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)
Continental will launch once-a-week service July 6 to Dusseldorf, Germany, from Newark, using a DC-10. Next year, the carrier will increase service in the market to daily flights. It will maintain its daily service to Frankfurt from Newark.
...FAA will issue those controversial ADs by month's end in advance of its planned May 8-9 International Icing Conference, despite strong RAA opposition. They will cover 27 different turboprop models. RAA believes the matter is operational and should be covered by training rather than as an airworthiness issue, while not suggesting the accident was the result of a pilot rather than an airframe problem. The ADs, says FAA, make "ATR aircraft consistent with other like aircraft." Perhaps it should read that they make "other like aircraft consistent with ATR aircraft."
China will decide by the end of June whether Boeing, McDonnell Douglas or Europe's Aero International (Regional) consortium will be the western partner in a planned 100-seat aircraft development program, officials said yesterday. France signed a memorandum of intent yesterday with China under which the AIR partners - Aerospatiale of France, Alenia of Italy and British Aerospace - will work on the project with Aviation Industries of China. Industry executives on all sides, including those at Aerospatiale, played down the significance of the agreement.
..AMR Eagle, ironically, was the source of some of RAA's major recent problems emanating from two fatal crashes in late 1994 - serious revenue losses by members due to derogatory media reports and a public perception that turboprop aircraft were not safe. That perception sparked a major investment in public relations by the association, including hiring an outside public relations firm and an in-house PR director.
Midwest Express has signed a contract to upgrade analog equipment to GTE Airfone's Advanced Digital Airfone Service, enabling passengers to receive calls inflight, transmit data, send and receive faxes, access e-mail and voice mail and conduct conference calls. GTE will install a digital radio base station in Milwaukee to support the new service. The system will be installed on all 22 aircraft in Midwest's fleet by the end of July.
Airline political action committees gave twice as much money in 1995 to Republican congressional candidates than Democrats, while airline union PACs gave 78% of their money to Democrats.Airline PACs gave almost $1.6 million during the year, but about $1.2 million of the total came from the PACs operated by multi-modal carriers United Parcel Service and Federal Express. Airline union PACs contributed $953,030 in 1995.
Hemisphere International Airlines asked DOT to review the order revoking its interstate certificate, complaining that uncompromising demands by FAA held up its certification. The department revoked the carrier's certificate last month because Hemisphere could not attain FAA certification and start operations by March 14, a year after it received DOT certification. Hemisphere said it told DOT in 1995, when it received the interstate certificate, that it "was encountering normal bureaucratic delays as well as other delays" in gaining FAA certification.
Delta Connection affiliate SkyWest flew 60.4 million revenue passenger miles in March, a 47.9% increase from March 1995. Capacity rose 25.7% to 108.5 million available seat miles. Mar. 1996 Mar. 1995 3 Mths 1996 3 Mths 1995 RPMs 60,419,015 40,858,217 163,235,957 110,998,293 ASMs 108,523,936 86,362,038 316,158,803 238,932,257 LF (%) 55.7 47.3 51.6 46.5
Frontier Airlines flew 69 million revenue passenger miles in March, a 179% increase from its 24.7 million RPMs in March 1995. Available seat miles for the month rose 82.9% to 102.2 million, and the load factor improved to 67.5% from 44.3%. Enplanements were up 125.7% to 100,313. For the first quarter, Frontier flew 183 million RPMs, a 168.5% increase over the same period in 1995; 297 million ASMs, up 90.8%, and a 61.6% load factor, up from 43.9%. The March traffic was a monthly record for the 21-month-old carrier.
Midwest Express subsidiary Skyway Airlines flew six million revenue passenger miles in March, a 9% increase from 5.5 million in March 1995. The Midwest Express Connection carrier's capacity increased 3.6% during the month to 13.1 million available seat miles from 12.7 million. Load factor rose 2.2 percentage points to 46% from 43.8%, and passenger boardings rose 3.1% to 27,933 from 27,105.
Air France flew 4.9 billion revenue passenger kilometers last month, a 25.4% increase over last year. Capacity for the month rose 6.2% to 6 billion available seat kilometers. The load factor was 81%, up 12.4 percentage points.
Alaska Airlines will offer $75 one-way fares between Vancouver and San Diego when it starts operating two daily roundtrips May 6 with 140-seat MD- 80s. The fare is available until June 8 for travel until that day. No advance purchase is required.
FAA, in conjunction with ICAO and Miami Airport, will hold the first annual Americas Conference on Aviation in September in Miami, DOT Secretary Federico Pena said yesterday at the Latin American Transport Summit in Santiago, Chile. Addressing concerns about FAA's safety evaluations of foreign civil aviation agencies, Pena said, "I know that a Category 2 or 3 rating of an airport carries with it significant consequences.
The four American Eagle affiliates boarded 1,161,564 passengers last month, a record for the month and just off its all-time monthly record of 1,165,932 passengers in August 1994. Traffic also rose - 19.9% to 2.39 billion revenue passenger miles - while capacity increased 11% to 3.97 billion available seat miles. System load factor increased 4.4 percentage points to 60.1%.
TACA International Airlines Chief Executive Federico Bloch will speak at the International Aviation Club's monthly luncheon April 17 in Washington, D.C. Lunch begins at 12:30 p.m. at the Capital Hilton Hotel, 16th&K Sts. N.W. The cost of lunch is $35 per person.
DOT has once again extended essential air service obligations of Mesa Air Group carriers West Air and Mountain West at six communities in the western U.S. The carriers must continue operating until May 8 or until new carriers are selected to serve Kingman, Ariz.; Silver City, N.M.; Goodland, Kan.; Lamar, Colo., and Merced and Visalia, Calif., DOT said.
Flight Center, Seattle, has launched Flight Center Aircraft Sales, a division that will specialize in the sale of corporate turboprop aircraft, helicopters and jets. Brad Wollen will be VP-aircraft sales. The division will specialize in aircraft such as the King Air 200, Citations, Falcon 50/900 and Gulfstream IV/V.
U.S. airlines could have earned $8.3 billion last year, more than three times the $2.6 billion they reported, if they had used an auction market for unsold seats, according to Salomon Brothers. Analysts Julius Maldutis and Susan Donofrio said U.S. airlines are in the "early stages of a far- reaching structural change," in which new distribution technology will yield "substantial cost savings in the coming years." But they added that "the real revolutionary change...will occur on the revenue side of an airline's income statement.
Amadeus Global Travel Distribution and its Scandinavian distribution partner, Smart, have established a national marketing company in Vilnius, Lithuania, to market the Amadeus and Smart product lines. Lithuanian travel agents will be able to make reservations using Amadeus for airlines, hotels and rental car companies, and to access Smart's local providers, such as ferry companies, tour operators and other travel-related products.
Great Lakes Aviation has announced its intent to terminate all of its essential air service at Norfolk, Neb., beginning July 1. The United Express carrier operates Beech 1900 service from the community to Denver and Minneapolis/St. Paul. It is the only carrier to offer service between Minneapolis/St. Paul and Norfolk. (Docket OST-96-1247)
John Feinstein, sportswriter, commentator and author of "A Good Walk Spoiled," will be the honorary chairman of the 8th Annual Greater Washington Aviation Open, to be held May 6 at Manor Country Club, Rockville, Md. For tournament information, send a fax request to Paul Bollinger at 215-656-2750.
RAA directors, to their credit, this week refused to cave in to Robert Crandall, chairman of their largest member AMR Eagle, on Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) bill to fully fund FAA services, including air traffic handling, with user fees (DAILY, April 10). As a result, AMR Eagle - the only vote of eight among RAA directors in favor of the legislation - elected to "suspend" its RAA membership. The tax measure could kill low-fare, short- haul AMR competitors, and significantly affect regionals as well.
