Boeing Commercial President Ron Woodard took aim last week at what he called a "myth" in Europe that the post-merger Boeing is so large it threatens Europe's aerospace industry. "The combined revenues of Airbus partner companies are more than twice as large as we are," he said. "There is a giant all right, but it is not us. It is the combined partners of the Airbus consortium."
DOT made final its finding that Winair is fit to conduct interstate and domestic combination charter service and issued the carrier an interstate air transportation certificate. Its foreign certificate will be handled in a separate order. The carrier must notify DOT and demonstrate fitness if it wants to operate more than eight aircraft. (Dockets OST-97-2936, 2937)
DOT will take no action to prevent Continental Express from terminating its service at New Haven, Conn. The carrier told DOT it would end its Newark- New Haven flights Dec. 17 (DAILY, Sept. 30). The remaining carrier at New Haven, USAir Express, provides seven Philadelphia and three Washington National roundtrip nonstops per day, and DOT said this level of service "far exceeds" New Haven's essential air service requirement, redefined by the department as two nonstop or one-stop roundtrips a day to any medium or large hub.
Ananias Blocker, White House special assistant for legislative affairs and a former Senate Budget Committee analyst, will join American's Washington office to cover aviation bilaterals. He replaces Mary Kennedy, who died this year. American reportedly considered shifting the job to Texas but thought better of it.
After US Airways bought the US Airways Shuttle last week, bidder American told employees it is "unfortunate that there will be no new competition" in Shuttle markets New York LaGuardia, Washington National and Boston. In fact American, number three in all three, gained market share in Boston in the last year and remained flat at LaGuardia and National. During the same period, US Airways' share at LaGuardia and Boston declined.
Popular wisdom notwithstanding, airplanes and their air-handling systems don't make you sick, says a Stanford University Medical Center infectious disease expert. "There's nothing really special about an airplane in terms of infection except that you're in very close contact with people for a relatively long period of time," according to medical school professor Lucy Thompson. Colds and flu "are usually picked up from surfaces, such as an armrest or a washroom basin." Her advice? Pay close attention to personal hygiene.
American will break ground Dec. 1 at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport for its $2 million, 10,000-square-foot shelter and exhibit hall for the Flagship Knoxville, a pre-World War II DC-3 originally owned by American. American employees raised $700,000 for the project and the company pledged the rest. The Flagship was used as an Army cargo plane in 1942-43, returned to American and sold to Colonial Airlines in 1948. At one time it was used as a crop duster in South Carolina.
Delta and Aeropostal of Venezuela will explore cooperation in Latin America, including joint marketing, enhanced interlining, schedule coordination, computer reservations system links, shared passenger and facilities handling and reciprocal frequent flyer program participation.
Sun Country and its pilot union reached tentative agreements on several key issues Friday after two weeks of intense negotiations under the auspices of the National Mediation Board. The carrier and its Air Line Pilots Association unit found common ground on training, dead-heading, leaves of absence, vacations and non-wage compensation, but they did not reach agreement on minimum guarantees of flight time or wage rates. NMB recessed the talks for resumption either after Thanksgiving or the first of the year.
United is offering "soaring in style" flights out of San Francisco with complimentary headsets and Godiva chocolates. On selected flights, passengers will have a chance to win instant rewards, such as limousine service, $500 in "mad money" for a day off, dinners for two, roses and retail certificates. The airline also is offering four fantasy inflight giveaways - getaways to a race car driving school in Florida, Hollywood and baseball spring training in Arizona, and time at the controls of a flight simulator.
ANZ Investment Bank has arranged a $17 million syndicated loan to enable state-owned domestic carrier Indian Airlines to finance capital acquisitions and other projects, IA officials said Friday. The five-year loan, IA's first overseas borrowing without a federal government guarantee, is priced 55 basis points higher than the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor). Among participants in the syndication are Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken of Stockholm, BW Bank Ireland Plc, Indian Bank's Singapore branch and Banca Commerciale Italiana of Singapore.
Lufthansa Cargo AG said it has become Germany's first air cargo carrier to receive ISO 9001 certification, the international quality standard. The company applied for the certification two years ago and was put through more than 2,600 individual audits. The result is a four-volume quality manual LCAG will distribute to its operating and marketing sites across Germany.
DOT's new World Wide Web site is open for business with rulemakings, docket filings and other regulatory documents from all transportation sectors, including aviation. DOT is promoting the free service, accessed at http://dms.dot.gov, as part of Vice President Gore's initiative to reinvent government. Within months, interested parties will be able to file dockets over the Web as well.
Lufthansa, reorganizing its activities in Asia, will set up a central office in Singapore that will manage all of its operations from India to Japan. The German carrier's announcement fueled speculation that it is about to unveil a cooperation agreement with Singapore Airlines (DAILY, Nov. 20). Lufthansa will hold a press conference this week in Singapore with Chairman Jurgen Weber as a participant. Singapore Airlines is currently linked to Swissair and Delta Air Lines, rivals of Lufthansa's Star Alliance partnership.
American Trans Air reported a 16.6% increase in traffic, to 669.2 million revenue passenger miles, a 10.3% gain in capacity, to 962.1 million available seat miles, and a 22.9% jump in block hours flown, to 11,143, in October 1997 compared with October 1996. In scheduled service, the AmTran subsidiary's traffic was up 26% to 361.3 million RPMs as capacity rose 17.1% to 531.4 million, boosting the load factor 4.8 percentage points to 68%.
Lufthansa intends to increase its passenger capacity to Peru by 15% during 1998, according to Peru's Gestion. The airline forecasts that 40% of traffic will be local Peru travelers, up from 22% currently. The carrier is considering direct service between Frankfurt and Lima in 1999. Sales from Peru will total $5.6 million this year and should increase due to code-share service with United and Varig.
Boeing is nowhere near its accustomed 70% market share for civil aircraft sales this year, particularly when its merger with McDonnell Douglas is factored in. Boeing reported sales of 480 aircraft through the first 10 months, compared with 425 firm orders for Airbus Industrie. This gives Airbus 47% of the market, close to its 50% target.
Aerospatiale and Honeywell have agreed to expand current cooperation in test equipment. Honeywell will develop and maintain test program sets for its avionics for the Boeing 777 and new generation 737 series on Aerospatiale's ATEC Series 6 tester. Both parties will market jointly to airlines.
Orally approved an exemption for Singapore Airlines to conduct scheduled combination service from points behind Singapore via Singapore and intermediate points to points in the U.S. and beyond, scheduled cargo service between the U.S. and beyond points, and charter operations, as envisioned under this year's open skies agreement with Singapore...Orally approved an exemption for American International Airways permitting it to delay startup of approved, scheduled all-cargo service between the U.S.
