Delta will expand flights this fall in Atlanta, where it boards more passengers per day on most days than any other airline in the world, and announced plans Friday to open a multimillion-dollar maintenance facility. The complex, to be called the Delta Air Lines North Technical Center, will comprise a former Eastern Airlines hangar owned by the City of Atlanta, which Delta will lease and modernize, plus support facilities.
American Society of Travel Agents President and Chief Executive Mike Spinelli said he expects Chinese rule in Hong Kong, in effect since July 1, to have little impact on travelers. Spinelli noted that Hong Kong's Immigration Department still will handle visa requirements for visitors - the change is on the Hong Kong side, where applications made overseas are being processed by Chinese consulates.
Signature Flight Support promoted Bruce Van Allen to executive VP and chief operating officer, Blake Fish to VP-operations for eastern Signature locations, Chuck Bobitt to VP-operations for western locations and Steve Lee to VP-finance.
House and Senate negotiators formally began a conference Friday to resolve conflicting provisions in their tax bills, including differing provisions on aviation taxes. Legislators hope to complete work on the package by the weekend. The House-passed bill, which restructures domestic taxes and hikes international head taxes, would generate $34.2 billion in revenue over five years. The Senate bill, which extends current taxes, increases international taxes and taxes the domestic segments of international journeys, raises only slightly more at $34.31 billion.
Executives with Frontier Airlines stand to take home generous severance payments if they are not part of the company that survives Frontier's merger with Western Pacific Airlines, a Westpac filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed. Frontier President and Chief Executive Sam Addoms will receive 34 months' salary as severance. Officers with more than three years at Frontier will receive 24 months' pay, officers with less than three years will receive 16 months' pay, and others will receive less.
Ryanair has emerged as a major international carrier within Europe. The airline, ranked 32nd in the world by IATA for 1996, carried 2.95 million international passengers last year, more than All Nippon, El Al, Varig, Virgin Atlantic or TWA.
Wide Area Augmentation System cost has ballooned from $512.5 million in 1994 to a current estimate of $957.4 million, FAA told the House Appropriations Committee.The committee wants FAA to work at a "slower pace" on the program, coordinate it with the user community and "fully explore lower-cost options."
- In Federal Register dated July 7...Proposed to supersede an airworthiness directive on Pilatus BN-2 aircraft concerning removing the generator terminal diodes. - In FR dated July 8...Issued an AD on certain Piaggio PL-180 aircraft requiring inspection of the baggage compartment of aircraft with a certain air conditioning system.
U.S. negotiators saw "glimpses of flexibility" on the Japanese side, but these will have to become more concrete if bilateral talks scheduled Aug. 4-6 in Tokyo are to yield agreement, a senior U.S. administration official said Friday. "In a formal negotiating environment, such glimpses will not be adequate," he said, but he reaffirmed earlier assessments that both sides agree it is important to resolve bilateral issues promptly, and that enough progress was made in informal talks last week in Portland to justify formal discussions (DAILY, July 11).
Patriotism apparently took a back seat to record-high Fourth of July load factors for many U.S. carriers, none of which bid to operate the press charter on President Clinton's trip to Europe. Lufthansa was chosen to operate July 3-13 on an Andrews Air Force Base-Hamburg-Palma de Mallorca- Madrid-Warsaw-Bucharest-Copenhagen-Hamburg-Andrews routing. The scales may have tipped in Lufthansa's favor after it fulfilled a presidential request to serve a petit-four cake in the shape of the U.S. flag.
Cimlinc promoted Bob Dickey to VP and general manager of manufacturing solutions and Randy Martin to VP-product development of manufacturing solutions.
Atlas Air will return five leased 747-200s to FedEx in the first quarter of 1998 and write off its remaining investment in the aircraft in the June 30 quarter of this year, resulting in lower-than-expected results for the quarter, the company said. Noting that Atlas Air said it would return the FedEx aircraft when it concluded its deal with Boeing to acquire 10 new 747-400Fs, Richard Shuyler, senior VP and chief financial officer, cited "operational limitations, unreliability and continuing high costs" of the older aircraft.
Western Pacific Airlines flew 172.5 million revenue passenger miles in June, 34% more than in June 1996. Available seat miles increased 17.4% to 262 million and the load factor rose 8.2 percentage points to 65.8%. Mark Coleman, senior VP-marketing and planning, said the company is encouraged by the traffic but still is "experiencing lower yields than a year ago and as a result, [does] not anticipate any material improvement in the company's financial results until our DIA [Denver Airport] move begins to take effect.
SimuFlite International appointed Marjorie DeLong manager-market development; Clifford Reavis manager-Learjet program and James Smith manager-Hercules Flight Training Center.
FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board may have their differences on 747 center wing tanks, but the aviation industry decided tentatively last week in Seattle to file joint comments asking NTSB to "focus on finding the cause" of the TWA 800 crash before telling operators what to do, an airline industry executive said Friday. NTSB has issued several near- and long-term recommendations on the center wing tank of older 747s, the explosion of which downed the TWA aircraft.
