Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is under conflicting pressures from the Dutch government, the courts and freight carriers as it tries to reduce noise. The Netherlands' Haarlem District Court will rule Friday on airlines' opposition to Schiphol's planned ban on night flying by DC-10 and 747-100, -200, -300 and SP aircraft between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. Schiphol was trying to comply with government-imposed annual noise limits, but the government said the measure was insufficient.
ValuJet is talking to officials in Washington, Atlanta and Orlando to explore how best to consolidate its corporate headquarters once its merger with AirTran is completed later this year. Orlando is the likely choice, the airline said, because of AirTran's maintenance facility and the airport's large amount of space available both now and in the future. Although ValuJet recently met with Washington airport officials concerning a Dulles site, the airline "continues to believe that Orlando is the leading candidate," said spokesman Gregg Kenyon.
Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral has told the civil aviation ministry that federal cabinet approval will be required for development of new airports, ministry officials said. Requiring cabinet approval is said to be aimed at making the state-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) base airport site decisions on economic and commercial factors, not politics. But the change also erodes the authority of the civil aviation minister, who has had the final say on such projects.
Delta told DOT it opposes Baltia's request to delay again the start of long-planned service between New York Kennedy and St. Petersburg, Russia (DAILY, July 31), saying it is "strongly opposed to the continued indefinite reservation of limited and valuable U.S.-Russia combination frequencies." To prevent "the continued waste of these valuable bilateral rights," Delta proposes that DOT award the frequencies to Delta, which is prepared to use them immediately. It would relinquish them to Baltia if the carrier starts service within the six-month exemption it requested.
AviaPartner of Belgium took over Marseilles-based Assistair in an effort to expand its ground-handling business in France. AviaPartner, which employs 4,000 people and had a 1996 turnover of 6.5 billion Belgian francs (US$170 million), operates at airports in Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Nantes and Basel- Mulhouse. Assistair employs 300 people and had a turnover of 74 million French francs ($12 million) in 1996.
Standard&Poor's revised its ratings outlook for Air Canada to stable from neg ative and affirmed the airline's double-B-minus debt and corporate credit rating. S&P cited the improving Canadian domestic market and the "strong performance" of Air Canada's transborder routes. The carrier's transborder market share was 42% on June 30, up from 25% in 1995, S&P said, but Air Canada's overall debt load "is expected to remain high, and will constrain the rating." Canada's economy is expected to grow 3% during each of the next two years.
Frontier Airlines will inaugurate Denver-Boston flights Sept. 16 with 136- seat 737-300s. For tickets purchased by the launch date, it will offer fares of $139 each way on the two daily nonstop flights, good for travel through Dec. 18. The regular fare will be $179. Frontier passengers can receive Continental OnePass miles.
UPS officials asked Congress yesterday to urge President Clinton to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act and force the Teamsters Union to end the strike and let its members vote on a proposed contract. Teamsters President Ron Carey immediately opposed the action, saying, "I do not think the President should choose sides.
Canadian Airlines is offering as much as 40% off its current lowest excursion fares between more than 8,000 city-pairs on five continents. The fares are available through Aug. 8 for travel between Sept. 2 and Dec. 17, and the carrier is conducting an additional domestic fare sale during August. Examples of lower roundtrip fares include Vancouver-London for $709, Montreal-Miami for $363 and Edmonton-Hong Kong for $1,629.
Burlington Air Express launched overnight air freight service to Pease International Trade Port, N.H., cutting more than an hour from delivery times to New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and northern Massachusetts. The new service will give BAX two 727-200 cargo flights into Pease and Boston Logan Airport.
As its shareholders prepared to meet on its merger into General Electric, Greenwich Air Services said yesterday it was notified by the Federal Trade Commission that the Justice Department has no objections to the proposed GE-Greenwich acquisition of UNC Inc. but still is reviewing GE's acquisition of Greenwich. Earlier, Greenwich Air Services said the deadline for making cash elections prior to the GE merger would be the close of business on the last business day prior to the date the merger closes, not the Aug. 11 date of the special stockholders meeting.
Traffic in July for Midwest Express gained 17.3% over July 1996 to 132.1 million revenue passenger miles while capacity grew 15.2% to 194.4 million available seat miles. The load factor was up 1.2 percentage points to 67.9% as the airline carried 13.8% more passengers, for a total of 154,590. Although demand is strong, low fares are affecting yields, said Timothy Hoeksema, chairman and chief executive.
Confirming that little progress was made last week in U.S.-Japan bilateral discussions in Tokyo, government and industry sources yesterday attributed the slow pace to the complications of formal talks and a lack of consensus over what kind of agreement is being negotiated. One observer suggested that the two sides are signaling each other and slowly "reaching an understanding without acknowledging it," hesitating to put anything in writing until a comprehensive settlement is at hand. Talks are set to resume late this month in Washington.
European Commission will hold a closed-door hearing on easyJet's recent complaint against KLM alleging predatory practices. The two carriers and other affected parties will testify at the Brussels hearing, an EC spokeswoman said, and EC action would follow within "weeks to months."
Swissair will expand its cooperation agreement with Maersk Air of Denmark, launching daily Geneva-Copenhagen code-share service Oct. 26 using a Maersk Air 737-500 aircraft. The airlines already operate code-share service between Zurich and Billund via Frankfurt.
Aeroporti di Roma, which controls Rome's airport system, is buying Alitalia's 15% stake in Aeroporti di Genova. The carrier is gradually selling off its airport interests. Aeroporti di Roma already holds 60% of Genoa's airport, and the local chamber of commerce owns the remaining 15%.
Sabena is beginning to operate new Airbus A330-300 aircraft on routes to all its West African destinations from Brussels. The airline began A330 service Aug. 6 to Lagos, Nigeria; Douala and Yaounde, Cameroon; and Conotou, Benin, adding to existing A330 service to Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Banjul, Gambia; Conakry, Guinea; Nouakchott, Mauritania; Dakar, Senegal; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; Lome, Togo, and Bamako, Mali. Sabena's A330s, which replace A310s, have a range of 5,518 miles and seat 50 in business class and 218 in economy.
Fine Air said that the 29 pilots against whom FAA cases are pending were "following procedures developed by Fine Air based on information provided by the aircraft manufacturer," and that the FAA actions against them have "nothing to do with flight safety" (DAILY, Aug. 11).
Cebu Pacific expects authority to fly international routes before April, 1998. The Philippine carrier, which serves Cebu, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and Davao, hopes to expand to Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok and other Southeast Asia points. It has seven DC-9-32s with 110-115 seats and is negotiating to buy or lease two aircraft with capacity between 165 and 200.
DOT granted Alaska Airlines a brief exemption from dormancy rules so the carrier will not lose authority to fly from San Jose, Calif., to Puerto Vallarta and San Jose del Cabo in Mexico. DOT converted the route authority to seasonal service at Alaska's request. The airline's plan to resume service on the routes Nov. 5 would exceed the 90-day dormancy limit after which DOT can take back routes for reallocation. Alaska makes a major schedule change for its West Coast-Mexico system on that date.
Delta's July traffic rose 8.5% to 9.39 billion revenue passenger miles, a record for the month. Capacity gained 4.1%, and the load factor grew to 78.1% from 74.9%. The load factor set a record for any month in Delta's history. Passenger boardings reached 9.4 million in July, more than code- share partner Swissair carried in all of 1996. Delta boarded 2.36 million passengers at Atlanta, which it said was a record for a single city in one month. July 97 July 96 7 Mths 97 7 Mths 96
Boeing 737 Systemwide Aircraft Utilization Per Day First Quarter 1997 B737-300 America West Continental Delta Number of Aircraft Operated 40 65 13 Total Fleet Operations Departures 258 275 70 Block Hours 500 692 129 Flight Hours 421 589 106
