Southwest plans to announce within a month its one and only focus city for the rest of this year, Chairman Herbert Kelleher said last week at the carrier's annual meeting. Kelleher said the city might be in the Northeast and then again it might not. Possibilities mentioned by observers include Hartford, Manchester, Providence and Newburgh, N.Y.
ValuJet reduced its schedule 50% Friday in order to inspect its fleet of 51 aircraft in the wake of the Flight 592 crash May 11. The carrier said that, effective immediately, it would operate a peak schedule of 160 flights per day, down from 320. It said it will keep all 51 aircraft in service during the review and still will fly to all 31 cities in its network, offering fewer flights each day, and USAir has agreed to transport passengers that ValuJet cannot accommodate.
Reno Air's traffic jumped 51.4% in April to 211 million revenue passenger miles from 139.3 million a year earlier. Capacity rose 48% to 337.7 million available seat miles from 228.2 million. The load factor for the month was 62.5%, up 1.4 percentage points from last April.
AirWays Corporation, parent of AirTran Airways, named Mark Rinder secretary and treasurer. America West named Gus Whitcomb director-corporate communications. Emirates appointed Edward Lim manager-Australia and New Zealand. Frontier promoted Donna Cavos to manager-pricing and revenue management, and Barbara Gessner to city manager-San Diego, and appointed John Hershner director-human resources and properties, and Jerry Schimetz city manager-St. Louis.
Canadian Airlines International will increase code sharing with American June 1, placing its code on flights from Los Angeles to Bakersfield, Santa Barbara, Carlsbad, Fresno, San Luis Obispo, San Diego, Las Vegas, Monterrey, Orange County and Palm Springs. As of July 1, Canadian's code will be placed on flights from Chicago and Dallas to Fort Lauderdale, San Antonio and West Palm Beach. Through Miami, Canadian will code share to Fort Myers, Key West, Naples, West Palm Beach, Sarasota and Orlando.
Data in a DOT report dated May 2 and released last Thursday show ValuJet to have one of the worst safety records of the nation's airlines. Covering 1990 to May 2, 1996, the data show rates of accidents, runway incursions and pilot deviations for low-cost and major airlines. "The report demonstrates that as a class of airlines, low-cost carriers and major airlines have had substantially the same rates in these categories," FAA Administrator David Hinson said Thursday.
Granted orally to LTU Lufttransport-Unternehmen an exemption to serve Phoenix as an additional U.S. point on its scheduled combination services between Germany and the U.S. and beyond the U.S. to any point or points outside the U.S.
Frontier Airlines appointed to its board William McNamara, who retired in 1994 as Continental's VP-finance and had worked for New York Air and TWA. Frontier now has three outside directors and one inside director.
Las Vegas pulled well ahead of Orlando as this year's No. 1 destination of summer travelers, according to the American Society of Travel Agents' annual Summer Hot Spots survey. Polling travel agencies across the country randomly about where travelers want to go, ASTA found that London still is the leading international destination. A clear majority of the agents, 71.3%, said overall bookings were up over last year.
UPS will begin construction this year of a new package sorting and distribution facility in East Los Angeles, the carrier said Friday. The 400,000-square-foot building, expected to be ready by late 1998, will operate 24 hours a day, five days a week. It will be located on 26 acres at 716 Lamar St. UPS's Soto Street facility has been sold to the company that is building the new facility.
Midway Airlines traffic jumped 161% in April to 93.7 million revenue passenger miles while capacity grew 127% to 144.9 million available seat miles, pushing the load factor to 64.7% from 56.2%. It carried 163,371 passengers during the month. The carrier, which launched service from its Raleigh/Durham hub in March, said April was the second consecutive month of significant traffic growth. Its March traffic rose 230% over that of March 1995. Midway President John Selvaggio attributed the improvement to added capacity and maturing markets.
American has objected to DOT's tentative decision to grant antitrust immunity to the United/Lufthansa alliance ahead of its request for similar immunity with Canadian Airlines International, filed more than three months before United's. American also said DOT should seek assurances from the German government that it will take steps to eliminate computer reservations system barriers that have existed in Germany for some time. The German government owns several companies that American claims have barred entry in the German market by U.S. CRSs.
U.S. Major Carriers Pacific Share of Service Fourth Quarter 1995 Total Revenue Departures American 525 Delta 938 Northwest 5,871 United 5,537 Total 12,871 Average Number of Seats Per Departure American 242
Helicopter Association International asked DOT not to go through with its proposal to prohibit overflights of Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colo. The Rocky Mountain notice of proposed rulemaking is "ostensibly a reaction to very isolated reports of aircraft noise" over parks that cannot be attributed positively to helicopters, said HAI President Frank Jensen.
Cathay Pacific Airways included an environmental clause in a recent contract with Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co., its fleet- and line- maintenance provider for many years. Contract language calls on the companies to review processes and practices regularly to reduce adverse environmental impacts whenever possible. Cathay said it wants similar language in contracts with its other vendors.
United will set up BoB teams this year at New York, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Santa Ana, Boston, Pittsburgh, Houston, San Diego, two not-yet- named international locations and the Chicago bag desk. A BoB team - Best of Best, aimed at better operations through employee involvement - has improved cooperation between United and United Express operator Air Wisconsin, implementing procedures that are limiting damage to baggage on the regional carrier's BAe 146s.
Air Line Pilots Association President Randolph Babbitt says union leaders are bracing for contentious contract negotiations at USAir and TWA. Talks at Atlantic Southeast and WestAir are proving to be extremely difficult, and the situation was "tumultuous" last week at Federal Express. On a brighter note, more than half of the 60 pilots furloughed at Business Express have been recalled.
Accident/incident data compiled by FAA indicate that without ValuJet, low- cost airlines, including Southwest, have an accident rate almost identical to that of the other jet carriers and a rate of serious accidents that is better than the other jet carriers'.Including Southwest among major airlines rather than low-cost airlines, however, produces accident rates substantially lower for majors than for smaller airlines.
TWA has gained authority to operate two daily roundtrips between St. Louis and Toronto, beginning June 1. Clearing the way for TWA, DOT redesignated USAir's Pittsburgh-Toronto service so it replaced Delta on U.S. Route A.8. That carrier had announced plans to discontinue the service June 1. Also, DOT tentatively selected Continental to operate twice-daily Newark-Toronto service.
John DeRose, founder and president of the Eastern Airlines Retirees Association, died in his sleep May 12 in Spring Hill, Fla. The association said his last request was that donations be made to the John DeRose Memorial, Eastern Airlines Retirees Association, 4491 N.W. 36th St., Suite B, Miami Springs, Fla. 33166.
United and Boeing are in the earliest stages of discussing increasing United's fleet by 32 aircraft, a mix of mostly 777s and 747-400s, and a handful of 767s and 757s, executives familiar with the talks said Friday. But they stressed that the fleet composition could change and that the mentioned aircraft types are merely a starting point for talks. United representatives would say only that the airline knows it must replace about 93 aircraft in the next five years as it phases out older aircraft. It would not say whether it has decided to talk to a single manufacturer.
Continental has promoted Ben Baldanza to senior VP-pricing and route scheduling. He has been VP-pricing and route scheduling and is credited with a major role in Continental's revenue improvements.
FAA is allowing parties an additional three months to comment on a recent advance notice of proposed rulemaking regarding passenger facility charges. The ANPRM directed airlines seeking an increase in PFC collection and handling compensation to file detailed justification for the request, and the Air Transport Association asked for more time to compile the data.
DOT approved on Friday Continental's code-share pact with TACA Group carriers Taca and Lacsa and some service with Aviateca. The department deferred, however, a ruling on Continental's request to code share on some services with Aviateca, and on proposed code shares with Nica and Copa.
Saying resolution of FAA's concerns about it "appears to be imminent," HCL Aviation Inc., operating as Av Atlantic, asked DOT to move quickly to determine its continuing fitness - and grant it an exemption from the 45- day advance filing requirement to begin operations after suspension - so it can resume its planned operations as soon as possible. Citing discrepancies in flight attendant training, testing and qualification, FAA suspended the operating certificate of the Savannah, Ga.-based charter carrier May 13 (DAILY, May 15).
