FAA Administrator David Hinson said yesterday the agency will implement Oct. 10 a $166 million expansion project that will increase capacity in the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport area by about 75% with "worldwide effect on all air traffic," boosting national airspace capacity by 15%. Hinson said the long-awaited Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Air Traffic System Plan will save the aviation industry and the traveling public $10 billion over the next 20 years. "This is the largest airspace modification ever undertaken by the FAA as a single event," Hinson said.
Alaska Airlines' traffic shot up 26% last month, compared with March 1995. The carrier flew 835 million revenue passenger miles for the month, compared with 663 million RPMs in the comparable 1995 period. Capacity for the month grew 9.3% to 1.22 billion available seat miles. The passenger load factor was 68.5%, up 9.1 percentage points. Alaska carried more than one million passengers in the month, up from 777,000. Traffic for the first three months of 1996 was up 18.5%, compared with the same three months in 1995.
Statistics issued by USAir show that the carrier is making progress to reshape itself in some areas but falling short in others. Management has moved to restructure its flying, lengthening domestic flights and adding more international routes, but employee costs have increased. The carrier's recent 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows wages and benefits accounted for 41% of USAir's costs in 1995, up from about 39% in 1994 and 37.6% in 1990.
Citing the longevity of its JT8D engine, Pratt&Whitney said this week it will open an overhaul facility for the engine in Columbus, Ga. The facility will employ about 200 people at Pratt's manufacturing plant, most from the Columbus area. Some management and engineering personnel well transfer from other facilities. The JT8D powers 727s and about 1,000 737s, and Craig Muhlhauser, P&W senior VP-large commercial engines, said, "Many airlines are finding that the JT8D will be part of their fleet will into the next century.
Cruise industry summit sponsored by the American Society of Travel Agents will be held in conjunction with ASTA's Great Americas Regional Conference June 5 in New Orleans. "Agencies are making significant changes in their operations as a result of the airline commission caps, and it is clear that many agencies are selling more cruises, but sales are not keeping up with the enormous capacity coming online," said ASTA President Jeanne Epping.
Portable Software Corp. will soon offer Xpense Management Solution, a suite of products to manage, prepare and process travel and entertainment expense reports for medium to large companies. A new version of QuickXpense, called QuickXpense Enterprise, is designed for corporate expense reporting and as a tool for business travelers preparing reports. The first series of applications will be shipped to stores in June.
An Air Travel Card survey finds 28% of U.S. companies plan to increase business trips to Europe this year, while 63% expect the number of trips to remain steady. The most popular destinations for business travelers, according to those polled, are the U.K., 56%; Germany, 34%; France, 17% and Italy 11%. The biggest challenges to business travelers are language barriers, they said, and jet lag.
James Hall was nominated for another term as chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. Hall has served as chairman since his appointment by President Clinton Sept. 30, 1994. He has been a board member since Oct. 15, 1993.
The nation's 10 largest carriers posted a 71.9% on-time rate in February. While an improvement over 62.7% in January, when harsh winter weather caused record flight delays, the rate compared poorly with the 78.9% of February 1995. For the second month in a row, Southwest led the majors with an on-time record of 82%, according to DOT's Air Travel Consumer Report, issued Tuesday. Continental placed second with 77.9%, followed by Northwest with 75.5%. Delta trailed the pack with 61.6%.
Austrian Airlines increased flying to Washington, Atlanta and New York as part of its summer schedule, which started March 31. The carrier added a sixth daily A310 flight from Vienna via Germany to Washington and three new flights per week from New York Kennedy to Vienna. On May 1, the carrier will switch to a daily 767 nonstop to Atlanta. Some of the new flights are in conjunction with Austrian's code-share partners, Delta and Swissair. In Europe and Asia, service is being added to Skopje, Kosice, Dnepropetrovsk, Osaka and Seoul.
Pratt&Whitney said FedEx selected it to provide up to 10 years of maintenance services for JT9D-7R4 engines that power the carrier's Airbus A310 aircraft. FedEx will pay Pratt a fixed amount based on the number of flight hours each year of the contract. FedEx currently has 16 of the engines. Tony Amato, Pratt's overhaul and repair general manger for the JT9D series, said the contract is the result of nearly two years of negotiations.
Federal Express has asked DOT for renewal of its exemption authority and its five weekly widebody frequencies to operate all-cargo service in the U.S.-Brazil market, directly or via intermediate stops at points in South America and beyond-Brazil points in Argentina. FedEx operates five weekly roundtrip flights between Memphis and Sao Paulo, with an intermediate stop in Miami on southbound flights two days a week.
The union representing air traffic controllers is pushing for pay based on type of facility, saying the current system is "archaic." Mike McNally, executive VP of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said yesterday in Washington that "under a new classification system, controllers will be paid based on the number of airplanes they routinely work, as well as other complexities of the operation." This will make "isolated pay raises" of the type recently announced by DOT for controllers at seven busy facilities "a thing of the past," McNally said (DAILY, April
Implementing the new U.S.-South Africa agreement, DOT has taken steps to expand South African Airways' authority to operate in the U.S., amending SAA's current exemption to permit it to serve its existing U.S. gateways, New York, Miami and Los Angeles, as co-terminal points. DOT also expanded SAA's authority to code share with American, allowing it to operate the service between Miami and Cape Town/Johannesburg, and it renewed SAA's authority to conduct code-share operations on behalf of American between New York and Johannesburg via Ilha do Sal.
Laker Airways has applied at DOT for a certificate to operate scheduled U.S.-U.K. service, with plans to operate DC-10-30 combination service from Fort Lauderdale and Miami to London Gatwick and from Orlando to Manchester and Prestwick. Its certificate to operate interstate and charter foreign operations became effective April 1. (Docket OST-96-1224)
American Society of Travel Agents has added two new featured speakers to its Western Regional Conference at the Kauai, Hawaii, Marriott Hotel May 2- 5 - former Russian pilot Alexander Zuyev who commandeered a MiG-29 fighter in 1989 and flew it to Turkey, and travel safety expert Kevin Coffey, who has developed seminars on how corporate travelers can protect themselves.
Northwest said yesterday it will begin twice-weekly, all-cargo 747 service June 5 to Kansai Airport, the area in Japan where Panasonic, Sharp Electronics, Sumitomo and much of Japan's auto industry are based. It operates eight 747 freighters, each capable of carrying 240,000 pounds.
House Natural Resources Committee has thrown out a proposal that would have imposed user fees on commercial aircraft overflying U.S. national parks. The United States Air Tour Association, which lobbied hard against the fees - sightseeing tours would have had to pay them - said there are more than 650 million acres of parklands in the country that would fall under the proposed regulation.
Officials from Russian aircraft makers Tupolev and Yakovlev will return to Moscow today without a deal to acquire bankrupt Dutch manufacturer Fokker. After two days of talks in Amsterdam, the Russian delegation could not convince the court-appointed receivers of Fokker of the solvency of its bid. According to sources close to the negotiations, the Russians could not show proof of their claim that the Russian central bank issued a $260 million guarantee. The delegation was supposed to be led by G.P.
France is reconsidering its decision in February to drop out of Airbus Industrie's first military aircraft program, the prospective Future Large Airlifter military transport aircraft program in response to assurances from the Airbus Industrie-led contractor team that it already has come up with ways to reduce the cost of the program, industry and French defense officials told The DAILY. British Aerospace military adviser Patrick Hine, who commanded U.K.
The Los Angeles city controller has announced that, according to a consultant's report, Los Angeles Airport owes the city's general fund $252 million over and above the $102 million the consultant previously determined the airport owed the city. Controller Rick Tuttle this week issued the accounting firm's report and a March 29 letter to Mayor Richard Riordan that suggested the approximately $350 million balance should be repaid over 10 years.
DOT is inviting certificate and/or frequency applications from U.S. carriers interested in scheduled combination or all-cargo service between the U.S. and Thailand. There are 17 weekly combination and 21 weekly all- cargo frequencies available for service via intermediate points in the U.S.-Thailand market. Currently, Northwest and United each operate seven weekly combination frequencies to Bangkok via Tokyo with full traffic rights. Northwest operates two and Federal Express one all-cargo weekly frequencies.
Southwest will offer vacation packages to Orlando through Orlando- based Southwest Airlines Fun Pack Vacations when it starts service to the city this Sunday. The Mark Travel Corp. is the exclusive tour operator for Fun Pack Vacations. The joint venture with Southwest began in 1989 with only one destination - Las Vegas. It now has packages to 14 destinations.
