British Midland has taken delivery of its first Airbus A321. The carrier will receive 12 A321s and 10 A320s over the next five years and will take three A321s in the first half of this year.
Standard&Poor's assigned a double-C rating to TWA's $150 million 11.375% senior unsecured notes due 2006. S&P also affirmed its triple-C corporate credit rating and revised the outlook to positive from stable.
An unnamed investment fund is investing $15 million in Denver-based Frontier Airlines, receiving 33.3% of the carrier's outstanding stock and the right to designate two directors. Frontier said yesterday that it accepted a commitment from the investor to buy 4,615,385 newly issued shares of Frontier common stock at $3.25 per share. The investment fund also will receive warrants to purchase 758,000 additional shares at an exercise price of $3.75 per share.
America West will report first quarter profits at the upper end of analysts' estimates, Chairman William Franke said yesterday. The company, which will report earnings April 21, said most estimates put first quarter per-share earnings between 40 cents and 47 cents. In addition, America West expects strong second quarter results if fuel prices remain stable during the period. In last year's first quarter, when fuel prices were increasing, the airline posted a record net profit of $14 million and earnings per share of 31 cents.
U.S. Carriers Average Aircraft Operations By Aircraft Type Year Ended Third Quarter 1997 Aircraft Average Aircraft Per Day Operated Per Day Block Hours Departures RPMs ASMs Turboprops ATR-42 73 8.3 6.9 37,458 67,416 ATR-72 43 8.4 6.6 55,640 100,101
DOT made final its tentative reselection of Great Lakes Aviation to provide subsidized Essential Air Service at Dickinson, N.D., for two more years, through March 31, 2000. Doing business as United Express, the carrier is to operate 12 weekly nonstop roundtrips to Denver using 19-seat Beech 1900 aircraft. Annual compensation is $329,673. (Docket OST-95-697)
US Airways yesterday opened the second phase of its new terminal at Boston Logan Airport. The facility will feature a 27,000-square-foot passenger gate area and a 75% increase in space for US Airways.
Stephen Munro, group publisher, newsletters at Hart Publications Inc., Rockville, Md., will become publisher of Aviation Week Newsletters on April 27, Kenneth Gazzola, executive VP of McGraw-Hill Aviation Week Group, announced yesterday. Munro, an editor at McGraw-Hill energy newsletters from 1981 to 1989, has been in editorial and publishing positions at Thompson Publishing Group Inc. and Hart Publications since then. He succeeds Edmund Pinto, who left McGraw-Hill in February to become a managing director at GKMG Consulting Services Inc.
Representatives of the U.S. and France are excepted to conclude a new air transport agreement today in Paris. Last week's talks continued through the weekend, and "we hope to come to an agreement on Tuesday," said a spokesman for the French ministry of foreign affairs, adding that the negotiators are "solving wording problems, which takes a long time." The two sides are "getting very close," U.S. government sources confirmed. "We're very pleased with the progress," said a U.S.
Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration is permitting Formosa Airlines to resume service between Taichung and Hualien, Kaohsiung and Taitung, routes that only Formosa has authority to serve. The CAA grounded all Formosa flights following the crash March 18 of a Saab 340 in which 13 people died. A CAA official said Formosa completed a series of special safety checks to qualify itself to resume service on the three routes. Formosa will be operating 25 flights per day, about one quarter of its pre- March 18 operations.
Association of Flight Attendants has represented flight attendants at Tower Air for 10 years, the association said. Tower President and Executive VP-Operations Terry Hallcolm said he believed AFA is new to Tower (DAILY, April 3).
DOT approved an initial one-year exemption for Mexicana to conduct scheduled combination service between co-terminal points Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta and Tampa. Separately, the department granted new authority to Condor Flugdienst to display Mexicana's code on flights between the three North American points and Frankfurt. Condor requested one-year authority but DOT granted it only through Aug. 23, 1998. (Docket OST-98-3591)
Air France completed the reorganization of its top management last week with the appointment of Pierre-Henri Gourgeon to succeed Marc Veron as executive director general. Gourgeon and Air Frances' Chairman, Jean Cyril Spinetta, worked together in several ministerial cabinets. In 1990, they organized the grouping of France's state-owned airline companies - Air France purchased Air Inter and UTA - under the authority of former Transport Minister Michel Delebarre.
DOT approved an indefinite-duration renewal of seven U.S.-Brazil combination frequencies for Delta, which uses them to provide scheduled service between Atlanta and co-terminal points Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. DOT is making such allocations contingent on carriers continuing to hold the underlying authority to serve the markets involved. In granting Delta's Brazil request, DOT used a streamlined version of its Notice of Action Taken process, rather than issuing an "oral approval" followed up by a confirming order. (Docket OST-98-3442)
TWA will launch nonstop service from Portland, Ore., to Anchorage on June 1. TWA said its flights will be the only daily nonstops between Portland and Anchorage on a year-round basis.
FAA said yesterday it has reassigned two officials associated with its Global Positioning System program. Larry Stotts, integrated product team leader for aircraft, avionics and navigation systems, has been transferred and now is a technical adviser to the Communication, Navigation and Surveillance Office, so the agency "can use his technical expertise across all programs, including surveillance and weather." Stotts will report to the director of the CNS Office, a job currently filled in an acting capacity by Dan Salvano.
DOT's proposed guidelines on unfair pricing and capacity practices against new-entrant airlines, put forward yesterday for a 60-day comment period, is an effort "to ensure that deregulation works for another 20 years," not an attempt to reregulate, Secretary Rodney Slater told reporters in Washington. DOT, the Justice Department, Congress and the General Accounting Office are examining major carriers' responses to the entry of startup or low-cost carriers in a market.
American Eagle, the regional subsidiary of American Airlines, will launch additional nonstop regional jet service between Chicago O'Hare Airport and Columbus, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa, and Indianapolis. It will replace most turboprops serving the three cities with new 50-passenger Embraer RJ145s. The carrier will begin five daily flights to Columbus and four to Indianapolis on June 5, and on June 26 will add two daily jet flights to Indianapolis and begin two daily flights to Des Moines.
DOT denied a request by Aviaenergo Airlines for a permit to operate a one-way passenger charter from Moscow to San Juan, Puerto Rico, because the Russian Federation has prohibited the carrier from flying to North America "until further notice." DOT emphasized that its decision "rests solely on the fundamental threshold issue of Aviaenergo's lack of homeland operating authority." It said it did not have to consider whether the request would have met other criteria, "including the fitness and compliance disposition of Aviaenergo."
Air New Zealand raised the bar again on low fares to New Zealand and Australia from Los Angeles. Fares begin at $550 roundtrip to New Zealand and $650 to Sydney for weekday travel. The sale runs through tomorrow for travel through June 11.
Alliances are contributing $170 million per year in pre-tax revenues to United, according to Chief Financial Officer Doug Hacker, and now that the revenue level is high, United is concerned about protecting it. "We are worried that a debate about the American/British Airways alliance will have a lasting effect on all alliances," Hacker said.
British Airways traffic increased 5.1% on 8.5% more capacity in March, forcing the load factor down 2.4 percentage points to 73.8%. The load factor for the U.K. and Europe dropped 5.3 points to 64% while intercontinental loads fell 1.6 points to 76.3%.
A portion of All Nippon Airways' 747-400 pilots struck the airline yesterday, but management pilots kept all the airline's flights operating. More than 200 of ANA's 1,700 flight crew went on strike to protest a new pay structure that took effect last week, reducing the guaranteed minimum number of hours pilots are paid. The strike was expected to last only one day, but if it continued through today, the airline said only the Osaka- Milan-Rome flight would be canceled. On Wednesday, the airline would be hit harder.
