American Express Travel has launched Travel Express, its interactive World Wide Web site with travel booking capabilities. Travel Express searches for the lowest ticket price or most convenient flights for users to make their own reservations. The site is now listed in Yahoo, and will be added soon to other search vehicles on the Web.
InterAmerican Car Rental of Florida has joined the LatinPass frequent traveler program. LatinPass members will earn 250 to 500 miles for each car rental, depending on automobile model and length of rental. LatinPass comprises 15 Latin American and Caribbean airlines. Separately, Donald Fraser has joined LatinPass as director of marketing. He worked previously as a general sales agent for APA of the Dominican Republic and for Faucett Airlines of Peru.
CSA Czech Airlines, which operates five 737-500s and two 737-400s, ordered 10 more 737-500s valued at about $350 million, Boeing said. The first aircraft is to be delivered in the first quarter of next year. Boeing said CSA has an option to substitute larger members of the 737 family, which would increase the value of the order.
A newly filed suit brought by investors against Kidder, Peabody&Co. charges that they were misled about the source of used aircraft being purchased by a Polaris Aircraft limited partnership and the stability of airlines to which the aircraft were leased. Polaris used money from Kidder, Peabody investors to buy used aircraft and then leased them to such airlines as Continental, TWA, Pan Am, Piedmont and Eastern, the suit contends.
Michael Sears, named this week as the new president of Douglas Aircraft Co. (DAILY, April 9), will "take to the West Coast some of the things we have been able to do on the F/A-18 program" in an attempt to improve the transport manufacturer's business operations and profitability, he said. Sears, who was VP-general manager of McDonnell Douglas' largest tactical military aircraft program, told The DAILY yesterday that "we started [the F/A-18 program] on the heels of a variety of Navy failures of which we were part.
American said yesterday it will spend $44 million over 30 months to replace the Omega navigation systems on 360 aircraft with new-technology, satellite-based systems from Honeywell-Trimble. Robert Baker, executive VP-operations, said American's new equipment "will fit nicely with new ground and aircraft technology that will completely change the air traffic control system over the next 15 years."
United is suing GEC for breach of contract, claiming that the inflight entertainment services provider failed to deliver an interactive system for passengers as promised. GEC, a division of U.K.-based General Electric Plc, has installed the system on 10 of United's 777 aircraft, but United claims that it never worked properly. "We are suing because GEC failed to deliver on their contractual obligation to provide an interactive entertainment and communications system," a United spokesman said. The suit was filed this week in Cook County, Ill., Circuit Court.
Mercury Air Group yesterday announced a $9 million agreement to buy some assets of Raytheon Aircraft Services' fixed-base operations at six airports. The transaction, to be completed this spring, covers real estate, aircraft fueling and line service assets at Ontario, Calif.; Bedford, Mass.; Hartsfield and Peachtree in Atlanta, and Corpus Christi and Addison, Texas.
The City of Chicago is strongly supporting the application of El Al Israel Airlines to operate two additional weekly roundtrip cargo flights between Tel Aviv and Chicago, via Montreal.
FedEx has introduced an Internet logistics "Learning Lab" (http://www.fedex.com/logistics) designed to teach executives to use distribution as a competitive advantage. The lab provides on-site tools, such as case studies, white papers and an expert forum. Michael Janes, VP, said FedEx combined its logistics expertise with its online information capabilities to "create a blueprint for using distribution solutions to improve profitability and increase market share."
Continental Micronesia's request for immediate action on its two-year-old application for Honolulu-Osaka authority and its request for additional U.S.-Japan service spurred a mixed industry response. The carrier's motion "should be dismissed because there is no 'immediate action' that can be taken," said Northwest. As in 1994, the authority sought by Continental Micronesia is not available to it "under the U.S.-Japan Civil Air Transport Agreement of 1952 or under any of the existing memoranda of understanding between the United States and Japan," said Northwest.
DOT yesterday granted Aer Lingus and Delta authority to operate code- share/blocked-space service between the U.S. and Ireland. Aer Lingus will block space to Delta and use the U.S. carrier's designator code on its daily New York-Dublin/Shannon Airbus A330 flights. The two carriers also are looking into cooperation in other areas, including service operations and joint use of facilities. They will explore coordinating schedules, passenger and cargo handling, and marketing programs.
Airbus Industrie, penetrating what has been the domain of Boeing and Douglas so far, yesterday signed up China to a $1.5 billion contract for 30 A320s to serve short-to-medium-haul markets. In addition, China Eastern Airlines of Shanghai will acquire three previously ordered A340s valued at $390 million. All the aircraft were put under contract by China Aviation Supplies Corp. (CASC). Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng and French Prime Minister Alain Juppe witnessed the signing ceremony, which comes at a time when the U.S.
Massport, which operates Boston Logan Airport, has joined USAir in urging DOT to rule immediately on applications of USAir and American for authority to operate between Boston and Paris. "The absence of this service has been a major cost to the Boston, Massachusetts, and New England economy," Massport said, noting that when Northwest halted its Boston-Paris flights last year, only TWA's daily service to Paris remained. "A passenger market that has supported 600 daily seats has had to cram into less than 200 daily seats," Massport said.
SAS's three parent companies are changing their corporate structures in an effort to make it easier to raise funds. The three companies -- Danish DDL, Norwegian DNL, and Swedish SILA/ABA -- will change their names to SAS Denmark A/S, SAS Norge ASA and SAS Sverige AB. They will streamline their operations, shedding businesses that do not pertain to the running of the airline. They will sell real estate holdings to the carrier for 1,550 million Swedish krona.
USAir, Alamo Rent A Car and Visa USA have joined to offer companion certificates for flights in the U.S. and Canada to passengers who rent a car for at least five days with their Visa card. Auto reservations must be made by June 1 for travel April 14 through July 17. Lowest car rental rates, starting at $189 a week for an economy car, are in the Florida, as well as Mountain and some Western region locations. The cost in all other regions is $209 a week. The companion air tickets are good for travel April 24 through Sept.
Raytheon yesterday reported first quarter earnings of $186.5 million on sales of $2.8 billion, both records. In the same quarter last year, the company earned $173.9 million on sales of $2.4 billion. The company said the results were achieved despite a decline in revenue from defense operations.
Dollar Rent A Car Systems is offering a 10% discount to Frontier Airlines passengers. Frontier customers must present their ticket jacket at the car rental counter to receive the discount. The offer is good throughout the year in Albuquerque, Chicago, Denver, El Paso, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Omaha, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. Dollar, which has relocated its headquarters to Oklahoma, said it is offering the discount because it shares Frontier's "Spirit of the West."
General Aviation Technologies, Universal Asset Management and Jet Support Corp. have acquired a Boeing 727 inventory of more than 9,000 items from USAir. The inventory is "fully documented and traceable to USAir in accordance with present industry standards," the companies said. Jet Support will stock, maintain and market the inventory.
Hilton Hotels and Resorts is seeing cost and environmental payoffs from its employee "green teams," which have developed numerous recycling and educational programs at many of its facilities. In Huntington Beach, Calif., one Hilton offers guests "environmental rooms" equipped with air and water purifiers, all-natural amenities and live plants. Only bio- degradable and hypo-allergenic cleaning supplies are used.
Midas Commuter Airlines has applied for renewal of its authority to operate non-scheduled cargo service between Venezuela and Miami, New York, San Juan, Houston and Washington/Baltimore via The Netherlands West Indies, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica as intermediate points. The carrier also seeks renewal of its authority to conduct charter cargo flights between Venezuela and the U.S. Midas plans to operate the U.S. service with aircraft wet-leased from Fine Airlines. (Docket OST-96-1238)
The travel and tourism industry is expected to create more than 100 million new jobs by 2006, industry executives predict, and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has drafted The Millennium Vision to spur that growth. WTTC estimates the industry will contribute more than $3.5 trillion in gross output in 1996, increasing to $7.1 trillion by 2006, while jobs will grow from 255 million worldwide to 385 million. Industry executives met recently at WTTC's annual general meeting in London to discuss growth opportunities.
A coalition seeking more air service between the U.S. and Japan has released a study that says California is being deprived of tourism revenues because of limited access and high fares, and it could reap an additional $1 billion a year from tourists. ACCESS U.S.-Japan said Japanese leisure travelers to California fell from one million in 1989 to 846,000 in 1994. Its market share of Japanese visitors decreased from 44.4% to 20.8%.
Reno Air's March traffic increased 47% over March 1995, to 251 million revenue passenger miles, on capacity of 333.8 million available seat miles, up 25%. The load factor was up 11.2 percentage points to 75.2%. In the first quarter, RPMs increased 48% to 645.2 million and ASMs by 25% to 947.3 million. The load factor gained 10.6 points during the quarter to 68.1%.
An 11.8% increase in Delta's domestic traffic in March offset a 7.9% decrease an international traffic, leaving the carrier with a 7% systemwide increase in revenue passenger miles for the month. The increase came on 0.3% additional capacity, with a load factor of 71.2%, up 4.4 percentage points from March 1995. The number of passengers rose 8.2%. For the first three months of the year, Delta's traffic rose 6.1% on 0.2% more capacity. The load factor grew 3.7 percentage points to 66.3% and the number of passengers was up 7.4%.
