Southwest will begin service in four new markets and add flights in a number of existing city-pairs over the next few months as part of a plan to start 25 new daily flights by mid-October. The new routes are Albuquerque- Houston Hobby, Albuquerque-Salt Lake City, Boise-Las Vegas and Austin-Las Vegas. Dave Ridley, Southwest's VP-marketing and sales, said the delivery of new 737s from Boeing will enable the airline to increase its service.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the Appropriations transportation subcommittee, has joined Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.), chairman of the aviation subcommittee, in calling for an independent FAA instead of a corporatized ATC structure. The Appropriations Committee report on DOT funding, approved Friday, urges the Clinton administration to "pursue aggressively" an "independent FAA rather than a government corporation."
Atlantic Aviation appointed Gary Fender head of sales for the Mid- Atlantic territory and assigned Brian Ward responsibility for sales in its Southeast Territory. Consolidators International promoted Peter Lamy to VP-operations. Execaire appointed Cameron Gowans regional sales manager-Aircraft Sales Division.
Cathay Pacific will make its first excursion into the eastern U.S. this month - without actually flying airplanes into the region. The carrier plans to feed its new Toronto freighter service with truck traffic from various eastern U.S. points. According to one Cathay executive, its "a punt" as to when the Hong Kong-based airline actually will fly into a U.S. airport east of Los Angeles.
Lufthansa and Frankfurt Airport have renewed for 10 years their aircraft- handling agreement under which the airport company supports Lufthansa, Condor, Lufthansa Cargo and Lufthansa CityLine. Aircraft-handling includes passenger transport between aircraft and terminal, on- and off-loading of cargo and baggage, baggage conveyance, refueling and aircraft cleaning.
Sic transit: General Dynamics' Convair Division, whose production of MD-11 fuselage sections will be taken over by prime contractor Douglas Aircraft later this year, will auction off its aircraft manufacturing facility in San Diego, including all machinery and equipment.
DOT last week upheld most of the landing fee at Los Angeles Airport but found unreasonable the city of Los Angeles' use of estimated fair market value in assessing fees for the land underlying the airport's airfield and apron. The final decision, which basically affirms the recommended decision of DOT Administrative Law Judge John Mathias, also rejected the allocation of certain fire-rescue costs to the airfield, but the amount of money involved is small.
Federal Express applied for renewal of its authority to operate all-cargo service between points in the U.S. and Montevideo, Uruguay, in combination with its existing all-cargo services to other points in South America. The carrier currently provides the service through a combination of direct DC- 10-30 and 727-200 line-haul operations through Memphis and Miami and Santiago, Chile, connecting to wet-lease contract operation between Santiago and Montevideo.
KLM will expand its intercontinental fleet with the addition of two Boeing 747-400 Combis and three 767-300ERs, signing contracts for these aircraft "in the very near future," the Dutch carrier said Friday. The 767s will come from International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC) under terms of a June 1994 contract that covered the operational lease of seven of the long-range twinjets. The contract included the possibility of increasing the number of aircraft to 14, and renewing the leases for a further five years.
E-Systems has completed tests at the FAA Technical Center using a Westwind II to demonstrate the accuracy of using a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) for guidance. Ray Swider, the FAA official in charge of the local area augmentation system project, said the data from the E-Systems testing, which involved what is called "carrier phase tracking," has been sent to Mitre and to NASA's Ames Research Center. The research is aimed at meeting International Civil Aviation Organization Category 3 standards.
With its nine-country open skies initiative almost completed, the U.S. is scheduled to resume open skiesnegotiations with Germany July 11-13 in Berlin. Although talks have not been productive to date, the U.S. hopes the coming session will be a "money round," says Paul Gretch, director of DOT's Office of International Aviation. But money or no, it will not be the last round, Gretch adds.
In what organizers describe as one of the largest surveys of the financial community ever conducted, Boeing received the highest combined rating among nine U.S. aerospace corporations that were scored. The survey of 1,189 analysts, conducted by CDB Research&Consulting, cited brand equity as the most highly rated criterion for Boeing.
Air Freight Association elected Doug Kuelpman, UPS Airlines, chairman of the board. Flight Safety Foundation named Edward Beauvais, Western Pacific Airlines, to the board of governors.
Boeing, saying that orders for the new series 737s are primarily for 1997 and beyond, is lowering its production rate for the current 737 series and the 757 for 1996. Despite the reduction, the company is anticipating an upturn in demand and has announced orders for the first half of 1995 for 147 aircraft, compared with 120 for all of last year. Ron Woodard, president of Boeing Commercial, said the production rate of the 737 will fall from seven a month to five, beginning next April, and the rate for 757s will go from four to three a month next June.
TWA returned to Chapter 11 protection from creditors Friday with the filing of a prepackaged plan of reorganization at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in St. Louis. In voting that ended early last week, the airline's creditors approved the company's second trip through bankruptcy as the most efficient way to consummate a complex debt-for-equity swap, around which the carrier's financial restructuring revolves (DAILY, June 29).
Granted orally an exemption to Primeras Lineas Uruguayas de Navegacion Aerea (PLUNA) to conduct scheduled combination service between Montevideo, Uruguay, and Miami, via Sao Paulo, Brazil, and non-scheduled all-cargo service between Montevideo and Miami, as well as charter service...Granted orally an exemption to Aerolineas Uruguayas renewing its authority to operate all-cargo service between Montevideo and Miami, and charter service...Granted orally an exemption to Aero Uruguay renewing its authority to operate non-scheduled, all-cargo service between Montevideo and Miami
Voters in the Canton of Zurich overwhelmingly approved plans to develop Zurich Airport further. In a recent referendum, 68% of the more than 330,000 voters who cast ballots supported the proposal, which Swissair said "will tailor facilities at Swissair's home-base airport to the needs of the next century." Planned improvements are intended to unclog bottlenecks that have developed during the last few years.
DOT Deputy General Counsel Rosalind Knapp became acting general counsel Friday as Stephen Kaplan officially stepped down from the position. Knapp will fill the job until a permanent successor is nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate.
Varig has launched New York Kennedy-Rio de Janeiro nonstop service with four weekly flights. Paulo Leite, Varig's regional manager for the Eastern Area USA, said the Brazilian carrier is the only airline offering nonstop service in the market. "This is part of an overall strategy to put flights where the market demands it, while at the same time increasing the overall utilization of equipment," Leite said.
S.G. Warburg analyst Brian Harris has revised upward his 1995 earnings estimates and his 12-month stock price targets for four airline companies - USAir, AMR, UAL and Northwest - because of the "rapidly" improving industry revenue environment. Not included in the group are Continental and Delta, the two airlines Harris believes continue to represent the best current values in the industry.
Nashville Air has named David Banmiller president and chief executive. Founding President Charles Caudle will become chairman and chief executive. Banmiller has served with TWA, AirCal and American.
Alitalia plans to sell its 56.2% ownership of Aeroporti di Roma, the company that operates Rome Airport, for 800 billion lira, the airline confirmed Friday. Cofiri - like Alitalia, controlled by state-run holding company Iri - will acquire the stake. Struggling Alitalia also is looking to sell its headquarters building outside Rome and likely will move its headquarters to property it controls near the airport.
