The Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC) board approved last week a one-year trial allowing individual travel agencies to share rent, utilities, computer reservations systems and equipment while continuing to operate separately, enabling agents to reduce expenses. The board will receive applications from prospective participants through the first quarter of 1998, said ARC VP and General Counsel Kathleen Argiropoulos. ARC does not know how many agencies are interested in the proposal, which came from the Association of Retail Travel Agents.
Bidders for bankrupt Mahalo Air are being asked to provide airline ownership credentials by submitting background and financial information, an attempt to ensure that whoever buys Mahalo's assets can get operating authority. Mahalo attorney Jerrold Guben said competition for the airline is heating up.
TWA board member William Winpisinger died Thursday, TWA Chairman and Chief Executive Gerald Gitner announced. Winpisinger, the international president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers for many years, sat on the TWA board since January 1994.
FlightSafety International named Dick Turner manager-Sea-Tac Seattle Training Center and promoted Mike Croitoru to manager-FlightSafety Learjet Learning Center, Wichita, Kan.
United, Midwest Express and Continental Express have joined the ranks of airlines that market on the Internet, and Northwest is using its World Wide Web site to help passengers do their holiday shopping.
Skeptical National Transportation Safety Board officials Friday questioned FAA's commitment to finding a way to prevent fuel tank explosions aboard aircraft. Thomas McSweeney, director of FAA's Aircraft Certification Service, pledged that the agency will issue a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) designed to lower the risk of explosion. The safety board last week held a public hearing in Baltimore on the July 1996 crash of TWA 800, believed to be caused by an explosion in the center wing tank.
U.S. Carriers Rental Expense, Third Quarter 1997 % Of Total Rental Operating Expenses Majors Alaska $ 45,030,000 12.72 America West 77,548,075 18.11 American 262,230,000 7.21 Continental 179,621,000 12.11
The Sabre group's web site for travel agents, AgentExplorer, is offering a tool to keep agencies apprised of bargains. "Today's Low Fares," a bulletin board agencies can customize to track as many as 20 city-pairs traveled most frequently by their customers, shows the lowest published fare by market, the airline offering the fare, the fare basis codes, the previous lowest fare and the date on which the fare last changed. Agent- Explorer can be accessed using the Planet Sabre or Turbo Sabre point-of- sale tools.
Lending credence to speculation that Air New Zealand will join the Star Alliance, United has created a joint-venture lounge with ANZ at Auckland Airport. United has many reciprocal lounge agreements with Star Alliance partners, but the ANZ deal is its first joint venture. This fact "indicates the value we place on the alliance we have with Air New Zealand," said Don Curran, United VP-Pacific South Division. ANZ owns 67%, United 33%.
Midwest Express subsidiary Skyway Airlines reported a 2.4% traffic increase in November to 5.3 million revenue passenger miles. Capacity was off 1.5% to 12.3 million available seat miles, and the load factor rose 1.7 percentage points to 42.8%.
Latin American airlines have just begun to grow and are likely to implement new routes connecting some city-pairs for the first time, according to Bob Booth, president of Aviation Management Services. The region, Delta's choice last week for its major international expansion, has 100 city-pairs with no direct service. "It means there is a lot of circuitous routing and backtracking," Booth said at the Institute for International Research's Aircraft Finance Conference.
Boeing's search for the cause of the crash of TWA 800 did not stop with its own resources.It sought - and got - aid from rivals, including Airbus, Lockheed and eventual merger partner McDonnell Douglas."Industry has come together to try to solve this one," a Boeing official said at NTSB hearings last week.
Air Canada traffic increased 11.8% in November over November 1996, to 1.5 billion revenue passenger miles, but a 12.4% rise in capacity reduced the load factor 0.4 percentage points to 61%. Domestic traffic rose 13%, capacity 8.2% and the load factor 2.7 points. International traffic grew 11% and capacity 14.8%, cutting 2 points from the load factor. Year-to- date traffic was up 11%, capacity 8.8% and load factor 1.5 points.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has sent a letter of complaint to the DOT Inspector General urging that FAA delay training controllers on the Display System Replacement system (DSR). Training is scheduled to begin in mid-January for Seattle controllers on the site of the initial system. But the controllers' union said it wants to see if changes FAA made at the urging of the union last June will work or if further changes are needed.
U.S. Carriers Food Expense, Third Quarter 1997 Cost Food Per Passenger Alaska $ 12,748,000 3.70 America West 6,509,790 1.39 American 162,803,000 7.62 Continental 42,755,000 4.18 Delta 98,092,000 3.70
America West's stock clerks will have the opportunity to vote for Teamsters representation by order of the National Mediation Board. The NMB on Friday ordered a new election after finding that America West management, in violation of federal law, had questioned stock clerks about the election last July. In the July balloting, 19 of the 40 clerks returned mail ballots in favor of the union, two short of the number necessary to obtain Teamsters representation.
Joining airline attempts to reduce distribution costs by making fares and travel services available on the Internet, United projects $150 million- $200 million in 1998 ticket sales from its new United Connection product, according to Director of Electronic Distribution Mark Koehler. (See story to follow.)
Western Pacific's traffic rose 11.8% to 145.5 million revenue passenger miles, but capacity gained 35.1% to 297.5 million available seat miles, reducing the load factor 10.2 percentage points to 48.9%. Results reflect Westpac's Chapter 11 filing for bankruptcy protection, its reorganization and favorable statistics in November 1996, when the carrier staged a Mystery Fare promotion, said Senior VP-Marketing Mark Coleman.
Federal Express and its pilots union are engaged in "intensive negotiations" for the next two weeks that both sides hope will end with a contract after nearly three years of talks. One of the major sticking points has been protection under the Railway Labor Act for 52 pilots stationed at Subic Bay in the Philippines (DAILY, Dec. 1). On Dec. 22, members of the FedEx Pilots Association are expected to ratify a letter of agreement that would transfer the pilots administratively to Memphis and thereby provide them with RLA protection.
