Western Pacific Airlines lost $21 million in the third quarter, significantly worse than its $910,000 loss a year ago. The shortfall came as the airline terminated a merger agreement with Frontier and moved operations to the more expensive Denver International Airport from Colorado Springs. Revenue increased 46% to $66.3 million from $45.5 million, but expenses rose even faster, by 86% to $86.7 million from $46.5 million.
UPS, citing the two-week strike by its Teamsters union this summer, reported a third quarter loss of $10 million, compared with a net profit of $340 million during the same quarter last year. Revenues were off $775 million to $4.8 billion. The strike "caused a lot of damage and hardship both to UPS people and our customers," Chairman Jim Kelly said, and the company is "working very hard to rebuild our service and restore the confidence of our customers." For the nine months ended Sept.
Nav Canada announced construction of a new $7.5 million extension to its Montreal Area Control Center in Dorval and said it will work with the Department of National Defense to provide air traffic control services for military flights in eastern Canada from the Dorval site.
SAS's pre-tax profit for the first three quarters of 1997 ballooned by more than 20%, compared with the same period last year. Higher business fares, better capacity utilization and a moderate rise in expenses accounted for the improved results. Pre-tax income rose 21% to SEK1.75 billion (US$233 million) from SEK1.45 billion ($193 million) and operating revenue was up 9.5% to SEK27.27 billion ($3.63 billion) from SEK24.90 billion ($3.32 billion) last year.
European aviation fees have risen 25% in the last three years, "an intolerable situation," according to Lufthansa President Fred Reid. He called on airports and air traffic control groups to be more innovative.
Standard&Poor's placed its triple-B corporate credit rating and senior unsecured rating of Airborne Freight Corp. on CreditWatch with positive implications citing "significant recent improvements" in its financial profile and "expectation that future internal cash generation will at least equal cash spending requirements."
Associated Global Systems promoted Abraham Pineda to service supervisor- Miami; Vic Wilson to service manager-JFK Station; Ken Boroski to district service manager-Chicago, and Steve Sweeney to district manager- Philadelphia, and named Frank Loret de Mola district service manager-Los Angeles; Leslie Tejada district manager-Toronto; Walter Benvenuto sales director-California and Glenn Hammer regional sales manager-New England.
Approved for seven months weekly charter flights by Air Canada on a Toronto-St. Maarten-San Juan routing, carrying Canada-originating passengers as foreign air transportation commingled with traffic not in foreign air transportation...Approved a Wartsila NDS Finland charter using a HeavyLift Volga-Dnepr An 124-100 for a one-way flight carrying a 63,000- pound ship's engine on a Turku, Finland-Norfolk, Va., routing Nov.
Though Wednesday's hard line in Moscow was interpreted by many as an opening position, Russian negotiators continued to oppose U.S. efforts to open the Russian market in yesterday's session. "The Russians are basically drawing a line in the sand and being very stubborn, stating what they can and cannot accept," a source said. "They are telling the U.S. it cannot tell them how to run their international affairs with others." A key stumbling block is the United-Lufthansa code share, permitted under an expired annex but blocked by Russia.
SAS traffic for October grew 4% to 1.9 billion revenue passenger kilometers. Freight volume rose 15% to 69.7 million ton kilometers. It carried 1.97 million passengers last month, up 5%, and 17.5 million year- to-date.
Biztravel.com is an internet company for frequent business travelers. The company was misidentified as Biznet.com (DAILY, Nov. 7). In the same story, the statement "Travelers risk not getting a seat if they wait for fares to go online" was wrongly attributed to Bonnie Schwartz, Biztravel.com senior VP-marketing and business development. The comment referred to sale fares and was made by the American Society of Travel Agents.
Innsbruck, Austria-based Tyrolean Airways has placed firm orders with Bombardier for three more Dash 8Q Series 300 and one Canadair RJ Series 200B LR aircraft. All four aircraft have 50 passenger seats. Value of the order is about $91.6 million Canadian - US$65 million. Deliveries are expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Current efforts to update the Rio treaty, particularly those to limit aircraft emissions by limiting the amount of fuel provided for aviation use, will result in reregulation of the industry, FedEx Chairman Frederick Smith told the International Aviation Club yesterday in Washington. Discussions under way on the global climate treaty could "undo 20 years of deregulation with disastrous economic consequences," Smith said, noting that the air cargo industry was deregulated 20 years ago this month.
Civilian and military air traffic control experts from across Europe have agreed to negotiate a new long-term strategy to develop a harmonized air traffic management system by 2015. Meeting in Brussels, representatives from the member countries of Eurocontrol, the European Civil Aviation Conference, the European Commission, airlines, military authorities and international organizations agreed last week to launch discussions of the strategy, known as ATM 2000+. The strategy was approved by European transport ministers earlier this year.
American International Airways applied with DOT to wet-lease a cargo- configured 747-200 for one year to Varig for scheduled all-cargo service between Brazil and other countries, including the U.S. Services, authorized under bilateral amendments, include Los Angeles and Panama City, Panama; Manaus, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (Guarulhos), Brazil; Caracas, Venezuela; New York Kennedy; Sao Paulo (Viracopos), Brazil; Lima, Peru; Mexico City, and Miami.
Twin Cities-based Northwest Airlink affiliate Mesaba Airlines recorded a 91.6% increase in revenue passenger miles to 76.9 million in October as capacity gained 80.8% to 136.6 million available seat miles, compared with the same year-ago month. The load factor rose 3.1 percentage points to 56.3% from 53.2%. Boardings jumped 85% to 320,000. Mesaba noted October was the third month it operated in 13 new markets out of the Minneapolis/St. Paul hub that previously were served by Express Airlines I.
Regional airline traffic, as measured by revenue passenger miles, increased by 9.55% during October, while capacity grew by only 2.58%, according to a DAILY sampling of 15 of the nation's largest regional carriers. The sampling was led by Northwest Airlink Mesaba, which posted a 91.56% increase in RPMs versus an 80.83% increase in capacity, as measured by available seat miles. Mesaba continues to add more Avro RJ85 quadjets and Saab 340s to its fleet.
Flight Safety Foundation Chairman Stuart Matthews proposed yesterday that FSF take the lead in developing standardized principles and practices for conducting independent safety audits of airlines, airport operations and repair stations.
Charlotte, N.C.-based US Airways Express affiliate CCAIR reported net earnings of $393,181, or five cents per share, for its fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, up 22.6% (25% on a per-share basis) from the $320,762, or four cents per share, reported in the 1996 quarter. CCAIR reported that in October its traffic dropped 8.2% to 12.4 million revenue passenger miles, compared with October 1996. But capacity dropped faster - 19.8% to 23.1 million available seat miles - thereby boosting the load factor 6.9 percentage points to 53.8%.
