Mexicana has leased one Boeing 757-200 from ILFC for eight years. With two other 757 commitments, the airline will take delivery of two new aircraft in August and one in November 1998.
Atlanta-based AirTran Airlines is offering service to New York nonstop between Atlanta and New York LaGuardia at $99 to $200 one way. Travelers from New York now have one-stop connecting service between LaGuardia and Knoxville twice daily, with fares starting at $89 one way. One-way fares from Atlanta to LaGuardia represent savings of as much as 68% off other carriers' published unrestricted walkup fares. Business-class fares cost $225.
Equality between the U.S. and Japan on issues involving third and fourth freedoms can be achieved, according to Chikara Sugimoto, VP-international affairs for Japan Airlines. But code sharing, beyond rights and slots remain the difficult questions in this week's bilateral talks, Sugimoto told The DAILY yesterday in Tokyo, and he suggested that U.S. carriers should expect to confront the same limitations other carriers face with when flying through Japan.
U.S. Carriers Interest Expense, Third Quarter 1997 % Of Total Interest Operating Expenses Major Carriers Alaska $ 5,638,000 1.59 America West 5,769,731 1.35 American 31,167,000 0.86 Continental 29,290,000 1.98 Delta 42,329,000 1.33
Sichuan Airlines has awarded an additional contract to International Aero Engines for V2500 engines to power two A320s and two A321s. The order, worth $66 million, is the 11th this year for IAE.
Associated Global Systems promoted Scott Richter to director-service quality and named Monica Barber marketing services specialist, both new positions.
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.
