U.S. and Thailand are expected to reach an agreement in aviation talks scheduled to begin today in Bangkok. The accord is likely to include a "decent route description" and permit third-country code-share service to Thailand, according to an industry official. Some restrictions on local Thai traffic are expected to remain, however.
Helicopter Association International promoted Elizabeth Meade to executive VP, Edward DiCampli to VP-information systems and Melanie Beames to director-sales.
The Raptors, Toronto's new professional basketball team, have cut short an agreement to fly to games on Air Canada charters for the rest of the season and will travel with another charter carrier instead. Air Canada said the decision was mutual and that the team had special needs that it could not meet. Air Canada continues to fly an aircraft painted in Raptors colors, and to sponsor the Air Canada Center, which, when built, will be the team's home.
Flagship Airlines, operating as American Eagle, received DOT approval to suspend its service at Tupelo, Miss., but it will have to keep serving Tuscaloosa, Ala., until Feb. 2 or replacement service begins. On Oct. 10, 1995, the carrier filed a 90-day notice of its intent to suspend its three daily roundtrips between Tupelo and Nashville Jan. 31. DOT noted that there were no community objections to the suspension and said service provided at Tupelo by Northwest Airlink operator Express Airlines I will be enough to meet the community's needs.
American Trans Air opened a Chicago reservations center last week, transferring 150 employees there from its Oakbrook center. The carrier said it expects to add 90 jobs at the center by yearend. It announced that it would open the center last May, when it signed a 10-year lease establishing a new aircraft maintenance facility at Midway Airport. The maintenance center will employ 100 people when it opens later this year.
Delta plans to respond rapidly and aggressively to Southwest's expansion into Florida.Executive VP Harry Alger said Delta will not concede Florida markets to any competitor, but "we must mount a competitive response, and do it quickly."The preferred approach is to get the low-cost operation being negotiated with its Air Line Pilots Association up and running, but this requires an agreement with the union in the next few weeks, Alger said. It is time "to post bids, grow our airline and compete, compete, compete."
Exec Express II, operating as Lone Star Airlines, was selected tentatively by DOT to provide subsidized essential air service at Harrison, Hot Springs, El Dorado/Camden and Jonesboro, Ark. The carrier will receive subsidies totaling $1,774,766 annually to provide the service for two years, retroactive to Nov. 27, 1995. The carrier will provide two Harrison-Hot Springs-Dallas/Fort Worth roundtrips a day, five days a week, and two Jonesboro-El Dorado/Camden-DFW roundtrips a day, five days a week, using 19-seat Fairchild Metro III or Metro 23 aircraft.
American Trans Air's traffic rose 17% in December to 695.4 million revenue passenger miles on 8.7% more capacity, or 1.1 billion available seat miles. Load factor was up 4.7 percentage points to 66.1%. The carrier's load factor for the year was up 2.5 points to 71.1% and RPMs rose 24.4% to 8.9 billion. ASMs increased 19.9%. Scheduled service represented 52.7% of the carrier's business last year. Chairman and Chief Executive George Mikelsons said two transactions completed in December with the city of Indianapolis will positively impact fourth quarter results.
Major carriers are about 80% complete in shifting jet routes to their regional affiliates, says analyst Michael Boyd of Aviation Systems Research. In his Airports: USA Quarterly outlook for 1996, Boyd said the majors will continue to reduce low-fare capacity in 1996, "which just adds to the double whammy of high debt levels and declining economic growth." Concerning regional affiliates, "The trend in the next decade will be to gradually replace turboprops with new-technology small jets. But don't look for major increases in per-segment capacity...."
International Lease Finance Corp. sold $150 million of three-year, 5 l/2% senior, unsecured, non-callable notes maturing Jan. 15, 1999. Notes are underwritten by Lehman Brothers. Proceeds will be used to repay maturing commercial paper.
The air traffic controllers union said yesterday that the Voice Switching and Control System is not as failure-proof as FAA has advertised, and it called on the agency not to remove a backup system just to save money. "Tearing WECO [Western Electric Co.] equipment out now is not about costs, it is about safety," said James Ferguson, regional VP of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He cited the Jan.
Parrish Leasing Corp. said it formed the 1995 Pendulum Investment Trust, which it said acquired three DC-10-30CF aircraft on Dec. 18. The aircraft are leased to United. The trust was described as a privately syndicated investment vehicle composed of major institutional investors.
Hub competition now extends to the timing of late-night connecting banks. Delta Connection Comair, surveying business passengers about the convenience of the Cincinnati hub, found that it did not stay up late enough at night. Comair's last bank was 8:30 p.m., which meant that later- connecting passengers could not get home that night. Therefore, they tended to connect through someone else's hub such as Chicago, Detroit, Memphis and Nashville. So Comair now has a 10:30 p.m. bank that gets travelers home - via Cincinnati - around midnight.
Hawaiian Airlines is threatening to shut down and file for another round of Chapter 11 if members of its four unions do not ratify tentative contracts reached in December. The contracts are needed to stabilize labor costs in the next four years and finalize a $20 million investment by Airline Investors Partnership. Bruce Nobles, chairman, president and chief executive, said Hawaiian's cash position can sustain operations until Jan. 18. The four unions count member ballots on Jan. 15. The AIP investment is scheduled to be completed Jan.
Midwest Express Airlines traffic rose 3.9% in December to 89.7 million revenue passenger miles from 86.4 million in December 1994 on 5.3% less capacity. Available seat miles totaled 147.5 million, down from 155.8 million last December. Load factor rose to 60.8% from 55.4%. For the year, RPMs climbed 18.2% to 1.2 billion from 972.8 million in 1994. ASMs rose 12.2% to 1.8 billion, and the load factor was up to 64.1% from 60.8%. Passenger boardings in 1995 rose to 1.4 million from 1.2 million.
Los Angeles Department of Airports said it purchased a new lift-equipped access vehicle to help disabled passengers board and exit aircraft more easily. The board of airport commissioners awarded a contract to AMR Services to operate and maintain the vehicle, which can serve disabled passengers at remote gates where there are no loading bridges. The service is free.
Five A340s in passenger service are gathering a "wealth" of data with their ozone, water vapor and temperature measuring equipment as part of the Mozaic program, Airbus Industrie reported. Preliminary results "already suggest that ozone is not being destroyed at the heights at which airliners fly - typically eight to 13 kilometers," Airbus said (DAILY, Jan. 8). The aircraft have made more than 2,200 flights, most of them long-haul.
FAA, citing a report of "complete power loss" on the left engine of a Saab 340, issued an emergency order requiring flight crews to verify that the auto-ignition system is operational. FAA said the report also cited power fluctuations on the right engine. FAA said the report cited the build-up of ice or slush in the engine inlet and "subsequent ingestion into the engines." The auto-ignition system of the left engine had failed, "which prevented automatic restart of the engine following power interruption," FAA said.
FlightLine of the U.K. acquired from USAir and will will place in service Jan. 29 the first of 18 British Aerospace BAe 146-200s that had been stored in the Mojave Desert. Flightline formally accepted the aircraft from USAir Leasing Jan. 5 in Calgary, Alberta, and ferried it 5,000 miles to Cambridge, U.K., where it arrived Jan. 6. USAir acquired the 146s when it took over former California regional Pacific Southwest Airlines in April 1988. Flightline will use the aircraft on its London-Switzerland services.
The spread between high and low stock prices for nine publicly held regional airlines averaged nearly $10 during the last 52-week period, $9.98 to be exact. The average high for the period was $15.81 per share, while the average low was $5.82. Individual highs for the year ranged from a low of $1.81 for Austin, Texas-based Air LA to a high of $37 for Delta Connection Comair. Comair also posted the largest spread - $27.09 from a low of $9.91.
The Brock Group, strategic planning and governmental relations firm, has formed an alliance with Jakarta, Indonesia-based Business Advisory Strategies. The Brock Group provides guidance to the telecommunications, aerospace, power generation and consumer goods industries. The firm specializes in international trade, labor relations, market access and investment strategies. It also has affiliates in China, Hong Kong, Viet Nam and Taiwan.
CCAIR flew 11.5 million revenue passenger miles last month, a 2.5% increase from December 1994. Capacity edged up 1.2% to 25.3 million available seat miles. Load factor rose 0.6 percentage points to 45.5%.
KLM finalized yesterday its purchase of a 26% stake in Kenya Airways for US$26 million. The Dutch airline announced the transaction in December, and its managing director and chief financial officer, Rob Abrahamsen, and representatives of Kenya's government signed the share transfer agreement yesterday in Nairobi, KLM said. As part of the buyout, Abrahamsen and Dries van Luyk, KLM executive VP-passenger sales and service, have joined the board of Kenya Airways, which was wholly owned by the government.
Summary of U.S. Major Carriers International Revenues and Expenses Second Quarter 1995 (In Dollars) Total Operating % Passenger Carrier Revenues Change Revenues American 1,182,075,000 8.27 1,007,537,000 Atlantic 542,034,000 9.70 452,934,000 Latin 541,182,000 7.73 476,364,000
