Moody's Investors Service upgraded the senior unsecured rating of Loral Corp. to A3 from Baa2 to reflect that Lockheed Martin has "unconditionally" guaranteed payment of Loral's existing debt obligations.
Boeing said yesterday its 777-300 program has reached the 25% production definition milestone - one-quarter of the information needed to build parts and tools for assembly have been completed and released to manufacturers for fabrication or procurement, said Jeff Peace, program manager. The stretched aircraft will be able to hold 20% more passengers than the initial version and will serve as a replacement for early model 747s, he said.
Reno Air's revenue passenger miles rose 65% in May to 256 million on 43% more capacity. Available seat miles totaled 394.5 million, driving up the load factor 8.7 percentage points to a record 65%. President Robert Reding said the load factor marks the ninth consecutive month of significant year-over-year increases.
The Association of Flight Attendants will meet with United this week in hopes of talking the company out of its plan to open flight attendant bases in Tokyo and Frankfurt, or at least delaying the move. But the union is not optimistic about the outcome. AFA's contract requires United to meet with the union before setting an opening date. United said Friday it intends to open the Frankfurt base Oct. 1 and the Tokyo base Dec. 1, bringing the number of foreign bases to seven, including Paris, London, Santiago, Taipei and Hong Kong.
A320-1/200 A310-300 America West Northwest United Average Delta ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of Aircraft 18 50 29 97 1 Operated TOTAL FLEET OPERATIONS Departures 93 197 103 394 2 Block Hours 211 531 307 1,049 14
Indian carrier Modiluft has denied Lufthansa's charges that it defaulted on lease rental payments for three aircraft, which led the German carrier to sever its ties with the privately owned domestic airline last week. Pointing out that the management contract between the two airlines was valid until December 1996, a Modiluft spokesman said Friday that the blame for "any mess" in managing the airline would have to be laid at Lufthansa's door since the German airline's representatives had overall management control.
Airlines' individual cost per available seat mile for 1995, as listed in a story on Northwest's costs June 5 in The DAILY, came from DOT Form 41 data that were adjusted to Northwest's average stage length. When using cost per ASM data that are not adjusted, the results are Delta 8.85 cents, United 8.87, Northwest 9.12, American 9.43 and USAir 11.50.
Judicial authorities in Taiwan have issued indictments against 16 people accused of involvement in a bribery scheme to influence bidding for the Chiang Kai-shek Airport expansion project. Among those indicted are three officials of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration and four officials of the government-run China Engineering Consultants Inc. All those indicted are to be charged with corruption.
America West began service between Anchorage and Seattle last week with continuing service to Phoenix and Las Vegas. Anchorage is part of the carrier's strategic plan to increase available seat miles 29% and total departures 17% by the end of 1997. The plan includes adding at least eight new destinations. The carrier is operating two daily flights to Anchorage from Seattle with fares as low as $99 one way. America West began service recently to San Antonio from Phoenix and Las Vegas.
DOT has made final its show cause order selecting American International Airways and Polar Air Cargo for primary authority to operate new all-cargo services between the U.S. and Brazil. Southern Air Transport and Tower Air received backup authority. AIA received the 6.5 weekly frequencies available immediately, to operate scheduled service between Miami, the intermediate point Bogota, Colombia, and co-terminal points Manaus, Sao Paulo, Recife and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (DAILY, March 20).
The Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Association at Delta will step down at the end of July. The officers had agreed to serve until negotiations on the new contract were completed. The union will vote on a new chairman, vice chairman and secretary/treasurer July 30-Aug. 2 in Seattle.
Delta has obtained a letter of credit for $470 million to enhance the Delta family-care savings plan's Series C guaranteed serial ESOP notes. The new letter of credit, issued by ABN AMRO Bank N.V., replaces a letter of credit issued by Delta's 1995 Bank Credit Agreement for the same purpose. The amount available now under Delta's 1995 Bank Credit Agreement will increase from $780 million to the full $1.25 billion provided for in the revolving credit facility.
"Prospects look pretty good, better than 50%," that European Union Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock will get a mandate to talk with the U.S. when EC transport ministers meet June 17, Ludolf van Hasselt, principal administrator of the Air Transport Policy Division, Directorate- General for Transport, EC Commission, said last week at the American Bar Association Forum on Air&Space Law. U.S. officials add, however, that the type and extent of the authority still is a matter of debate.
The initial version of a 555-seat A3XX transport will cost about $180 million in today's dollars, Jurgen Thomas, senior VP, Airbus Industrie's large-aircraft division, said in Toulouse, France. The manufacturing consortium believes it will cost about $8 billion to develop the aircraft and is aiming for service introduction in 2003. Preliminary design would be frozen in 1997 and the final design in 1999, he said, and about 8% of the total program cost could come between the preliminary and final design freezes.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee, last week asked the FBI, the National Transportation Safety Board and the General Accounting Office to investigate the use of suspected unapproved parts in the aviation industry and efforts by FAA to curb it.
Delta and Swissair are increasing their code-share operations to include service from Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Newark to Geneva and Zurich. On Friday, Delta began purchasing seats on Swissair's daily Boston-Zurich, five-times-weekly Los Angeles-Zurich, twice-weekly Los Angeles-Geneva- Zurich and six-times-weekly Chicago-Zurich services. Beginning July 1, Delta will buy seats on Swissair's daily Newark-Zurich service.
FAA's new personnel system is barely two months old, but members of Congress already are proposing to chip away at the agency's newfound flexibility. Rep. Stephen Buyer (R-Ind.) introduced legislation (H.R.3593) last week to require that reductions in force under the new FAA personnel management system be subject to veterans preference.
Airbus Industrie barred SabreTech, ValuJet's Miami contractor, from working on Airbus aircraft after inspecting maintenance the company performed on its customers' Airbus planes, officials of the European consortium say. Airbus took the action in April, before the ValuJet 592 crash. In general, Airbus officials say they are concerned about airlines' ability to monitor the quality of work done by contract maintenance providers.
America West reported record May traffic results of 1.3 billion revenue passenger miles, a 12.3% increase from May 1995. Available seat miles rose 9.2% and the load factor improved 1.9 points to 70.7%. For the first five months of the year, the carrier also flew a record number of RPMs, 6.1 billion, and ASMs, 8.5 billion, for a record year-to-date load factor of 71.1%.
America West stock clerks have filed authorization cards with the National Mediation Board for representation by the Teamsters. Forty stock clerks are employed at the carrier, whose mechanics won a bitter battle for representation by the Teamsters earlier this year (DAILY, April 18).
Delta has made strides lately in improving its least on-time flights. It traditionally has more egregiously late flights than other carriers and ranked 10th, 10th and ninth in DOT's on-time performance tabulations in February, March and April, respectively. But the number of Delta flights late 70% of the time or more decreased from 157 in February to 88 in March and eight in April. The number that were late 80% of the time or more went from 48 to 21 to seven.
Granted orally to Swissair an exemption to operate scheduled combination service from points behind Switzerland, via Switzerland and intermediate points, to points in the U.S....Granted orally to Aerotransportes Mas de Carga an exemption to operate scheduled all-cargo service between Cancun, Mexico, and Miami, and between Mexico City and Los Angeles...Granted orally to Midwest Express authority to operate scheduled combination service between Milwaukee and Toronto...Granted orally to Air-India renewal of its exemption to operate scheduled combination service between Ind
Atlantic Coast named Richard Kennedy general counsel and secretary. Atlas Air named former Michigan Gov. James Blanchard and newly appointed President Mickey Foret to its board. Virgin Atlantic Cargo appointed John Ryan senior VP-sales and services, the Americas.
Moody's Investors Service has placed the debt ratings of Continental on watch-list for a possible upgrade if the carrier continues to improve operations and cash flow. The review covers the senior unsecured rating of B2, subordinated rating of Caa, preferred stock rating of caa, industrial revenue bond ratings of B3, pass-through certificates series 1996 A2, Baa1, Ba1 and B1, and multiple seniority shelf ratings of (P)Ba3, (P)B2 and (P)Caa.
Northwest will test InVision CTX 5000 explosive detection systems (EDSs) at Ninoy Acquino Airport at Manila, Philippines. In a program sponsored by FAA, the airline will assess the devices in an airport operating environment, providing data and assistance to FAA for evaluation of certified EDS technology before the planned use of devices on U.S.-bound and -departing international flights. The CTX 5000 systems are to be installed at the airport early in August to screen U.S.-bound baggage.
