 1999, at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Arlington, Va. Other participants include DOT Assistant Secretary Charles Hunnicutt, Assistant Secretary of State Alan Larson, DOT General Counsel Nancy McFadden and Justice Department antitrust deputy John Nannes. For more information, contact Nicole Rivera, 312-988-5666 or e-mail [email protected].
Canadian Airlines will create a second bank of Asia flights through its Vancouver hub as part of an effort to boost daily connections at the city from 500 to more than 1,450. In addition to the second Asia bank, Canadian will create five new groups of flights for domestic service and flights to the U.S. "It will have a profound positive effect on our operations and on the movement of passengers between oneworld alliance partners," said Don Casey, senior VP-planning. Canadian, already the dominant carrier in Vancouver, plans to enlarge its advantage with oneworld.
United says it has no objections to Continental's application to fly in the U.S.-France market, as long as DOT grants United its U.S.-France certificate authority no later than Continental's. United in May filed an application for broad U.S.-France certificate authority and a motion to consolidate its application with the pending U.S.-France certificate applications of American and Northwest. Because all the applications are similar in scope, it urges DOT to issue them concurrently.
Air France shook off a June pilots strike and still managed to post a profit for the six months that ended Sept. 30. The airline turned in net earnings of 1.34 billion French francs (US$239 million), down 24%. Air France said the nine-day pilots strike, in the middle of the World Cup in June, cost the carrier FF1.3 billion. But the savings from a pilot wage freeze during the next three years are expected to boost the carrier's future earnings and position it well for a public stock offering in the spring.
City of Chicago has filed in support of American's bid for Chicago-Rome service, saying it is the city's top priority to restore nonstop service over a successful route that vanished after Alitalia changed much of its routing to Milan Malpensa. Competitors in the proceeding are Delta for Atlanta-Rome, US Airways for Philadelphia-Milan and Tower for New York-Rome. Seven new weekly U.S.-Italy frequencies are available under the new U.S.-Italy bilateral, a phased open-skies agreement.
Mesa Air Group posted a 25% drop in traffic last month to 83.5 million revenue passenger miles, as capacity dropped 17.9% to 167.5 million available seat miles. As a result, the passenger load factor dipped 4.7 percentage points to 49.8% from 56.6% in November 1997. Enplanements were down 46.9% to 266,009. Nov. 1998 Nov. 1997 11 Mths 1998 11 Mths 1997 RPMs 83,490,000 111,292,000 1,057,314,000 1,306,386,000 ASMs 167,509,000 204,001,000 2,001,764,000 2,316,412,000
Delta's November traffic increased 3% on 2.9% more capacity, pushing load factor up 0.1 percentage points to 67.9%. Domestic traffic grew 2.2% on 0.7% more capacity, raising load factor 1.0 point to 67.5%. International traffic increased 6.1% on 11.5% more capacity, forcing load factor down 3.5 points to 69.3%. The airline carried 8.3 million passengers last month and 96.8 million for the first 11 months of 1998. If Delta carried the same number of passengers this month, it will break its 1997 record and transport 105.1 million passengers in 1998.
Charlotte, N.C.-based US Airways Express affiliate flew 18.3 million revenue passenger miles in November, a 63.7% increase from November 1997. Capacity climbed 47.9% to 30.6 million available seat miles, allowing the load factor to rise 5.7 percentage points to 59.8%. Enplanements gained 36.1% to 84,023. CCAIR said the increase in traffic and capacity resulted from new service beginning Oct. 4 from Charlotte to Tallahassee, Fla., and from Tallahassee to Miami, with four round-trips each business day in each market.
Top 25 Domestic City-Pair Markets Over 750 Miles O&D Passengers First Quarter 1998 Long 97 Avg Haul Mkt Nonstop Psgrs Top Carrier Rank Rank City-Pair Mileage Per Day (% Share) 1 1 Los Angeles - New York 2,467 7,324 American (35.2) 2 5 New York - Orlando 947 5,961 Delta (42.6)
Members of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) will turn to each other - in many cases a competitor - for help when a crash or crisis situation occurs away from a member carrier's home country. Under an intra-region cooperative bond forged last week in Manila, AAPA's 19 members have agreed to provide local support for their fellow airlines in the critical hours after an incident or accident.
SAS and All Nippon Airways agreed yesterday to establish an alliance before ANA joins the Star Alliance in October 1999. The carriers will begin through check-in service this month and join their frequent flyer programs in the spring. Reciprocal airport lounge use will start in mid-1999, followed by code sharing and joint marketing.
Northwest is said to be close to making a regional-jet decision between the Canadair Regional Jet and the Embraer ERJ-145. Observers said the order could number 50 or more, to be operated by wholly owned subsidiary Express Airlines I at Memphis and possibly by Mesaba Airlines, of which Northwest owns about 35%, at Minneapolis and Detroit. Northwest makes the equipment decisions for its affiliates, acquires the airplanes and then leases them to the regionals. While Mesaba has an all-new fleet, Express I's fleet of Saab 340s is aging and undergoing refurbishment.
DOT Secretary Rodney Slater said yesterday he has not given up on negotiating a new aviation agreement with the U.K. and is not ready to renounce the current one. Meeting with reporters at DOT headquarters, Slater acknowledged that the U.S. and the U.K. "didn't get anything done" when they reopened negotiations in October, and that the U.K. agreement is "one of the most restrictive" in force.
The Canadian government said this week it has introduced legislation that would pave the way for faster and easier access to the U.S. by travelers entering the country via Canada. The Preclearance Act will speed up U.S. preclearance for travelers and goods into the U.S. and the U.S. government is amending existing legislation to fully reciprocate Canada's proposed legislation and to provide for Canadian customs preclearance facilities at U.S. airports. Currently, passengers en route to the U.S.
Air Nova and Air Alliance will consolidate their operations into one airline early next year, the two companies announced jointly. The new entity will operate under the name Air Nova and will use Dash 8 and BAe 146 aircraft. Headquarters will be in both Halifax and Quebec City.
FAA yesterday ordered 747 operators to change fuel pump procedures immediately to prevent dry operation that "could result in ignition of the center fuel or horizontal stabilizer tanks." The emergency order will cut about an hour of flight time from the 747-400 and could have a huge impact on operating costs and schedules. It could have a greater impact on already ailing carriers in Asia than in the U.S. - where only United and Northwest fly the 747-400 - if Asian nations comply with the FAA order.
William Buechner, of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, discusses budgetary treatment of highway, mass transit and aviation trust funds on Aviation News Today to air Sunday on Washington's NewsChannel 8 at 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
LaGuardia slots, of which BizEx has about 90, may be Eagle's biggest target, but there are a number of other synergies as well. Not the least of those is that BizEx Chairman and CEO Bob Martens is the former president of American Eagle and has substantially revitalized BizEx, which emerged from more than a year in Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 1997. Both carriers operate large fleets of Saab 340 aircraft and both have Embraer ERJ-135 regional jets on order. BizEx is controlled by the Philadelphia investment banking firm of Dimeling, Schreiber&Park.
The leading investor in Kansas City-based Vanguard Airlines is proposing a merger with Denver-based Frontier Airlines. While no talks have occurred between the companies, Frontier has not ruled out considering the proposal. Bill Hambrecht, the former Hambrecht&Quist investor who helped save Vanguard, is behind the initiative. Hambrecht's W.R. Hambrecht&Co. bought 8% of Frontier stock, or roughly 1.1 million shares, during the past week. Hambrecht, with investment partner Ed Shea Jr., already owns more than 50% of Vanguard.
