Carnival Air Lines plans to launch nonstop service June 28 between Bradley Airport, in Connecticut, and Orlando with continuing service to San Juan. Flights will operate daily except for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Carnival will offer one-way fares of $98 to Orlando and $149 to San Juan, with a free Orlando stopover. The carrier will operate a 173-seat 727 in the markets in an all-coach configuration.
Removing investment restrictions, promoting competition, applying new technology and harmonizing regulations and procedures are the key factors in improving cooperation between U.S. and Latin America, DOT Secretary Federico Pena said last week in Santiago, Chile. Speaking at the Latin American Transport Summit, Pena offered a five-part strategy for achieving a more unified "Transportation Network of the Americas" by the beginning of the 21st century. "First, we must tear down the barriers to international investment in our national transport sectors," he said.
Dollar Rent A Car is offering travel agents a 15% commission for any rental that begins on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday through June 30. Dollar will give agents in Florida 15% commissions on leisure rentals of five days or more.
Miami-based Gulfstream International Airlines operated 9.5 million revenue passenger miles last month, an 89.6% increase from nearly 5 million RPMs in the same 1995 month. Capacity rose 97.2% to 17.6 million available seat miles from 8.9 million as load factor dropped 2.2 percentage points to 53.7% from 55.9%.
Kiwi International Air Lines has reduced one-way, no-advance-purchase fares from Atlanta to $39 to Florida, $49 to Chicago and $79 to New York. It also has reduced fares to $88 between Chicago, Tampa and Orlando. Tickets must be purchased by April 14 for travel by June 15 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Saturdays. Flights on peak travel days cost $10 more. Kiwi does not require a Saturday night stay.
Tourism Works for America Council is asking travel and tourism industry members to wear red on May 8, National Tourist Appreciation Day. The event is part of National Tourism Week, May 5-11, which has been celebrated in the U.S. since 1984 to recognize tourism's cultural, social and economic impact. The council said city and state officials have planned activities across the nation to celebrate the event.
Southwest ended its Friends Fly Free companion ticket program this week after a five-year run. Travel on tickets already sold will continue through Sept. 5. A spokeswoman said Southwest believed originally that the program had a "shelf life" of only a few months but kept extending it because of its popularity. Asked whether it will be brought back, she said "never say never" but added: "I think we would like to come out with something more fresh."
SAS will make more of its European flights smoke-free by June 1 but still will allow smoking on transoceanic flights and on service to Southern and Eastern Europe. The carrier will ban smoking on flights to Britain, the Benelux countries, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Flights to Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey will not be affected by the change, nor will intercontinental flights. SAS banned smoking on flights in Norway and Sweden in 1988 and added Denmark a year later.
USAir announced June 1 as the launch date for its Philadelphia-Rome service after DOT's decision, issued Wednesday, making final its tentative approval of USAir over stiff objections from competing carriers Northwest and Delta. Northwest was granted backup authority for service to Rome from Detroit (DAILY, April 11). USAir plans to operate six days per week between Rome and Philadelphia using Boeing 767-200ER aircraft, with same-plane service to and from Los Angeles.
The European Regional Airlines Association (ERA) wants the European Community to keep in check the increasing costs associated with initiatives to harmonize aviation regulations within Europe. A high-level ERA delegation met with EC Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock earlier this month to lay out that and other concerns.
Sixth annual Airline Quality Rating, which ranks the top nine major airlines for overall performance, will be issued Monday in Washington, D.C. The rating is conducted by researchers at the University of Nebraska at Omaha Aviation Institute, and the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. Assessments are based on 19 criteria, including financial status, on-time performance, fleet age and customer complaints. American Airlines ranked first in four of the five years ratings have been issued.
The Air Force's Air Mobility Command awarded contracts to three carriers to carry personnel and cargo over short distances. Airpark Sales and Service was awarded a $95,578 seven-month contract with two option years to move passengers from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., OLF Webster Field, Md., or St. Mary's County Airport, Md., to various locations within a 250- mile radius. Southern Air Transport received a $458,735, six-month contract to move cargo from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, to various locations in Alaska.
Comsat, the U.S. signatory to the Inmarsat international maritime communications satellite organization, has torpedoed Inmarsat's plan to establish a system of Hughes-built navigation satellites, apparently because of a U.S. policy to back the Global Positioning System as a stand- alone space segment for ICAO's Future Air Navigation System. Comsat has a 23% vote at Inmarsat, and a two-thirds majority is required to pass a business initiative such as the proposed ISNS (International Satellite Navigation System), which had won the support of most Inmarsat member nations.
ValuJet Airlines is slowing its 1996 growth plans and may defer more aircraft deliveries and leases in the future in order to manage its growth better, the carrier told the Securities and Exchange Commission. The current rein on capacity is only a "slight and temporary reduction," the carrier says, but was done in part because of FAA scrutiny on its safety- related programs.
Airport and Airway Trust Fund Income Statement October 1, 1995 - January 31, 1996 RECEIPTS (Revenues) Current Month Revenues: Excise Taxes (Transferred from General Fund): Liquid Fuel other than Gas $ 14,607,000.00 Transportation by Air, Seats, Berths, etc. 439,326,000.00 Use of International Travel Facilities 24,596,000.00
BB&T, a banking subsidiary of Southern National Corp., will offer affinity credit cards as the official credit card sponsor of the First Flight Centennial Foundation to celebrate the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. The card will have a photo-like painting of the Wrights flying the first airplane past the First Flight monument as modern jets also fly by.
Jet Express is cutting fares to Myrtle Beach, S.C., from its eight gateway cities, effective May 1. The carrier, owned and operated by tour operator World Technology Systems, will offer fares beginning at $59 one way from Myrtle Beach to New York, Newark, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Detroit. Fares to Baltimore/Washington were introduced last week at that price, and flights to Boston will cost $79. Previously, the lowest fares to all cities except Boston were $79.
Apollo's new University Profit Prescription program will show travel agents how much time and money they waste calling the Apollo Customer Support Center when they could be selling travel. The program will send a monthly tally to about 2,000 agencies, breaking down the number and nature of the calls, and it will identify key training needs.
Saab Aircraft will fly the 50-passenger 2000 high-speed turboprop behind a KC-135 water tanker at Edwards Air Force Base this month in a voluntary test of its capacity to handle super-cooled drizzle droplets. The manufacturer has been writing a test program for the airplane. According to one source, the Swedish manufacturer has a full-court-press sales pitch on AMR Eagle, and [AMR Chairman Robert] Crandall "will want to know, 'Did the 2000 fly behind the tanker?'" It was an AMR Eagle ATR 72 that went down in similar conditions at Roselawn, Ind., on Oct. 31, 1994.
Atlanta Southeast Airlines, a Delta Connection carrier, set a monthly boarding record in March when it transported 318,155 passengers, a 21.4% increase over March 1995. Revenue passenger miles were up 17.3% to 77.2 million, and capacity grew 6.7% to 154.9 million available seat miles. Load factor also improved by 4.5 percentage points during the month to 49.8%.
USAir Express affiliate PSA will launch two nonstop flights between Washington National and Burlington, Vt., effective May 6 - the only nonstop service between the two points. On the same date, the regional will add another flight to its service between Washington National Airport and Manchester, N.H. PSA will use 32-passenger Dornier 328 turboprops for both new services.
William Reynard, 53, director of NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System, died April 10 in Palo Alto, Calif., of complications from a kidney transplant. He headed the ASRS since 1976.
American Eagle carrier Simmons saw its traffic rocket 85.5% in the March quarter, but there is an explanation. The first 1995 quarter saw the carrier's ATR 42/72 fleet moved to the southern U.S. when FAA prohibited the aircraft to operate in known icing conditions. Indeed, the fleet did not even operate during part of January 1995. Even though the aircraft continues under a prohibition in known freezing rain or drizzle conditions, the ATR fleet this year was back to strength at Simmons' Chicago O'Hare hub.
DOT is requiring TWA Express affiliate Trans States to continue its current level of service at Forney Air Field, which serves Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., through June 3 or until the department is able to secure replacement service. Trans States, which is the only carrier providing service to the community, had announced in February plans to drop the service May 5. The carrier was selected in 1994 to operate for a two-year period ending April 30, 1996, three nonstop roundtrips on weekdays and two nonstop roundtrips over the weekend between Fort Leonard Wood and St.
DOT has renewed Air New Zealand's authority to operate between any point or points in New Zealand and the co-terminal points Los Angeles and Honolulu, via intermediate points in Australia. (Docket OST-96-1143)
