United Chairman and Chief Executive Gerald Greenwald said yesterday all indications are that 1997 will be "even better than 1996." In remarks to the Society of Airline Analysts in New York, he said the current marketplace has "one of the best domestic capacity environments the industry has seen in years," and he noted that 1997 will be better because United's domestic unit revenue growth "will surpass that of the industry." Greenwald said United's top three objectives for next year are improving the company's pre-tax margin ranking, boosting on-time performance and inc
Southwest has reached an agreement with the City of Dallas that will enable it to double the size of its corporate headquarters at Love Field without increasing the rent it pays to the city. Southwest said it plans to buy an abandoned bakery next to its existing headquarters on the airport's south side, for $1.9 million, and deed the site to the city in exchange for the rental agreement.
America Online and Toronto-based WHERE Magazines International plan to offer travel information on 40 cities and 11 countries to AOL subscribers. WHERE magazines will provide information on 19 cities in the U.S., 10 in Canada and 11 in Europe, such as the favorite local pubs, where to shop, hotels and restaurants.
Top 25 Domestic City-Pair Markets Over 750 Miles O&D Passengers Second Quarter 1996 Long Total Average Haul Mkts Non-Stop Passenger Rank Rank City-Pair Mileage Per Day 1 3 Los Angeles - New York 2,467 7,644 2 6 New York - Orlando 947 6,263
FAA is asking colleges, universities or teams of institutions to submit proposals by Feb. 15 for designation as a Center for Excellence for Airworthiness Assurance. The center will conduct research and development on maintenance, inspection and repair; crashworthiness; propulsion and fuel systems safety technologies; landing gear systems performance and safety, and advanced materials. It will be funded under a 50-50 cost share cooperative agreement, to be awarded in three-year increments up to a maximum of 10 years.
A U.S. District Court judge issued a temporary restraining order yesterday against the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, barring its executive board from conducting disciplinary hearings against its president, Sherry Cooper. IFFA represents flight attendants at TWA, and the union has signed an affiliation agreement, yet to be ratified, with the Association of Flight Attendants (see story on Page 374 of the hard copy of this issue).
The civil aviation section of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) has kicked off a campaign to defend job security, with British Airways among its likely first targets. At a recent meeting in London, delegates detailed ways in which the international aviation industry continues to shed jobs and cut working conditions.
Merger of Aerospatiale and Dassault is on track and will be announced "around Jan. 1," the manufacturers and French government sources confirmed. Negotiators still are haggling about the value of both groups, which will define their respective weight in the new entity. Dassault reportedly wants 25% of the new group, while Aerospatiale is willing to let it have 20%.
Users of the National Airspace System (NAS) zeroed in on delays as their chief complaint Tuesday during an Air Traffic Control Association symposium in Washington. USAir's director of operations and planning, James Frazier, said the FAA-user relationship is improving but added that system reliability remains a serious problem and is a major source of costly slowdowns. He cited a surveillance radar outage that occurred 14 times during a 17-day period, costing USAir $2 million.
Tupolev Design Bureau of Russia has flown the last remaining Tu-144 supersonic transport, outfitted with support from U.S. aerospace firms as a flying testbed for future SST development, for the first time in six years. In the first flight, conducted for 43 minutes near Moscow last Friday, the Tu-144LL reached an altitude of 6,600 feet and a top speed of 280 miles per hour. Thirty-five instrumented test flights are planned to gather data on supersonic flight dynamics for NASA's High Speed Research program.
EVA Airways this week launched a site on the World Wide Web, including a feature that enables users to create a customized holiday package. The home page, with options in Mandarin and English, includes graphics of Taiwanese culture and architecture. K.T. Chiu, deputy senior VP, said the Internet site will be used initially for reservations, but "after our users are comfortable with the system, we plan to use it to accept payments and issue tickets."
The Greater Toronto Airports Authority officially took over the management and operation of Toronto Pearson Airport this week under a 60-year lease with Transport Canada. At the same time, GTAA issued a request for expressions of interest from engineering, architectural, project management and specialty consulting firms for participation in construction of a new terminal to replace Pearson's Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 and other development projects.
Request for proposals for Air Sovereignty Operations Centers (ASOCs) for the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania, with options for eight more, will be issued next week, and the sponsors, FAA and the Defense Department, are looking for off-the-shelf equipment. "If you're not 85% there, you'll have a lot of difficulty competing," Frank Colson, executive director, DOD Policy Board on Federal Aviation, told Aviation Week Group editors yesterday.
Air New Zealand expects its new alliance with United to help it achieve a more efficient use of transpacific aircraft capacity and improve the use of the infrastructure supporting South Pacific service (DAILY, Dec. 4). "It marks a real breakthrough in terms of our ability to develop the vital North American tourism market," ANZ Managing Director Jim McCrea said. McCrea also hinted at other alliances to come.
DOT issued certificates to U.S. passenger and cargo operators yesterday on a variety of routes to Mexico, adding service to airlines serving the market but denying a request by Alaska Airlines for permanent authority.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will conduct hearings on two airport projects in the former Soviet Union - rehabilitating the passenger terminal and improving taxiways and aprons at Tashkent Airport in Uzbekistan, and refurbishing and extending the passenger terminal at Krasnoyarsk Airport, to be examined Jan. 28 and Feb. 25, respectively.
Rolls-Royce Trent 892 engine has begun its flight test program on the Boeing 777-200IGW (increased gross weight) aircraft. The debut flight on the longer-range 777, conducted Dec. 3, lasted three hours and 26 minutes, and flight tests will continue until January. Aircraft certification is scheduled in March. The engine also will be able to power the 777-300, Rolls said.
UPS will conduct the first passenger charter flights on newly converted 727s in February, a spokesman said yesterday. The package carrier wanted to begin passenger charter operations in December but ran into technical delays involving conversion of the 727-100s into quick-change aircraft, he said. "That is why we never set a firm date" to begin the passenger charters, the spokesman said.
TWA's stand-alone flight attendant union, the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, is affiliating with the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 40,000 workers at 26 airlines. IFFA has 5,400 members, and its largest presence is at TWA bases in New York and St. Louis. IFFA gains voting rights on the AFA executive board and board of directors, and is scheduled to merge fully into AFA within four years. The agreement is subject to ratification by the IFFA membership and AFA's board of directors, both expected this month.
Transcontinental yields skyrocketed in the second quarter, according to DOT O&D data compiled by Avitas (see chart on Page 376 of the hard copy of this issue). While it's too early to gauge the effect of the new Pan Am, the June quarter's average yields from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco rose 25% and 27% year-over-year, respectively. Yields in most other top city-pairs greater than 750 miles dropped.
American, which said Tuesday it would "study" turning off its eight 40-foot gate information signs at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport (DAILY, Dec. 4), decided later in the day the signs will go dark at noon Friday. They will remain out of action while the airline appeals the state district court decision that assessed it most of a $24.6 million penalty in an auto accident blamed on the signs.
FAA is proposing to allow passenger-carrying operations in single-engine aircraft in instrument flight rule (IFR) conditions. Single-engine passenger operations currently are allowed in visual weather conditions, but in practice, this rules out many scheduled flights operations. The National Air Transportation Association hailed the proposal, saying it will allow piston and turbine-powered single-engine aircraft operated under Part 135 to "take advantage of the safer IFR system while carrying passengers.
Hardware for the Display System Replacement (DSR) was delivered 10 months ahead of schedule to the Seattle air route traffic control center, the first DSR site, by prime contractor Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management. DSR, a key program in FAA's air traffic control modernization, will replace 30-year-old equipment at 20 ARTCCs with new controller workstations, display computer hardware and software, and network infrastructure.
Lufthansa is selling six 737-200s to Ryanair, the low-cost Irish airline, with delivery of the first aircraft this week and the others in 1997. The acquisition will increase Ryanair's fleet to 17 737s. Ryanair intends to use the aircraft for low-fare services from London Stansted to European destinations.
Japan Air System accepted yesterday the first of seven Pratt-powered 777- 200s on order. JAS is the fourth carrier to receive a Pratt-powered 777 since the first delivery to United in May 1995. "At that time, the 84,000- pounds-thrust engine was the first, and [it] remains the only commercial aircraft engine given 180-minute extended twin operations certification at entry into service," Pratt said.
