Swiss regional carrier Crossair says its service to Italy will suffer due to Switzerland's difficulties in negotiating air traffic rights with the European Union. Italy is an EU country and Switzerland is not, and beginning March 30 with its summer schedule, Crossair will reduce or eliminate service to some Italian destinations.
Bombardier has terminated its contract with Hunting Aviation of the U.K. to produce interiors for the de Havilland Dash 8 series of regional turboprops and awarded it to C&D Interiors of Huntington, Calif., the same firm that provides interiors for the CRJ. Hunting has had the contract since June 1994 but has not performed, which has resulted in delivery delays of up to 60 days. Mesa, which had to return a number of new Dash 8-200s to the factory, was hit particularly hard at its Denver hub last year when it did not have the capacity to meet its schedules...
Sabena is dropping Brussels-Barcelona service, beginning today, in favor of a Virgin Express wet-lease deal on the route. The carriers have been competing head-to-head in the market, and analysts say there is not enough traffic for both. The wet-lease means Virgin Express flights will be double-coded with Sabena, and Sabena will deploy the freed capacity on other European routes. The Barcelona arrangement mimics the deal Sabana entered with Virgin Express in October for Brussels-London service. It also may be extended to Sabena's service to Rome.
Federal Express Corp. signed a purchase agreement to buy up to 250 Ayres Loadmaster LM200 aircraft. The purchase agreement converts letters of intent signed in November with Ayres, Albany, Ga., into firm orders for 50 of the cargo aircraft with options for up to 200 (DAILY, Nov. 22, 1996). FedEx is the launch customer.
Denver-based niche carrier Frontier reported an $8 million net loss on $25.2 million in revenues for its third quarter ending Dec. 31, deeper red ink than its $3.6 million loss on $17.2 million in revenues for the same period in 1995. Net loss for the first nine months of its fiscal year was $8.9 million on $83.4 million in revenues; the comparable 1995 performance was a $6.4 million net loss on $44.3 million in revenues.
Several members of the House Transportation aviation subcommittee made clear yesterday that they support neither side fully in the battle among airlines over a redistribution of carriers' burdens for funding FAA. Some legislators, including Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) and Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.), suggested that a fuel tax might be preferable to the 10% ticket tax, while several others also suggested that the solution lies somewhere other than the ticket tax or the structure proposed by the seven largest U.S. airlines.
Finnair has created a site on the World Wide Web, www.us.finnair.com, designed solely for U.S. travelers. The carrier is offering U.S. travelers a seat auction for a limited number of roundtrips to major markets in Northern Europe, with prices as low as $250 roundtrip. The first auction will begin immediately for travel between Feb. 20 and March 31, with seats available on flights to Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. The U.S. Web site also has special offers for U.S.
Great Lakes Aviation is offering eight flights every weekday to the reopened Chicago Meigs Field from Springfield Capital Airport. Great Lakes had been offering service to Chicago Midway from Springfield. Those flights were discontinued Feb. 7 (DAILY, Feb. 10).
FAA's National Satellite Test Bed program, zeroed out in FAA budget documents issued last week, is not dead. The agency's fiscal 1998 budget request includes money for the program, FAA and industry sources tell The DAILY, but no one, officially or otherwise, has been able to come up with the amount.
China Eastern Airlines this week began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CEA. The Shanghai-based airline operates 1,100 flights each week.
Summary of U.S. Major Carriers International Traffic July 1996 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles Carriers (000) Change (Miles) (000) Alaska 46 33.12 1,050 48,222 Latin 46 33.12 1,050 48,222
USAir Express carrier CCAIR posted a net profit of $55,050 in the December quarter as operating and fuel costs weighed down earnings. The results were up slightly from a $38,732 profit in the year-earlier period. Revenues increased to $16.6 million from $16 million. For the six months ended Dec. 31, operating income grew 2.4% to $785,625 from $766,955. Yield was flat at 43.7 cents and cost per available seat mile increased 4% to 21 cents.
Air Line Pilots Association will sponsor an employee stock ownership plan seminar Feb. 17-18 near Amsterdam to help airline workers "successfully negotiate the restructuring of their airlines." Duane Woerth, ALPA's first VP and a member of Northwest's board, said more than 35 representatives of labor unions from seven international airlines are expected to attend. U.S. airlines have the most experience negotiating corporate restructuring in the airline industry, and ALPA wants to "share our experience and the lessons we've learned with others," he said.
Publicly held regional airlines are gradually improving their operating profit margins. This sampling of four carriers reveals that over the past eight calendar quarters, they produced double-digit operating margins in 22 of 32 reports. Delta Connection carriers Atlantic Southeast and Comair have been stellar performers with ASA hitting a 27.7% operating profit margin in the second 1996 quarter and a 26.9% in the third. Comair reached 24.8% during the second quarter of 1996, dropping off to 21% in the third.
Las Vegas-based Eagle Canyon Airlines carried 26,135 passengers in the fourth quarter of 1996, a 76% rise from 14,857 in the same 1995 period, the company said. For the year, boardings rose 44% to 91,152 from 63,102 in 1995. Recently appointed carrier President Grant Murray attributed the strong growth partly to the company's newly acquired F27 aircraft, which "have been well received by passengers."
Atlantic Southeast posted net income of $56.6 million, or $1.83 per share, for 1996, a 10.7% increase from 1995's $51.1 million, or $1.55 per share. The positive yearend result came despite a fourth quarter net- income dip of 10%, to $10.3 million from $11.5 million in the prior period, and flat quarter-over-quarter per-share income of 35 cents.
Delta came out in support of the Gore Commission's proposal that FAA be funded by user fees, not taxes, but the National Air Transportation Association and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association sided with the General Aviation Aircraft Manufacturers Association in opposing the recommendation (DAILY, Feb. 12). Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), chairman of the Senate Aviation subcommittee, praised the commission's goal to increase safety but questioned the administration's proposed Airport Improvement Program budget cuts.
TWA ranked last again in Fortune magazine's annual Corporate Reputation Survey - No. 431 - making it the least admired company in the country. USAir Group did not fare much better with a ranking of 425. United Parcel Service for the first time moved into the top 10, rising from No. 25 to fourth place. The rankings are based on the comments of more than 13,000 senior executives, outside directors and financial security analysts. In the industry category, Boeing was No. 1 in aerospace and Southwest No. 1 among airlines.
DOT has ordered Great Lakes Aviation to continue serving Mattoon/Charleston, Ill., until a replacement carrier for Great Lakes can be found at the point, but allowed Great Lakes to drop its EAS at Danville, Ill., and Muncie/Anderson/New Castle, Ind., effective Feb. 17, and confirmed that it already has granted the carrier an exemption to drop its Galesburg, Ill., flights on short notice. The carrier has dropped the Galesburg flights. The department called for proposals from carriers interested in providing replacement service at Mattoon, with or without subsidy.
Northwest Aerospace Training Corp. said it merged some administrative and scheduling functions with Northwest Airlines' flight operations department. NATCO said, in the past, the training needs of the airline sometimes made it difficult to allocate facility time reliably to other customers.
Aeroflot First Deputy Managing Director Nikolai Gloushkov and Russia's deputy secretary of national security, Boris Berezovsky, are suing Forbes in the London High Court for libel. Aeroflot asserts that an article in the business magazine's Dec. 30 issue states incorrectly that Berezovsky is responsible for murder and running a criminally corrupt business, and that Gloushkov was convicted of a crime in Russia in 1982.
World Airways' January block hours for continuing operations rose 23% to 3,853 over January 1996 levels, reflecting carrier expansion over the past year. Average daily utilization was down slightly to 9.6 block hours, compared with 9.8 the previous January. The carrier's MD-11s and DC-10-30s are flown for tour operators, military transport and wet-lease for other airlines.
Delta Connection Comair will add two Canadair RJ flights between Cincinnati and Rochester, N.Y., April 6, giving it three daily jet flights in the market. The same date, the carrier will add two jet flights between Harrisburg and Cincinnati, also giving it three daily jet flights on that route. Comair simultaneously is adding one more jet flight in the Cincinnati-Knoxville market for a total of six flights - five jet and one turboprop - in the market.
Air South is offering senior citizens 25% reduced fares. Anyone 65 or older can take advantage of the fares to any of Air South's 11 destinations. The specials are open-ended for now, and no restrictions apply.
