Hawaiian Airlines plans to increase its frequency from Honolulu to Portland, Ore., from five flights per week to daily, starting Oct. 1. The carrier operates three daily roundtrips from between Honolulu and Los Angeles, serving San Francisco, Seattle and Las Vegas once a day via Los Angeles.
The National Transportation Safety Board, helping the Dominican Republic with its continuing investigation of the Birgenair 757 crash in the Caribbean Feb. 6, recommended that FAA require changes in 757/767 crew alerting systems, flight and operations manuals and the crew training syllabus on recognizing and dealing with malfunctioning airspeed indicators.
U.S. and Polish officials plan to meet in the fall to explore ways to broaden their countries' current bilateral air accord and possibly work out an incremental open skies agreement.
Frontier Airlines inaugurated service to St. Louis and San Diego from Denver, using 737s. It is operating two daily roundtrips to St. Louis with fares as low as $79 one way, and one to San Diego, beginning at $69 one way. It plans to add a second roundtrip to San Diego later this year if it acquires more aircraft. President Sam Addoms said the service will fill the void created when Continental dropped out of the markets in 1993 and 1994.
McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and MD-80 Systemwide Aircraft Utilization Per Day 20 Fourth Quarter 1995 DC-9-30 Continental Northwest TWA Number of Aircraft Operated 31 98 35 Total Fleet Operations Departures 170 474 189 Block Hours 246 774 297
Comair has signed firm orders for five more Canadair Jets, bringing the number on order to 50. The Delta Connection carrier will use the aircraft to continue growth at its Cincinnati and Orlando hubs and to replace turboprop aircraft. It currently has 34 of the GE-powered aircraft in service and 16 scheduled for delivery through June 1997.
World Airways intends to shift its resources from passenger service to the wet-lease business, military charters and possibly cargo this summer because of declining bookings for its scheduled charter passenger service to Europe.
Talks between the U.S. and Japan got off to a bad start Monday as the two sides were unable to get past initial issues. U.S. officials were looking to resolve and move beyond outstanding issues, such as Japan's approval of existing U.S. rights to operate beyond-Tokyo service to Jakarta for Northwest and United. Northwest has announced plans to begin July 1 three weekly flights from Seattle to Jakarta, via an intermediate stop at Osaka Kansai Airport (DAILY, May 31). Japan was not immediately amenable to the U.S.
The National Transportation Safety Board wants FAA to require immediate and periodic inspections of perhaps as many as 6,890 older Pratt&Whitney JT8D turbofan engines, to look for fatigue cracks similar to those that caused the uncontained failure of a JT8D-15 Jan. 30 on a Delta 727, forcing the crew to abort a takeoff. NTSB is particularly concerned with fourth-stage low-pressure turbine hubs manufactured before 1989 from a single-piece machined forging of Incoloy 901 alloy.
Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Fuji, ShinMaywa and Japan Aircraft Manufacturing Co. agreed on joint negotiations with Boeing on possible participation in developing the proposed 747-500 and 747-600. The Japanese aerospace industry has been involved in Boeing's commercial aircraft programs in the past, particularly on the 767, and participation into follow-ons to the 747 is considered likely. Collaborative negotiation by the "All-Japan team" is expected to ease the way for subsidy from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
Delta has reduced fares between points in New York and California and Arizona with a 21-day advance purchase. The fares apply to travel from Albany, Buffalo, Newburg, Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y., to Ontario, Tucson, Phoenix and San Diego. The biggest savings are for flights to Tucson, which are reduced from $718 roundtrip to $388 from Albany, $358 from Syracuse and $368 from Rochester.
Maverick Airways Corp., a Denver-based company that hopes to start offering regional air service in the western Rocky Mountains, is closing a $1 million commercial financing transaction. The company said the money is the first of $8.5 million it hopes to raise in startup capital. The funds will enable Maverick to obtain aircraft and ticket and gate facilities at the new Denver Airport, where it hopes to base its operations, and it would help secure final approval from the Department of Transportation and FAA to start flights.
SAS and Thai Airways began operating joint flights Saturday under the broad marketing and operations alliance they formed last fall. The airlines, part of a broader global alliance that includes United and Lufthansa, will code share on 14 flights per week out of Copenhagen and Stockholm.
British Airways has started flying three times per week between London Gatwick and Edinburgh, complementing its current shuttle flights from London Heathrow to Scotland. The carrier has focused recently on building service out of Gatwick, adding 11 new routes from London's "second" airport during the past year. The Edinburgh service launch coincides with the opening of a new $11.5 million U.K. arrivals and departures facility in Gatwick's North Terminal, which connects the airline's domestic operations with European and intercontinental services.
Delta, Swissair, Sabena and Austrian urged DOT to dismiss Justice Department criticisms and issue a final order affirming its show cause order tentatively granting antitrust immunity for the carriers' alliance. DOJ recommended that DOT modify its tentative order, withholding unlimited antitrust immunity for four New York city-pairs - New York-Zurich, New York-Geneva, New York-Brussels and New York-Vienna - as it did for Atlanta- Brussels, Atlanta-Zurich and Cincinnati-Zurich.
Delta Connection carrier Comair has introduced nonstop jet service between Miami and Tallahassee, Boston and Montreal, Cincinnati and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Cincinnati and Huntsville, Ala. Initially, it is offering four daily Tallahassee-Miami roundtrips and five daily roundtrips in the Boston- Montreal market, both with the Canadair Jet. It is upgrading one of its three current flights in the Cedar Rapids-Cincinnati market to the CRJ, and on July 1 another will be upgraded. The service to Huntsville will be operated with the 30-seat Embraer Brasilia.
UPS said yesterday it has entered into its first joint venture in China with Sinotrans Pekair of Beijing, a subsidiary of Sinotrans Group, a leading Chinese transportation company. UPS said the joint venture will help accelerate its growth in China. Charles Adams, VP-Asia Pacific operations, said the company also plans to establish joint ventures in Shanghai and Guangzhou by the end of the year. UPS currently delivers to 74 cities in China through the Sinotrans Group. It said the China business is growing at about 50% a year.
Evergreen International Airlines, American International Airways and Gemini Air Cargo are seeking the one designation and six weekly frequencies available to operate scheduled all-cargo service in the U.S.-Japan market. The April 1996 memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Japan allows the U.S. to designate an additional U.S. all-cargo carrier, which may operate as many as six weekly flights and serve any point in Japan except Tokyo (DAILY, March 28). The flights may operate beyond Japan to one point in another country, but the U.S.
Northwest's senior executives do not expect labor negotiations with the carrier's three unions to turn ugly later this year, saying they anticipate a "calm, civil" environment. Employees will get healthy wage snapbacks to 1993 levels. Richard Anderson, senior VP of labor relations, said the snapbacks are a constitutional issue - the company will seek productivity increases, and to increase productivity, companies must increase salaries.
DOT has approved American's complaint against Colombia's government and airlines but has deferred action on the question of sanctions. American charged that Colombia refused to allow it to exercise existing permit authority to operate nonstop service between New York and Bogota, with continuing service to Quito (DAILY, May 6), and it asked DOT to hold up Avianca's authority to operate in the New York-Bogota market in retaliation.
Membership in the Air Line Pilots Association hit a record 45,381 in April, the union reported last week. Jerry Mugerditchian, VP-administration, told the 76th meeting of the executive board that the percentage of members in "bad standing" had sunk to the lowest level in union history. He said the membership increase is partly the result of the growth in the airline industry, but ALPA has been on an "aggressive, nonstop organizing campaign since the early 1980s." Of the 36 pilot groups now represented, 27 have been organized since deregulation in 1978, he said.
