Leaders of the Air Line Pilots Association at Federal Express have voted to recommend that the membership not ratify the tentative agreement reached by the negotiating committee at the end of March, but not without explanation. The Master Executive Council, which voted 9 to 7 in favor of a ratification recommendation, has told members that a number of improvements were made to the contract since they expressed concerns about contract language at the time the agreement, their first with the company, was reached.
Boeing said it has started assembling its 50th 777. It noted that less than a year after the program started, it began production of the increased gross-weight version of the jet and completed 25% of the design for the 777-300.
Unless the City of Los Angeles stops misusing airport funds, the House Appropriations Committee "will be compelled to seek severe reductions of transportation appropriations benefiting Los Angeles," the chairman of the transportation appropriations subcommittee said this week. In a May 13 letter to Mayor Richard Riordan, Rep.
Lufthansa CityLine has outfitted its fleet of Canadair Jets with the Head- Up Guidance (HUG) system, the carrier said. It said it is the first airline based in Europe to install the equipment on its jets. The JUG system, developed by Flight Dynamics, allows pilots to land their aircraft with visibility of only 200 meters and a decision height of 50 feet.
Air Canada Chairman Hollis Harris will step down Aug. 1, he said yesterday at the carrier's annual shareholders meeting in Toronto. Harris formally handed over most of his responsibility for running the airline to his longtime colleague, Lamar Durrett, at the meeting. Durrett, who also worked with Harris at Delta and Continental, formally was named president and chief executive of Air Canada. Harris indicated earlier he planned to leave the carrier sometime this year, but he had not made public a date until yesterday.
Pemco World Air Services will sponsor an operators' conference June 23-26 in Vail, Colo., for owners and operators of Boeing 727 aircraft it has converted into freighters. Conference topics include product support, operator issues, service programs and conversion options for the aircraft.
Japan's Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, with an 8.5% stake in GE Aircraft Engines' GE90 turbofan program, is considering whether to take a role in the proposed GEAE-Pratt&Whitney joint venture to develop a new engine for growth versions of Boeing's 747. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, with a 10% stake in the rival P&W PW4000 series program, also is mulling joining the team. Industry executives expect both Japanese companies to take some role in the new engine program.
FAA Deputy Administrator Linda Daschle is scheduled to speak May 22 at a luncheon co-sponsored by the Women's Transportation Seminar and the International Aviation Women's Association. The lunch will be held at the Capitol Holiday Inn, 6th&C Sts. S.W., Washington, D.C. Reception is at 11 :30 a.m. and lunch at noon. Cost is $20 for WTS or IAWA members and $30 for non-members. For reservations, call Paulette Lutjens at 202-267-9065.
Dobbs International Services will provide food service on five daily Continental flights from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport under a multi-year contract. The agreement, covering 2,500 meals per week at DFW, also provides a multi-year extension of a current Dobbs-Continental food service contract at 17 other locations. With eight additional points covered by a contract issued early this year, Dobbs now will serve Continental at 26 airports.
The administration scrambled yesterday to boost confidence in the nation's airlines in general and ValuJet in particular, in the wake of the crash of ValuJet 592 Saturday in the Florida Everglades. President Clinton directed DOT Secretary Federico Pena to report to him this week on "additional measures that the Department of Transportation and FAA can take to ensure all our airlines can continue to operate at the highest level of safety." Earlier, FAA announced it would expand its ongoing review of ValuJet, begun in February.
Air Transport Association Cargo Traffic March, 3 Months 1996 Revenue Ton-Miles (000) March March % 1996 1995 Change Domestic Freight 723,163 748,962 (3.4) Mail 154,619 154,084 0.3 Total 877,782 903,046 (2.8) International Freight 634,754 644,623 (1.5)
Hawaiian Airlines flew 266.4 million revenue passenger miles last month, an increase of 21.2% compared with April 1995. Capacity increased 21.5% to 337.7 million available seat miles, pushing the load factor down 0.2 percentage points to 78.7%. The number of passengers carried rose 11.7% to 431,600. The carrier sharply increased the amount of cargo it carries, flying 2.94 million revenue ton miles (RTMs), up 43.9%. For the first four months, RTMs rose 53% from the comparable period last year to 15.88 million. RPMs were up 23.9%, while capacity increased 22.8%.
George Mikelsons, chairman of Amtran, whose principal subsidiary is American Trans Air, was named the 1996 recipient of the Tony Jannus Award in St. Petersburg, Fla.
DOT will support the rights of U.S. airlines to sell their services abroad, the department said in its tentative approval of antitrust immunity for United and Lufthansa (DAILY, May 13), but the immunity petition is not the right forum for the computer reservations system complaints raised by American and TWA. American asked DOT to condition approval of immunity on the end of anticompetitive practices by German airlines and travel suppliers affiliated with the Amadeus CRS - owned by Lufthansa, Air France, Iberia and Continental - against American's Sabre CRS.
Air India and Air France have agreed to work together on an integrated promotional campaign aimed at doubling tourist traffic between the two countries by 2000, AI officials said yesterday. At present, nearly 70,000 French tourists visit India, and about 30,000 Indians travel to France annually, they said. The campaign entails pooling the efforts of the state-run tourist departments of India and France, and of the Indo-French chambers of commerce, and various hoteliers' associations in both countries.
U.S. and French officials still are trying to assign dates for informal aviation negotiations. The talks have been planned before July, and the U.S. would rather hold them this month. But it is beginning to look more like June, a U.S. official said.
Passenger numbers at Chinese airports for 1994, the most recent available, provide insight into this rapidly growing market, according to The DAILY's correspondent in Hong Kong. The country's top three airports maintained their relative positions, although their market shares dropped slightly. At the other end of the scale, Chongqing jumped two places to enter the top 10, and after two years of decline, Guilin dropped out. Shenzhen overtook Xiamen. Also showing high growth rates were airports in the West and Southeast - Chengdu, Chongqing and Kunming.
Jeppesen was selected by Lufthansa Technik to convert maintenance manuals for Lufthansa's fleet of A300, A310, A320, A340, 737 and 747 aircraft, and aircraft of other Lufthansa Technik customers, into a common electronic format for use in the Jeppesen data display system. When this is done, Jeppesen will process and distribute data revisions provided by the aircraft manufacturers as well as the Lufthansa Technik engineering department.
Hensel Phelps Construction, Irvine, Calif., obtained last week a $107,238,000 contract from the Los Angeles Department of Airports for Phase 2 of a terminal expansion project at Ontario Airport. "The end result will be two new passenger terminals eight times the size of the current facility and thousands of new jobs," said John Driscoll, Department of Airports executive director. In addition to the two 275,000-square-foot terminals, the project includes roadway and parking lot construction, landscaping and utility work.
DOT Secretary Federico Pena on Saturday announced a notice of proposed rulemaking that would restrict commercial sightseeing flights over Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colo. The proposal, which grew out of a DOT-Interior Department working group formed in 1993, will be published this week in the Federal Register with comments due 90 days later.
EVA Airways Corp. said yesterday it plans to buy four more MD-90s. The carrier earlier ordered six of the jets and now has 10 on order. Two of the newly ordered jets will go into service in April and July 1997. One will be operated by EVA's domestic partner, Great China Airlines, and the other by UNI Air, formerly Makung Airlines, another EVA partner. It will be put into service in 1998. EVA owns 24% of Great China Airlines and 42% of UNI.
It appears to be about five times riskier to fly a commercial transport in a non-precision approach - as did the U.S. Air Force CT-43A VIP transport aircraft that crashed April 3 in Croatia, killing Commerce Secretary Ron Brown - than in a precision approach, researchers said in a report made public last week by the Flight Safety Foundation. The report, digested from a larger study performed under contract to the Dutch government, said the risk also can rise as much as eight-fold in certain regions of the world.
AirWays Corp., parent of Orlando-based jet carrier AirTran Airways, named Mark Rinder secretary and treasurer. He has been VP-finance since February 1996. He replaces John Olbrych, who will remain a board member.
