The government of Mexico has launched its airport privatization initiative by publishing general guidelines for the privatization of 35 airports. As expected, the government will establish four holding companies that will hold 50-year renewable concessions on each of four regional groups of airports - Southeast, Pacific, North Central and Mexico City, which includes the existing airport and planned second facility.
Virgin Express booked 6,967 passenger segments Feb. 25, 39% more than its previous record. Flights from Brussels to Rome and Barcelona have been well received and service from Rotterdam has been successful, said Rohan Alce, director of sales and promotions.
Ryanair is expanding its network across Europe with the launch this summer of scheduled services to six new points. The decision pitches the low-cost Irish carrier into head-to-head competition with British Airways, Alitalia, Air France and SAS. The new services originate from Ryanair's U.K. operating base at London Stansted Airport to Venice, Pisa, Toulouse, Lyon, Rimini (Rome) and Malmo. Ryanair will offer twice-daily frequencies to all but Rimini and Malmo, which will receive one daily flight.
GE Engine Services and Rolls-Royce plan to form separate overhaul and maintenance companies in conjunction with Asian businesses. GE and EVA Airways of Taiwan intend to set up an EVA-controlled joint venture, Evergreen Aviation Technologies Corp., to provide engine overhaul and aircraft maintenance services for EVA and other Asia/Pacific airlines. Rolls-Royce, Singapore Airlines Engineering Co. and Hong Kong Aero Engine Services Ltd.
Northwest asked DOT to award it immediately all 21 beyond-Japan and 28 U.S.-Japan same-country weekly code-share frequencies. No other partners have filed for the beyond code shares, and with US Airways' withdrawal from the Japan case only the TWA-Delta partnership is competing for same-country gateway-to-gateway code shares. Northwest wants DOT to deny that application because it was filed one day late.
Airbus Industrie will be in a position to launch both the 100-seat AE31X and the 555-seat A3XX at the end of the year after working out the "business case" for the former and technical questions involving the latter, according to Airbus Managing Director Jean Pierson. Airbus and its AE31X design, development and production partners in China and Singapore "know the where and the need of" the 100-seat market, Pierson said, but the difference between cost and selling price estimates "still gives us some headaches," he said.
Pan Am told the Airline Reporting Corp. it will remain an ARC member and has established a ticketing and refund procedure for travel agencies in lieu of posting $3.3 million in additional security, as required. ARC said, effective with transactions on or after March 2, it will restrict processing of cash refunds validated on Pan Am as reported by ARC- accredited travel agents.
Boeing is working with several Asian customers to defer deliveries, notably to Philippine Airlines and Malaysia Airlines, but the company believes the regional recession that is generating the slowdowns will be short-lived, according to Boeing Commercial VP Larry Dickenson. Boeing believes the governments of South Korea and Thailand are moving strongly to right their economies and will be back in as little as a year. Korea is "resilient," and top Thai officials have surrounded themselves "with good people," Dickenson said.
Boeing will double its output of next-generation 737s this spring as its recovery from production problems continues to outpace the schedule it announced last fall, Boeing executives said yesterday. Also yesterday, Boeing and Bell Helicopter Textron announced the sale, as expected, of Boeing's single-engine commercial helicopter business to Bell.
Sabena ended three months of speculation with the announcement yesterday that it has chosen the CFM56 engine to power 34 new Airbus aircraft. The order, worth up to 15 billion Belgian francs (US$420 million), took few industry observers by surprise because Swissair, Sabena's partner and major shareholder, uses the same powerplant. Swissair has applied increasing pressure on the Belgian carrier to harmonize their two fleets despite misgivings by the unions representing Sabena's technical maintenance and repair staff.
Summary of U.S. National Carriers Systemwide Traffic September 1997 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles % Carriers (000) Change (miles) (000) Change American Trans Air 338 (3.81) 1,980 668,850 3.25 Carnival 86 (24.08) 1,109 95,225 (33.73)
Rolls-Royce Chairman Ralph Robins ridiculed Pratt&Whitney's PW8000 geared turbofan launch as "the best of many good things that has happened" recently to the U.K. engine manufacturer. P&W President Karl Krapek announced the PW8000 "as the technology for the 21st century," Robins said, but "he's about 35 years late; we had a geared fan in the sixties. It was called the M45H, and there are many geared fans flying today. The ALF 502 is a geared turbofan.
Delta will become the first U.S. airline to transit North Korean airspace March 1, on its Portland-Seoul flight. Using airspace closed to U.S. aircraft for more than 50 years will save Delta fuel costs and between 15 and 40 minutes per flight, depending on winds.
The directors general of civil aviation of several Central European states will meet in Dubrovnik March 2-3 in an attempt to revive stalled talks on the placement of a Central European Air Traffic Services (CEATS) center. The CEATS concept calls for the creation of a single air traffic control center for the upper airspace in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the northern part of Italy.
Japan Airlines and American yesterday announced a wide-ranging code-share agreement that will give both carriers needed access to cities beyond traditional nonstop gateways in Asia and North America. The agreement was first revealed earlier this week (DAILY, Feb. 24). American Chairman Robert Crandall, in Tokyo yesterday, is expected to follow this announcement with a second Asian code share - with China Eastern Airlines.
Continental and its pilots union have reached tentative agreement on a five-year contract. Details were not available yesterday on the pact, which was reached Tuesday evening after eight days of intense negotiations. But scope clause provisions protecting pilot jobs in case of a merger were fundamental to an accord, said a spokesman for the Independent Association of Continental Pilots. IACP wanted the same protection that Northwest's pilots have in their contract and vowed there would be no deal without it.
American President Don Carty will speak with employees at two dozen cities during the next four months about changes at the airline and in aviation. Carty was questioned about employee travel privileges, outsourcing and other concerns. "There has been a lot of change" at American in recent years, he told employees this week, some of it "worrisome to front-line employees."
Southwest employees will receive $91.3 million in profit sharing, based on the carrier's $317.8 million net earnings for 1997, the company said yesterday. The amount, the largest Southwest has given employees to date, represents about 11% of eligible salaries. From 1992 to 1996, each employee received an average of 9.2% of his salary in profit sharing.
Lufthansa asked DOT for exemption from the high-density rule for foreign air transportation to enable it to provide Chicago O'Hare-Frankfurt scheduled foreign combination service. FAA turned down the carrier's request for a 7:45 p.m. arrival slot because the number of requests for slots at O'Hare "exceeds the total number of slots that the FAA is able to allocate." The carrier's application notes that "U.S. carriers presently hold far more slots at German airports than do Lufthansa and other German airlines at U.S. airports." Lufthansa's planned 10:15 p.m.
Used Jet Aircraft Deliveries October 1997 Carrier # Type Aero Continente 1 737-200 Aerolease 1 DC-8-63CF Air Afrique 1 737-300 Air France 1 A320-200 Air Malawi 1 737-300 Air UK Ltd 1 Fokker 100 Airborne Express 1 767-200 Airbus Industrie 1 A310-300
Sabena is selling 13 of its 737-200 airplanes to British holding company European Aviation Limited (EAL). The Belgian carrier will immediately lease back the aircraft while awaiting new Airbus 320s, delivery of which will begin next year. EAL, which owns European Aviation Air Charter, is negotiating with third parties to install hush kits on the Boeings this year to qualify them for the International Civil Aviation Organization's Category 3 noise classification. The airplanes will enter European Aviation Air Charter's fleet next year.
Flight delays at European airports increased in 1997 - the fourth year in a row, according to the Association of European Airlines. The portion of departures for intra-European flights with delays of more than 15 minutes increased to 19.5% last year, 1 percentage point higher than in 1996, AEA reported in new statistics issued this week. It said the sector is sinking back to the kind of delays experienced in the 1988-1990 period, one of the worst in European aviation history.
American will fly initially only three roundtrip flights each day between Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago Midway, and flights will be aboard the smallest aircraft in its fleet, the 97-seat Fokker F-100. American will begin flying the routes May 1. The service represents a "modest beginning in a niche market," said spokesman Tim Smith. American last served Midway Airport in 1992, when it flew 727s, which were not economical, he said. It also was a period of large financial losses for airlines and a soft economy.
ILFC will lease one new Boeing 767-300ER to KLM on a seven-year term. The aircraft, equipped with CF6-80C2-B6F engines, will be delivered in March 1999. It is ILFC's 11th 767 leased to KLM.
