Pratt&Whitney Canada said this week it has established a wholly owned Russian company, Pratt&Whitney-Rus, to design, develop and support a "full range of turboprop, turboshaft and turbofan engines for the general civil aviation industry in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States." Based in St. Petersburg and employing 80 people, including 78 Russian nationals, the company will work closely with Russian manufacturers that supply modules, parts and services for Rus engines and engines destined for P&WC markets.
...Success of the Saab 2000 program in Sweden is prompting SAS to acquire up to 50 high-speed turboprops, including the 70-seat de Havilland Dash 8- 400. The company also has looked at the ATR 72, a 64-seater, but sources told The DAILY SAS is more interested in the speed of the Dash 8, which is scheduled to hit the market in early 1999. Sources also said the carrier probably will take more Dash 8s than Saabs, and a final decision will be made this fall. Saab is providing most maintenance on the 2000s and has 22 engineers based with SAS in Stockholm.
Los Angeles World Airports board of airport commissioners this week directed Executive Director John Driscoll to prepare a plan for relocating commuter airline operations at Los Angeles Airport. United Express will not be moved, since it already has a remote terminal for its commuter flights. Under tentative plans, American Eagle, SkyWest and Trans States would transfer their aircraft operations to common-use terminals west of Tom Bradley International Terminal, and passengers would be bused between gates at the Central Terminal Area and the new common-use terminals.
Big Sky Transportation, the Billings-based independent, and Horizon Air have collaborated on a cooperative program that the two carriers say will make Montana travel more convenient. Big Sky has struggled for years with mostly Essential Air Service routes against competitors, such as Horizon, that have skimmed the cream of the market with larger aircraft and added amenities. The carrier currently flies from Billings to Glasgow, Glendive, Great Falls, Havre, Lewistown, Miles City, Sidney and Wolf Point with a fleet of three Fairchild Metros.
Delta Connection SkyWest reported record 253,435 passengers in July, but growth in revenue passenger miles fell behind that for available seat miles, 5.2% to 4.8%, compared with July 1996. The St. George, Utah-based regional last month took six Los Angeles markets away from Mesa unit WestAir - effective Oct. 1 - under a new code-sharing agreement with United. July 1997 July 1996 7 Mths 1997 7 Mths 1996 RPMs 67,546,970 64,449,482 433,866,315 407,332,075
Philippine Airlines will suspend service between Vancouver and Newark/New York on Sept. 2, a shutdown that will result in shifting two aircraft leased by PAL from World Airways to Brazil's VASP, as announced earlier this summer by World. World said contract disputes between it and PAL have been "fully and amicably resolved," and the remaining two aircraft will continue in PAL service into 1998.
Lufthansa Cargo and KLM Cargo yesterday announced rate increases that will take effect Oct. 1. The German carrier's increases will vary from 6%, for shipments to Korea, to 17% for Middle East service. Hikes will be as high as 15% for North America shipments and 9% for the ASEAN states and India. Rates within Europe and to Latin America, South Africa, Japan and Australia will not change. Rates to U.S.
CityFlyer Express, British Airways' franchise partner based at London Gatwick, reported a 21% increase in passenger enplanements to 330,000 in the first quarter of 1997, compared with the same period last year. The carrier has a scheduled network linking Gatwick with 13 other U.K. and European destinations - Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bremen, Cologne/Bonn, Cork, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Guernsey, Jersey, Leeds-Bradford, Luxembourg, Newcastle and Rotterdam.
...UAL's "gesture" to cover ACA's CRJ costs for the rest of the year is a clear indication of the value the major partner places on the results its competitors have reaped from the RJ operations of their affiliate regionals. It also bodes well for United Express carriers Mesa and SkyWest, both of which operate CRJs independent of United, but especially Mesa, which has 25 on order and continues to lose money in its United Express turboprop operations at Denver.
A Jefferson County, Ky., judge ruled against UPS in its bid to press contempt-of-court charges against the Independent Pilots Association, charged in court with violating a restraining order against blacklisting contract pilots flying UPS goods and denying them jumpseats during the Teamsters' strike. IPA said the decision vindicated its position that it was operating within the law.
ValuJet accused National Transportation Safety Board Member John Goglia of "political grandstanding" for concluding that the carrier shared blame with maintenance contractor SabreTech and FAA for the fatal crash of a ValuJet DC-9 in the Florida Everglades on May 11, 1996. The board routinely draws criticism for its findings, but it is unusual to single out an individual member. The board had found that ValuJet employee acceptance of oxygen bottles, which it said triggered a fire causing the crash, was "not unreasonable," a ValuJet spokesman said yesterday.
Responding to changing patterns in vacation travel, Northwest yesterday announced "Everyday Deals," a domestic fare restructuring designed to give leisure travelers savings of up to 40% off the carrier's normal excursion fares, which a top executive acknowledged have "increased to an unsellable level." The new program, to be available under slightly different terms in Alaska and Canada, will offer pricing "just a little bit above" recent fare sales, Michael Levine, executive VP-marketing and international, said during a telephone news conference.
Pratt&Whitney Canada said yesterday it has established a wholly owned Russian company, Pratt&Whitney-Rus, to design, develop and support a "full range of turboprop, turboshaft and turbofan engines for the general civil aviation industry in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States." Based in St. Petersburg and employing 80 people, including 78 Russian nationals, the company will work closely with Russian manufacturers that supply modules, parts and services for Rus engines and engines destined for P&WC markets.
Federal Express and Qantas applied jointly to DOT to renew for one year their authority to operate code-share, blocked-space, all-cargo service, and to sell air cargo services on each other's scheduled combination and all-cargo flights between Sydney and Honolulu, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Qantas has a separate wet-lease agreement with Southern Air Transport, a U.S. carrier with cargo and charter authority, for which Southern will submit a separate renewal application.
Birmingham Airport recorded a 13.5% passenger traffic gain in July and London Luton Airport logged a 36% increase in the first four months of its fiscal year, both compared with the year-earlier periods. At Birmingham, growth was shared equally between scheduled and charter traffic, and the fastest-growing scheduled routes were Amsterdam and Munich, 33%, and Brussels, 14%. Transatlantic traffic jumped 36%, even though Birmingham's third U.S. scheduled service - Continental, daily to New York/Newark - did not begin operating until mid-July.
American will launch nonstop service Nov. 1 between San Antonio and Mexico City, a route it served before hub-and-spoke networks were developed. The carrier will operate the daily service with 139-seat MD-80s. On Dec. 15, American will start daily nonstops between Miami and Monterrey, using 150- seat 727s, and add nonstop service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Guadalajara and Los Cabos, using MD-80s. With the addition, American will offer three roundtrips to Guadalajara and two to Los Cabos.
Northwest said yesterday it is about to sign contracts with seven National Basketball Association teams and one National Hockey League team to carry professional athletes to their away games, starting in October. The contracts are all seven years in duration. The airline will transform five of its 149-seat 727s into luxury charter jets with 56 first-class-style seats. Each airplane will have leather seats, card tables with swivel chairs, a couch and a dual video system for movies and game films.
Mesa Air Group lost $2.5 million in the three months ended June 30, compared with a net profit of $6.5 million a year earlier, as yield dropped, costs rose and revenue fell slightly. Group revenues declined to $129.4 million from $130.3 million, and expenses were up 10% to $127.7 million from $116 million. Flight operations costs jumped 18.2% to $48.4 million from $41 million, with $3 million of that increase from a new pilot contract inked in December, and maintenance gained 14.1% to $23.6 million.
Great Lakes Aviation, which lost substantial passenger revenues during a one-week shutdown in May, posted a $6.8 million loss for the quarter ended June 30. The airline lost $1.2 million in the prior-year period. Great Lakes suspended operations voluntarily May 16 and resumed limited operations May 23, serving five cities initially and 26 as of June 30. The shutdown cost the airline $4.8 million, so even without the suspension its profit would have been worse than in the 1996 quarter.
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) intends to offset inflationary increases 6.6% in 1998-1999 and 5% in 1999-2003 in setting unit charges at Manchester Airport, and it said it will remedy inadequacies in rate-setting procedures reported by the U.K. Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC). The proposals, subject to approval following a one-month comment period, would set changes in income per passenger from airport charges to the change in the Retail Price Index minus 6.6% in the year that begins April 1, 1998, and the RPI minus 5% in the four succeeding years.
Lufthansa and SAS will launch 65 daily code-sharing services from Finland to other Scandinavian nations and Germany Oct. 26, SAS said yesterday in Stockholm. Early this month, Lufthansa and Finnair announced the end of a regional cooperation agreement dating from 1991 because of Lufthansa's ties to SAS and the Star Alliance (DAILY, Aug. 5). SAS and Finnair compete in Scandinavia. The Star Alliance links up Lufthansa, United, Air Canada, Thai Airways and SAS.
United States Travel Agent Registry (USTAR) plans a Presidents' Round Table Oct. 17 in Chicago to brief travel supplier chief executives and others on Project Genesis, USTAR's effort to create a not-for-profit computer reservations and settlement system (DAILY, Aug. 20). The travel suppliers include airlines, car rental companies, hotels and other businesses that move, house and handle travelers. USTAR supporters believe they can use new technology to create a more efficient CRS that is independent of the airlines from which current CRSs developed.
American, apologizing for a pilot training handbook that contained stereotypes offensive to the Latin community, said yesterday the document stemmed from "bad information" gathered as far back as 1989, when American took over Latin American routes from Eastern.
