KLM Cargo appointed Sjaak Hofstra operations and marketing director- Cargo Service Holdings and Monique Gerrits regional sales director-Benelux, U.K. and Ireland.
Granted orally an exemption to Heavylift-VolgaDnepr to operate two one-way emergency cabotage cargo charter flights between Wilmington, Ohio, and Seattle, using Russian-registered Antonov 124 aircraft Nov. 15-30.
Holiday Inn's Internet site now features a board game called Travel Buff, designed to test users' knowledge of world travel, with heavy emphasis on information about Holiday Inns and their locations. Travel Buff has 1,600 questions that are updated every four months. The game can be found at http://www.holiday-inn.com.
Travel and Tourism Research Association is calling for papers and posters in support of its annual conference, to be held June 16-19 in Las Vegas. The event's theme will be "It's Showtime for Tourism: New Products, Markets and Technologies." For more information, call TTRA at 303-940- 6557.
Kiwi International Air Lines, as of Sept. 30, had reduced its net loss by $16 million over the like 1994 period to a net loss of $864,486. In a 10-Q filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the carrier said although it is current in payments to Pegasus Aircraft Partners and two airport authorities, it owes $1.9 million in taxes to the IRS, $165,000 in interest and $535,000 in penalties.
BE Aerospace said its Seating Products Division has been awarded $33 million in new business from Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and United. JAL signed a letter of intent to buy business-class seats for 44 of its 747 and MD-11 aircraft, with deliveries beginning in May. Singapore Airlines ordered business- and tourist-class seats for 17 Airbus A340 aircraft, with deliveries to begin this month. United signed a letter of intent for first-class seats on 20 747s.
European Commission approval of the Lufthansa-SAS marketing alliance hinges on safeguards against anticompetitiveness, and no less a figure than Karel Van Miert, commissioner with responsibility for competition, predicts a green light. The key, as in Swissair-Sabena earlier, will be opening up access to the applicants' home markets and making sure their alliances with other carriers, combined with the new one, will not squash competition.
Granted orally an exemption to TAP Air Portugal renewing its authority to carry individual waybilled cargo on passenger charter flights between Boston and Ponta Delgada, Azores.
One financial analyst believes the Machinists strike against Boeing will be good for airlines. Since aircraft on order will not be delivered on schedule, "capacity will be tight and earnings high," says Gruntal's Steve Lewins. The strike will not hurt Boeing much, either, since it was producing below capacity anyway, Lewins says. The strike will pull the Boeing production trough expected next year into 1995, he says. (See story on Page 306 of the hard copy of this issue.)
American and Canadian Airlines International will offer mutual club privileges beginning Jan. 1 at Toronto and Vancouver. Members of Canadian's Empress Lounge will have access to American's Admirals Club in Toronto, while American's members will be able to access Canadian's lounge in Vancouver. The airlines will operate the clubs jointly under their marketing relationship.
Strong growth in airline industry yield and revenues in October - up 8.1% and 7.3%, respectively - "should allay any malingering investor concern over...[fourth quarter] profit levels generated by recent spate of promotional activity," according to PaineWebber Airline Research. The firm expects "very solid industry revenue performance" through the first quarter of 1996, with the best relative yield performance remaining on the East Coast. Fourth quarter revenues are projected to be up more than 20% for both Continental and USAir.
In a move aimed at encouraging airlines to turn in unused designator codes, IATA will hit carriers with an annual fee of $2,000 for the privilege of retaining their designators, effective Jan. 1. The charge is in addition to the current annual administration levy of $585. If the fee fails to recover enough of the two-character airline designators, it could jump to $10,000 per year. Under the two-character system, there are 1,100
Issued an airworthiness directive on certain Aerostar PA-60-600 aircraft requiring inspecting the fuselage horizontal stabilizer attach fittings...Issued an AD on certain Avro 146 aircraft requiring inspections for cracking of the fastener holes in the butt strap at Rib 2.
More than half of 200 U.S. corporations responding to a survey conducted by Air Travel Card have a staff member dedicated to handling meeting management. Most of them are in the company's travel department, Air Travel Card said, and many companies said they expect to add the meeting planning function to the travel department within the next two years. Forty-two percent of the respondents said inclusion of the position in the travel department enables them to negotiate greater savings for travel and meetings.
Granted orally an exemption to VASP to serve Toronto with local traffic rights as a beyond point on the carrier's existing authority to conduct scheduled combination service between a point or points in Brazil and Miami.
Alaska Airlines has applied for authority to operate combination service between San Francisco and two points in Mexico, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta, and between Los Angeles and Los Cabos, Mexico. The carrier plans to operate five weekly roundtrips between San Francisco and Mazatlan using MD-80 aircraft, daily San Francisco-Puerto Vallarta roundtrips using Boeing 737s, and three roundtrips weekly and two additional weekend flights between Los Angeles and Los Cabos, using MD-80 and Boeing 737 aircraft. (Docket OST-95-851)
Italy's National Statistics Office says passenger air travel to the country was up 5.5% in September over September 1994, according to a Reuter report from Rome. Air travel in the third quarter was up 7.8% at 18 million passengers. In September, 5.86 million passengers arrived or departed from Italian airports.
TWA's tour package subsidiary, TWA Getaway Vacations Inc., is upgrading its products and has named an America West executive to take charge. Getaway is developing a state-of-the-art automation system that TWA said will speed availability of tour packages to current customers and, it hopes, to bring in new ones. As part of the upgrade, Getaway has named Sylvanus Hutchinson president. He was senior director-sales planning and program development at America West, where he oversaw promotions and programs to improve profitability.
DOT granted Northwest authority to operate scheduled combination service between the U.S., on the one hand, and Dresden and Leipzig, Germany, via Amsterdam. Northwest will operate the service under its code-share agreement with KLM, beginning on or about Dec. 15. Eurowings Luftverkehrs AG, a strategic partner of KLM, operates Amsterdam-Germany segments of Northwest's and KLM's U.S.-Amsterdam-Germany flights, using ATR-42 and ATR- 72 aircraft.
