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DOT has denied a request by Alia-The Royal Jordanian Airline to renew its exemption to operate scheduled combination service between Amman, Jordan, and Miami, and to continue serving Cologne, Germany, as an intermediate point. Filed in April 1994, the renewal application drew opposition from Northwest and United. Northwest urged DOT to turn down Royal Jordanian's request because the Government of Jordan denied its request to serve Amman under its code-share arrangement with KLM.
U.S. Major Carriers Advertising Expenses Fourth Quarter 1994 % Of Total Passenger Systemwide Revenues America West $ 5,426,231 1.71 Domestic 5,423,828 1.72 Latin 2,403 0.10 American 54,018,000 1.71 Domestic 31,157,000 1.38
Alaska Air Group, parent of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, never has been in a better competitive position, Chairman John Kelly told shareholders at the company's annual meeting. "With our cost structure in line, we can offer the same low fares as any competitor," Kelly said. "However, we offer consumers more value for the dollar - more flight frequencies in virtually every market, advance seat assignments plus comfortable seating, quality food and the best employees in the business."
A rush hour failure of a 1970s vintage IBM 9020 computer disrupted traffic departures from O'Hare yesterday morning caused a national ground stop for traffic headed for the airport, according to Ray Gibbons, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association at the O'Hare terminal radar approach control. The outage lasted from 8:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. He said the backup radar, called DARC, did not function as it should have. An FAA spokeswoman said controllers never lost radio communication with pilots.
Lufthansa, which consolidated its U.S. management structure a couple of years ago from five regions into two, yesterday combined the two regions into one. Uwe Hinrichs, who was VP of the former Eastern region, was named VP-USA. The consolidation follows the appointment of Rolf Hoehn, formerly VP-Central and Western USA, to the new worldwide sales and distribution division, where he will be VP-global sports marketing. In his new position, Hinrichs will oversee all passenger and operational activities at the carrier's 10 U.S. gateways.
Standard&Poor's yesterday assigned a preliminary A- rating to Southwest's $400 million unsecured debt securities, for which it recently filed a Rule 415 shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. S&P said its rating reflects Southwest's "extremely" strong positions in the markets it serves, very low operating cost structure, and consistent profitability in a difficult industry environment.
Boeing is making headway toward its goals of cutting manufacturing time in commercial aircraft programs in half, and it is within two months of the cycle-time targets for the 767 and the 747, according to Boeing Commercial Airplane Group President Ron Woodard. "We have reduced our cycle times from as high as 18 months a few years ago down to 10 months for the 737 and 757 and 10.5 months for the 767 and 747," Woodard said. As a new aircraft, the 777 currently has a cycle time of 16 months, but Boeing's goal is "six to eight months on all models by 1998," he said.
Precision Standard said it earned $1.6 million on sales of $41.1 million for the first quarter, compared with a loss of $200,000 on sales of $34.9 million a year earlier. Matthew Gold, chairman, said revenue increased across all product lines, "including our government and commercial aircraft maintenance and modification services, and our cargo handling and space vehicle systems." He reported a "slower-than-anticipated volume buildup at our aircraft maintenance facility in Copenhagen."
Iberia's March passenger traffic increased nearly 1.1% from a year ago to 1.85 billion revenue passenger kilometers. The number of passengers boarded rose 1.9% to 1.18 million, and the Spanish airline's cargo traffic was up 16.3% to 58.4 million freight ton kilometers. Through the first three months of this year, Iberia's passenger traffic increased 1.9% to 5.2 billion RPKs, and the number of passengers boarded rose 1.3% to 9.1 million. Cargo traffic increased 17.5% to 153.7 million FTKs.
AMR Chairman Robert Crandall said yesterday that he is encouraged with recent developments in the airline company's ongoing talks with its labor unions, and AMR Airline Group President Donald Carty said he expects agreements with the three unions by the third quarter. AMR, the parent company of American, is seeking $750 million a year in labor cost savings.
With U.S.-Japan aviation relations continuing to deteriorate, Frederick Smith, Federal Express president and CEO, paid a call on DOT Secretary Federico Pena yesterday, according to an industry source. FedEx has been urging DOT to take action to force Japan to allow the carrier to operate fifth-freedom service from Japan.
Moody's Investors Service has raised the ratings on most airline equipment trust and pass-through certificates to two notches above the airlines' senior unsecured ratings because of the superior legal and economic position of the certificates, which are given special protection under Section 1110 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The action, affecting about $9.5 billion of debt securities, completes a review Moody's began Jan. 19. The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994 strengthened protection from lessors under Section 1110.
China Airlines has doubled the number of weekly flights between Taipei and Kuala Lumpur with the addition of a daily nonstop on May 16. Previously, CAL operated seven weekly flights in the market, via Hong Kong.
Boeing has worked out a deal with Air France to resolve differences about the carrier's move early this year to cancel firm orders for three 737- 400s, three 767-300s and four 747-400 freighters. The company will help the airline "remarket" the aircraft, according to Commercial Airplane Group President Ron Woodard.
The worldwide market for long-haul widebody jetliners may be big enough to support all three manufacturers of such aircraft, Boeing Chairman Frank Shrontz said at a news briefing during his company's ceremonial delivery of its first 777. Shrontz told reporters that "it's possible that all three [companies] in this circumstance will survive," even though current market shares are lopsided. The 777 holds about 70% of new orders in its category and Airbus Industrie's A330/A340 has 28%. After cancellations, McDonnell Douglas's MD-11 net sales stand at minus one.
Interactive Flight Technologies said it will supply Alitalia with video-on- demand inflight entertainment networks for first- and business-class passengers. IFT said Alitalia will be the "first and only airline to offer digitized movies to its passengers." IFT said its system is the only one that offers "true video on demand."
An official of Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs said the ministry will invest more than NT$13 billion (US$510 million) in the next five years to upgrade Taiwan's aerospace industry. Following a plan drafted by the Aerospace Center of the government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute, the ministry will finance selected aerospace technology development projects. The plan also calls for the ministry to assist local firms in the acquisition of advanced technologies from abroad.
Pan Am International Flight Academy said it added two more 737-300 simulators, bringing the total to 16. A Level A simulator was acquired from Continental and a Level C simulator from Aerolineas Argentinas. The company said the two simulators will complement its 737-300 EFIS simulator.
FAA said yesterday it is revoking or suspending the certificates of 29 pilots, including six aviation safety inspectors and 12 designated pilot examiners, for falsifying type ratings for one another. The activity took place in five of FAA's nine regions, and it was uncovered in what Anthony Broderick, associate administrator for regulation and certification, called "one of the most comprehensive internal probes" the agency has conducted.
Continental is offering a series of trade shows to assist travel agents in selling business and leisure travel to destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Continental operates more than 275 weekly departures to Latin America and the Caribbean. The trade shows include more than 35 exhibitors from Latin America and Caribbean resorts, hotels, tourism organizations and wholesalers.
DOT officials pressed its reorganization plan while pointing out potential traps in the Republican budget resolutions during a Federal Bar Association forum this week featuring current and former DOT officials. The plan, which shrinks DOT from 10 to three operating agencies and removes air traffic control from a smaller FAA, will make it easier to link transportation modes into a seamless network, better serve DOT's state and local customers, eliminate duplication and save $2.5 billion a year, said DOT Deputy Secretary Mortimer Downey.
DOT officials believe adoption of the spending levels in the Senate Budget Committee's budget plan could mean a 20% cut in FAA's operations funding and virtual elimination of grant programs. Although the greatest cuts - $3.7 billion a year in savings from the unlikely privatization of air traffic control - do not kick in until fiscal 1997, programs would have to be pared back in fiscal 1996 to keep out-year obligations in line.
Air Canada's systemwide passenger traffic growth, which lagged considerably behind capacity growth through the first quarter, caught up in April, increasing 16.6% over last year and nearly equaling the airline's 16.7% rose in capacity. As a result, the load factor, which was down 5.5 percentage points through the first three months of the year compared with the first quarter last year, remained unchanged at 59.8%. Air Canada's domestic traffic rose 12.5% on 19.1% more capacity, and its international passenger traffic jumped 19.3% on 15.1% more capacity.
FAA's new philosophy of relying on integrated product teams (IPTs) to focus its resources on product development and delivery has "rather significant gaps," the General Accounting Office told the House Science technology subcommittee this week. FAA has established 14 IPTs for elements of air traffic control (DAILY, May 12).
