Aviation trust fund's uncommitted balance will reach zero by early July if the aviation taxes are not reinstated or alternate funding sources adopted, the General Accounting Office said, citing FAA estimates.The surplus would last a couple of weeks longer if Congress authorized the transfer to the trust fund of taxes imposed in late 1996 but not deposited into the U.S. treasury until 1997.
World Airways posted a 30% year-over-year gain in block hours flown for charter, contract and U.S. military operations in November. For the first 11 months, block hours increased 19% to 39,535 from 33,216 hours in the same period of 1995. Average daily aircraft utilization fell to 10.4 block hours from 11.6 hours because of an increase in the carrier's fleet.
Midwest Express will operate year-round, twice-daily nonstop DC-9 service between Milwaukee and Orlando, starting March 10. The new route is part of a plan to use seven DC-9s acquired over the past year, Midwest said. The carrier's current Florida service to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and Tampa is seasonal, December through April.
The U.S. airline industry will choose among three forms of consolidation during the next few years because carriers have healthily retrenched to their hubs, becoming more regional and less dominant, Smith Barney analyst Helane Becker and other analysts said yesterday at an Institute for International Research airline finance conference in New York.
Sources familiar with last week's U.S.-U.K. bilateral talks said U.S. parties were puzzled by the timing of statements indicating slot withdrawal and other conditions would have to be met if the American-British Airways alliance is to avoid Mergers and Monopolies Commission scrutiny (DAILY, Dec. 9).
U.S. Major and National Carriers Maintenance Expenses Third Quarter 1996 % Of Total Operating Systemwide Expenses Alaska $22,854,000 6.89 America West 45,705,022 9.55 American 356,073,000 10.30 Continental 143,886,000 10.25
Sabena's maintenance department, Sabena Technics, signed a six-year contract for sub-maintenance work on the Pratt&Whitney JT8D engines that power FedEx's 160 Boeing 727 aircraft. Sabena did not disclose the contract amount but said the deal is a "major" one, resulting from two years of negotiations with the U.S. company. Expanding Sabena Technics' activities is among the prime goals of Sabena President Paul Reutlinger's "Horizon 98" profitability plan, which calls for strengthening Sabena's share of the U.S. maintenance market.
C-S Aviation Services said it increased to 10 the number of Airbus A300B4 transports it will convert to freighters. The leasing company said the conversions will be done by British Aerospace Aviation Services. C-S previously contracted for conversion of three aircraft formerly operated by Air France. Converted freighters will be delivered between April 1997 and April 1998. The launch customer is Channel Express, which will receive the first A300B4 freighter early next year.
U.S. carriers are just about ready to begin sharing safety information based on a program developed by British Airways, Al Prest, VP-operations for the Air Transport Association, told an Aviation Week Group aviation safety and security conference yesterday in Washington. ATA will administer the program, Prest told the meeting, which attracted safety experts from around the world. Information-sharing programs are among the most promising ways to increase airline safety but are being delayed by legal uncertainties, conferees agreed.
U-Land Air Lines of Taiwan, completing its first year of operations, hopes to join the growing list of domestic airlines expanding into international charter service. Tseng Jon-chia, the carrier's vice general manager, said U-Land plans to apply for permission to operate charters to Southeast Asian destinations once it has met the requirement of carrying 900,000 passengers on domestic routes in a single year. He said U-Land will operate initially to destinations within a six-hour radius of Taiwan, including points in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Singapore's plan to add a third terminal at Changi Airport includes provisions to accommodate as many as eight 600-seat "superjumbo" aircraft when the facility opens in 2004. The state-of-the-art terminal, expected to cost S$1.5 billion in a five-year construction program that begins in 1999, is intended to increase Changi's capacity to 64 million passengers per year from the current 44 million. This year's passenger volume is forecast to be 25 million.
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority selected EDS Ltd. its "preferred bidder" to provide air traffic control system equipment that will increase transatlantic flight capacity and replace the current Flight Data Procession System at Prestwick, Scotland. CAA expects to issue a firm contract early in 1997, and the facility - the Oceanic Area Control Center, Flight Data Processing System 2 - is to be operational by the end of 1999. CAA said the upgrade will enable the U.K.
Neil Kinnock and Karel Van Miert, European Union commissioners for transport and competition, respectively, have contradictory plans for proposed EU legislation on slot allocation, to be tabled in January 1997.
Cargo traffic jumped 11% in October, compared with a 3.6% gain for the year-to-date gain, the Air Transport Association reported. ATA President Carol Hallett said October results were encouraging "after the figures we have seen so far this year." Domestic cargo growth through October averaged 2.8% but jumped to 10.2% for that month. International growth, which has been strong throughout the year, grew 11.9% in October.
America West traffic rose 14.3% in November to 1.2 billion revenue passenger miles, while capacity rose 16.6%. Available seat miles increased to 1.9 billion from 1.6 billion, which dropped the load factor to 65.1% from 66.4%. For the first 11 months of the year, RPMs were up 13.9% to 13.9 billion and ASMs 10.6% to 19.7 billion, lifting the load factor two percentage points to 70.8%. Nov 96 Nov 95 11 Mths 96 11 Mths 95 RPMs 1,221,679,000 1,068,633,000 13,934,946,000 12,235,371,000
China Aviation Supplies Export and Import Corp. and two Chinese airlines, China Northern, and China Eastern, signed a contract last week to buy 20 MD-90 aircraft worth more than $1 billion from McDonnell Douglas Corp.
Richard Branson's Belgium-based Virgin Express gave up its plans to take over the bankrupt French regional carrier Air Liberte, leaving the bid tabled by British Airways virtually unrivaled. The British airline and its French ally, Groupe Rivaud, plan to inject 790 million French francs into Air Liberte. Their "continuation plan" was vetted in November by a French commercial court, which gave them 40 days to come to terms with Air Liberte's creditors. The court said it still was open in the interval for rival proposals.
The Shanghai branch of China Industry and Commerce Bank signed a cooperation agreement with China Eastern Airlines by which the bank will provide $130 million to help the airline buy equipment and carry out technical renovation and infrastructure construction. In return, the airline appointed the bank one of its main business banks and will give it priority in handling some lines of business.
U.S. airlines held their positions in light of U.K. Board of Trade President Ian Lang's decision to impose conditions on the American-British Airways alliance if the partners want to avoid Monopolies and Mergers Commission scrutiny (DAILY, Dec. 9). In addition to United's belief that the ruling was a good start and Delta's statements opposing the deal on virtually any basis, USAir noted Lang's comments on its relationship with BA.
U. K. High Court yesterday delayed the imposition of new, more stringent aircraft noise limits at London airports pending a judicial review. It set no date for the review. The stay of the new limits - scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 - had been requested by the International Air Transport Association, and the U.K. Department of Transport said it will "contest the IATA challenge." The new limits, set by the ministry of aviation and shipping, were to be 94 dBA Lmax during daytime and 87 dBA Lmax at night.
China Aviation Supplies Export and Import Corp. and China General Aviation Corp. signed a contract with General Electric Capital Aviation Services of the U.S. to lease three Boeing 737-300 transport. This lease of Boeing aircraft is the first for CGAC, which will configure them for 148 seats and take delivery in May, June and July.
Delta Air Lines and Austrian Airlines applied for third-country code share authority into Jordan, service made possible by the recent signing of an open skies agreement between Jordan and the U.S. (DAILY, Nov. 14). Jordan is the first Middle East country with such an agreement, and other nations in the region are interested in exploring the concept. Delta wants to list its DL code on Austrian's three weekly MD-80 flights between Austria and Amman. The route would connect with Delta service to Vienna. The airlines seek approval by Dec.
China Eastern Airlines opened a $600,000 cargo facility recently at Hongqiao Airport, Shanghai. The building, with 17,000 square meters, contains cargo-handling areas for Chinese and foreign airlines, customs and a training facility. It is equipped with advanced communications systems.
Reno Air traffic increased 50.7% to 252 million revenue passenger miles in November on 41.8% greater capacity, which pushed the load factor up 3.9 percentage points. The load factor reached 66.9% in November and averaged 67.5% for the first 11 months of the year. Reno Air operates 200 daily departures with 29 MD-80s and MD-90s. Nov 96 Nov 95 11 Mths 96 11 Mths 95 RPMs 251,736,000 167,018,000 2,776,786,000 1,906,965,000
Southwest reported a 13.7% surge in revenue passenger miles for November on a 9.3% capacity gain, which pushed the load factor up 2.5 percentage points to 64%. Revenue per available seat mile fell below year-ago levels, the airline said, because of strong demand for leisure fares as well as increased passenger trip lengths. Average length of a passenger trip was 539 miles, up 7.2%. Nov 96 Nov 95 11 Mths 96 11 Mths 95 RPMs 2,170,453,403 1,908,894,327 24,707,782,851 21,303,457,147
