US Airways yesterday began a new series of road shows with more tough talk on its future should it fail to reach an agreement with its Air Line Pilots Association unit within two weeks. No signs of an agreement are in sight, and the airline faces a Sept. 30 deadline for ratifying a $14 billion contract with Airbus Industrie for up to 400 aircraft. The carrier says it cannot go ahead with the purchase unless it achieves a "competitive cost structure," which hinges on an agreement with the pilots.
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group members will meet Oct. 14-16 in Singapore to discuss competitive air services. The meeting is not expected to generate a binding liberalization agreement, but it will be a forum to discuss airline competition issues and the U.S. intends to promote further liberalization and open skies. Members include the U.S., Canada, Chile and Mexico; open-skies partners Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, New Zealand and Singapore; and Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines.
Continental will begin a third daily nonstop flight between Houston and Guadalajara, Mexico, Dec. 18. The flight will depart Houston at 2:20 p.m. and arrive in Guadalajara at 4:36 p.m., returning from Guadalajara at 5:15 p.m. for a 7:25 p.m. arrival in Houston. The flight complements Continental's morning and evening service to Guadalajara.
Delta yesterday applied at DOT for new Japan routes - daily nonstop service for Portland-Osaka, Portland-Fukuoka and Atlanta-Tokyo - none permitted under the existing air agreement. "Under the current agreement, only two U.S. passenger carriers have meaningful authority to serve Japan, and Delta is not one of those carriers," Maurice Worth, Delta's chief operating officer, said in Portland yesterday. "The time has come for the U.S.
Industry interests and Chicago officials are in preliminary discussions about installing a Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) to provide precision approaches for O'Hare and the two other area airports and Global Positioning System guidance throughout the region. A Honeywell-Polaris system was described as being closest to meeting specifications being drafted by RTCA for public use under SCAT 1 (Special Category 1).
Shares of B/E Aerospace Inc., Wellington, Fla., fell more than 15% after the company reported that British Airways will scale back its inflight entertainment program plans. Announcing its second quarter financial results, B/E Aerospace said BA has decided to equip its widebody aircraft with a 12-channel distributed individual passenger video system in all classes of service. The airline will make a procurement decision after flying a non-interactive, 12-channel version of the system on a trial aircraft through Dec. 15.
United has kicked off another fall charter season by signing up five National Football League teams, including the 42nd consecutive year the New York Giants club has worked with the airline. The Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks also will fly United this season. "Each team generally contracts for 10 roundtrip charters - two away pre-season games and eight regular season games," Ron Blaszczyk, senior staff planner-sales, said in an internal United communique.
Officials from the U.S. and The Netherlands today formally sign the Aruba open-skies pact in Washington, initialed earlier this year. Aruba is an autonomous region of the Kingdom of The Netherlands.
American Trans Air is introducing low-fare service from Madison, Wis., to several popular and business destinations, beginning Oct. 26. ATA commuter service will provide daily flights to Chicago Midway with connections on ATA to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York Kennedy, Orlando, Phoenix, Sarasota and St. Petersburg. Sample one-way, off-peak fares are $59 to Chicago, $99 to Orlando, $99 to New York and $129 to Los Angeles.
Frontier Airlines' August traffic jumped 22.2% to 106 million revenue passenger miles, compared with 87 million in August last year. A 27.9% capacity increase to 163 million available seat miles caused the load factor to drop to 65.2% from 68.2%. Year-to-date RPMs grew 26.1% and ASMs 29%, depressing the load factor 1.1 percentage points.
Singapore Airlines has introduced Wisemen, an audio and video on-demand inflight entertainment system it developed with Matsushita Avionics Systems Co. An upgrade of SIA's current system, Krisworld, Wisemen has been installed in 747s used on the Singapore-Tokyo route and soon will be available on A340s and 777s. The system and lets passengers skip tracks, backtrack, pause, choose from 15 movies and 20 short features, and develop their own play lists from a library of 50 audio CDs. It will be offered free to first- and Raffles-class passengers.
Kiwi International Air Lines is offering paying passengers a certificate for a free cruise package to the Bahamas, available through Oct. 31. The three-day package includes two nights' hotel accommodation but not the air fare. Travel agents booking 10 Kiwi tickets Sept. 15-Oct. 31 will receive the Bahamas package plus two free tickets to anywhere Kiwi flies.
Passengers on Continental and South African Airways soon will be able to play interactive games, answer survey questions, make purchases and gamble using onboard entertainment systems developed by Sony Trans Com Inc. Exhibiting this week at the World Airline Entertainment Association's WAEA '97 conference in Orlando, Sony said Continental will launch its P@ves with backCHANNEL system and South African will offer P@assport. P@ves and P@ssport are interactive audio and video systems, and backCHANNEL is a pre- programmed control unit.
United this month will begin installing Primex Aerospace's EmPower inflight power source for first- and Connoisseur-class customers with laptop computers. Passengers will have to purchase PowerXtender adapters from Xtend to access the system. United's 767-300s and 747-400s will receive the outlets this fall, followed by 767-200s, 757s, 747-400s, 777-As, 777- Bs, and A320s in the second quarter of 1999.
Continental is cutting fares up to 51% for winter travel to Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean from selected U.S. points The tariffs, which must be purchased within 24 hours of booking and by Sept. 25, are for travel Nov. 1-Dec. 12, and Jan. 6-March 31, 1998. Roundtrip purchase is required and some restrictions apply. Sample fares include New York/Newark-Rio de Janeiro, $498, Houston-London, $398, Cleveland-Milan, $518, and Houston-Frankfurt/Dusseldorf, $498.
Denver Airport officials have set a deadline, not disclosed, for Western Pacific to pay $4 million it said Westpac owes for leased space. The carrier has been operating at Denver's Concourse A since June 29 and has not paid any rent, said airport spokesman Chuck Cannon. In a letter to Westpac, the airport warned the carrier it faces possible suspension of privileges. The carrier has not signed a formal lease with the airport and has been operating under a verbal agreement.
United and Air Micronesia, citing pending service requests, urged DOT to defer action on the joint application by Northwest and Garuda Indonesia for initial authority to code share on U.S.-Indonesia flights (DAILY, Sept. 4). Northwest and United withdrew separate complaints about violations of the U.S.-Indonesia bilateral when they received the rights they sought from Indonesia (DAILY, Oct. 2, 1996).
DOT approved Delta's code-share proposal to serve the U.S.-Egypt market with alliance partner Swissair; service is scheduled to begin Oct. 26. The carriers hold blanket authority to engage in code-share services.
IATA is forecasting international scheduled passenger traffic growth at an average of 6.6% per year between 1997 and 2001. Passenger volume will reach 563 million by 2001, the association said. Carriers are "more pessimistic" about short- to medium-term traffic projections than they were a year ago, and the traffic forecasts have been revised downward. The IATA report, covering 21 geographic areas, can be ordered from the organization, and more information is available via its www.iata.org web site.
V-Span Inc. is marketing its Infrequent Flyer Program as a time-saving alternative for top managers who spend hours flying to meetings. With the company's video conference system, executives can sidestep air fares and earn points that can be redeemed for airline vacation tickets, American Express awards, and other prizes, V-Span said.
Mike McNally, executive VP of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, has won a runoff election as president for the next three years, the union said yesterday. Succeeding him as executive VP is Randy Schwitz, formerly VP of the Southern Region. McNally brings to the job 10 years of experience as a member of NATCA's contract negotiating team. He also is a registered lobbyist for the union. The first election, whose results were announced Aug. 1, led to the runoff races for both positions, in which about 60% of ATCA members participated.
Air Canada has developed The Cyber Ticket Office, an Internet booking system that will offer travel agents and the public 24-hour online access to its reservations area via its home page, www.aircanada.ca. Customers will be able to check flight availability, request fare quotes, choose seats and meals, and create their own travel profiles to speed up future transactions.
DOT is revoking Air Jamaica's exemption to operate to New York and Atlanta via intermediate points in the absence of a lease or occupancy agreement for Amerijet operations from Kingston's airport and no signs of construction of warehouse space there for the U.S. airline. Air Jamaica's exemption is for scheduled combination service to the U.S. points from Barbados via Antigua and Barbuda and St. Lucia, and unless there are further, prompt developments, it will expire Friday at 11:59 p.m.
