Southwest, which typically adds one or two new focus cities each year, may be forced to delay some of its expansion because of slipping deliveries of new 737-700s. Production problems that Boeing announced last year already hit Southwest and will continue to ripple throughout most of 1998. "Some deliveries have slipped until later in the year," said Southwest spokeswoman Linda Rutherford. Although the airline was told several months ago when it would receive its aircraft, changes in delivery dates prompted it to rethink its expansion plans.
Frontier Airlines' fax machines are "bursting at the seams" with resumes from former Western Pacific employees, a Frontier spokesman said. Frontier is waiving its usual $15 resume processing fee. Some of Westpac's 1,500 employees, let go Thursday, likely will find jobs at Frontier, which plans to add six airplanes to its fleet this year. Frontier has about 65 employees per aircraft.
Full-service airlines may be able to coexist peacefully with low-cost startups in Europe. Passengers accustomed to hot meals and wine on traditional 50-minute routes will seek that level of service over less expensive offerings, said Chris Avery, airline analyst with Paribas Capital. Flag carriers "will try everything to keep service levels as a differentiator," he said.
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Aircraft Operating Costs Third Quarter 1997 Dollars Per Block Hour DC-10-10 American United Average Crew Cost $1,097 $1,097 $1,027 Fuel&Oil 1,341 1,356 1,351 Rentals 0 46 30
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Systemwide Aircraft Utilization Per Day, Third Quarter 1997 DC-10-10 American United Total Number of Aircraft Operated 13 25 38 Total Fleet Operations Departures 26 70 96 Block Hours 122 215 338
Anxiety that DOT cannot handle Year 2000 computer date-logic problems is based partly on recent events. Last week's DOT Inspector General report (DAILY, Feb. 5) said DOT pronounced 18 systems Y2K-compliant last May, but an IG review found no supporting evidence and DOT subsequently agreed. DOT reported 98 systems compliant in October, but IG examined 79 and 43 fell short. DOT found 36 systems compliant in its Nov. 14 report to the Office of Management and Budget, and this time the IG agreed.
TWA's January traffic was flat year over year, reflecting an international route downsizing in January 1997, but the airline's load factors were the highest in 20 years. Overall traffic fell 0.5% on 2% less capacity, lifting the load factor 0.9 percentage points to 63.1%. Domestic traffic, which comprised 82% of TWA's system, rose 4.6% on 0.6% more capacity, boosting the load factor 2.4 points to 63%. International traffic fell 19.1% on 12.3% less capacity, lowering the load factor 5.3 points to 63.4%.
DOT granted an initial one-year exemption for Polish carrier LOT to conduct scheduled combination service between Poland and Boston co-terminally with its authorized U.S.-Poland service. The carrier also received an exemption to add code-share service between Poland and Washington/Baltimore, Denver, San Francisco, Cleveland, Dallas/Fort Worth, Seattle, Phoenix and Syracuse. LOT and American have applied to amend their code-share agreement to include service to the newly authorized points (DAILY, Jan. 7), and to renew the code share (DAILY, Jan. 28).
About one-third of the 66 aircraft Iberia ordered last week are earmarked for growing the airline's domestic and international route network, the carrier told The DAILY. In addition to the order for 50 of Airbus's A320 family and 26 options, Iberia placed commitments for 16 Boeing 757s through leasing companies. The narrowbody aircraft will replace 28 727s and 26 DC- 9s.
Carriers involved in the 1997 U.S.-Argentina all-cargo frequency allocation submitted responses to DOT solidifying their requests for five available frequencies. Arrow and Challenge each held two of the frequencies and Florida West held one, which it seeks to renew. FWIA said it has a favorable service record and would rather "gain additional frequencies to mount a more extensive operation," but at the least it "would like to sell its allocation to Federal Express" under the carriers' route transfer agreement.
Delta promoted Fred Buttrell to VP-operational planning, control and reliability, Tony Charaf to VP-power plant maintenance and Udo Rieder to VP-purchasing and procurement.
The Justice Department has "misapprehended" the nature of the American-TACA code share, American told DOT last week, and DOT's tentative approval should be finalized. American's comments on DOJ were part of its response to other critics of the alliance, including United, Delta and Continental. American said Justice underestimated the code share's public benefits, did not give enough weight to the Central American open skies agreements and improperly used merger analysis intended for alliances seeking antitrust immunity, which American/TACA does not.
Alaska Airlines reported a 6.3% traffic gain for January, flying 767 million revenue passenger miles. The airline operated 1.25 billion available seat miles, 4% more than a year earlier. The load factor rose 1.3 percentage points to 61.2%. Alaska carried 892,200 passengers last month.
Southwest traffic for January declined 3.9% on 7.2% more capacity, resulting in a load factor of 54%, down 6.2 percentage points from January 1997. Chairman Herb Kelleher said the airline's yield "continues to show significant growth from year-ago levels." January 1998 revenues "showed good growth," he said, despite January 1997's revenue boost from the absence of the 10% federal ticket tax. January 1998 January 1997 RPMs 2,069,554,768 2,154,354,188
Virgin Express reported company-record passenger bookings on Feb. 2, when its reservations center took orders for 5,000 passenger segments, 30% more than normal.
