Standard&Poor's named Continental one of its 1999 "PowerPicks" stocks, a group of 26 that it thinks should outperform the 1,050 stocks it tracks. Last year's PowerPicks portfolio returned 31.5%. Continental is the only airline or aviation firm on this year's list.
A study of 46,620 passenger itineraries of connecting trips across the Atlantic has found that transatlantic alliances result in ticket prices that are 36% lower on average than simple interline fares, and the proposed American-British Airways pairing would do the same, despite fear of the opposite. "Many have said when airlines team up it's a threat to passengers, but there are price benefits to alliances that are not really seen," Jan Brueckner, economist with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told The DAILY.
Findings from investigating the September 1998 Swissair accident prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to recommend yesterday that FAA require, "on an expedited basis," an inspection of the cockpit wiring in MD-11s (DAILY, Jan. 11). The board said Canadian investigators found signs of electrical arcing in the wiring of the Swissair MD-11 that crashed Sept. 2 off Nova Scotia, killing all 214 passengers and 14 crewmembers. FAA said there is "no evidence" that the wires identified in the recommendation are related to the crash.
The briefing last week by The John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on whether the Global Positioning System (GPS) can provide sole-means navigation and landing services was a "status report" and represented "preliminary conclusions,"a knowledgeable source said yesterday (DAILY, Jan. 11). FAA, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Air Transport Association, which commissioned the study, and others were briefed. The risk assessment concluded that an augmented GPS probably can provide the services.
Airbus Industrie set a record in 1998 with 556 firm orders for aircraft worth $39 billion, the European consortium reported yesterday. It said that in 1997, it received 460 orders valued at $29.6 billion, making 1998's performance 30% better in terms of sales and 20% better in terms of aircraft units. Airbus said that in addition to the firm orders for 556 aircraft, it received 174 announced commitments in 1998, bringing the total to 730.
Transport Workers Union has won the right to represent America West's 2,000 fleet service employees. The vote was 1,054 for TWU and nine for other unions. Under the National Mediation Board's rules, at least 50% plus one of eligible voters must cast votes for the union. TWU said it will begin preparing for collective bargaining. TWU has been campaigning for a representation election for about five years. The union lost two previous elections.
Baltic International USA sold its remaining 8% interest in Air Baltic Corp. SIA to Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) for $2.14 million. The company will use the proceeds to repay a $2 million note to a shareholder.
TWA said it will not know for several months the economic impact of last week's midwest storm and flight cancellations but by Friday it was returning to normal. A severe winter storm hammered operations at TWA's St. Louis hub, preventing about 70 employees from one shift from reporting for work. Spokesman Jim Brown said the airline had to cancel about 600 flights and put several hundred passengers up in hotels last week. Flights were further delayed because low cloud ceilings hampered visibility and air traffic controllers slowed arrivals and departures.
American Trans Air is offering a fare sale to Ireland through Jan. 25 for travel June 3-Sept. 7. Sample one-way fares to Shannon and Dublin are $245 from New York Kennedy, $275 from Chicago Midway and $319 from Los Angeles.
Our Neighbor Is A Strange, Strange Man by Tres Seymour with illustrations by Walter Lyon Krudop. A picture book for readers ages five to nine that tells the story of Melville Murrell, a little-known aviation pioneer who in 1876 built a human-powered flying machine. Orchard Books; $15.95. To order, call 800-621-1115.
Delta will launch a second daily Cincinnati-Frankfurt nonstop on June 1. The seasonal flight will end Oct. 2. The announcement came three days after Delta said it would start new service to Athens, Barcelona, Istanbul, Shannon and Dublin this summer (DAILY, Jan. 6).
Delta's request that DOT link approval of Chicago O'Hare slots for Japan Airlines to improved access at Tokyo Narita for Delta should be denied, the Japanese carrier told DOT.
Northwest is being sued for negligence, intentionally inflicting emotional distress, false imprisonment and breach of contract by passengers who were stranded on airplanes at Detroit Metropolitan Airport for hours after a major snowstorm. Northwest spokeswoman Kathy Peach declined to discuss the suit but said there has been "a lot of hindsight analysis, which is very different than on-site when you're dealing with a crisis situation." She said the airline and employees scrambled to deal with the situation but there was too much snow to allow passengers to disembark.
Dulles, Va.-based Atlantic Coast Airlines (ACA) reported a 67.7% jump in traffic on 55.4% more capacity for December over the same month in 1997, causing the load factor to climb 3.8 percentage points to 52.1%. ACA reported 71.7 million revenue passenger miles and 137.8 million available seat miles. Passengers flown grew 46.9% to 224,334. For 12 months, ACA posted an 88.6% rise in RPMs and 63.8% in ASMs, boosting the load factor 7.3 points. The number of passengers flown increased 51.9%.
Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) meets this week in China with Chinese air carriers, airport authorities and aviation leaders to discuss civil aviation service between the U.S. and China. The U.S.-China bilateral pact restricts direct service to three U.S. carriers - currently United, Northwest and FedEx.
Lauda Air ordered two 737-600s, four 737-700s and one 767-300ER with a book value of $519 million. The 737s will be delivered between 2000 and 2002 and the 767 in August this year.
House Transportation aviation subcommittee's expansion to 50 members makes it larger than any Senate committee and all but Transportation and four other House committees. It has more members than any other subcommittee except for another Transportation panel, surface transportation, which also has 50. Transportation has the largest membership of any committee of Congress.
Cold weather last week exposed problems that prompted FAA to issue an emergency order Friday requiring preflight engine test runs and inspections of the Allison 3007A engines on EMB-145 regional jets and Allison 3007C engines on Cessna 750 business jets when the oil temperature is below the freezing point. FAA said the order, designed to prevent inflight engine shutdown from loss of engine oil, impacts 120 U.S. aircraft. The biggest operators are Continental Express, American Eagle and Trans States.
United took further steps to shore up its Pacific route structure by reversing an October expansion to Korea and not resuming one long-haul nonstop. It will suspend its daily nonstop Osaka-Seoul flight and reduce frequencies on Tokyo-Seoul from 13 a week to seven, effective April 4. The carrier also will not operate its planned seasonal Chicago-Osaka nonstop, which was scheduled to return in mid-1999.
Furbies, the holiday season's hot new gift item, may not be used during takeoffs and landings, according to Transport Canada. The talking toys, which emit electromagnetic waves, fall under Canadian regulations on electronic portable devices, which include cellular phones, CD players, laptop computers and hand-held computer games. FAA said it treats Furbies "as just another electronic device."
China Southern has agreed to purchase a high-speed data management system from IBM China Co. Ltd. The airline will base two IBMRS/6000 enterprise-level servers at its headquarters in Guangzhou. It hopes to correct inaccuracies that result from manual processing.
