Canadian Airlines International began serving Chicago and Orlando, St. Petersburg/Clearwater, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers Friday. The carrier has operated charter service to Florida since 1974. By July 31, Canadian and code-sharing partner American will jointly offer 64 flights a day to 15 cities in North America. Canadian is offering daily service to Chicago O'Hare from Vancouver with 737s. The flights to Florida are from Toronto.
Alliant Techsystems named Donald Short VP and controller; Donald Willis VP-Emerging Business Group, a new position, and Peter Bukowick VP- Aerospace Systems Group. Amtran, holding company for American Trans Air, named Gerald Carusi senior VP-marketing and planning for the airline. Atlantic Aviation elected Frank Milian senior VP-Flight Services and of parent company Atlantic Aviation Corporation. Diamond Aircraft Industries named Christian Dries president and chief executive.
Advanced avionics developed for the Boeing 777 are likely to pay off handsomely for Honeywell. Its avionics content on the aircraft totals more than twice the revenue for Honeywell systems on the 757, and it was contracted to install some of the 777 avionics technology on the next- generation 737. Honeywell already is marketing the avionics to other customers, and the new flat-panel displays will go in the space shuttle cockpit.
New Jet Aircraft Deliveries March 1995 Last 12 Months Carrier # Type Engines Delivery Air Mauritius 1 A340-300 CFM56-5C3 2 Air Canada 1 Canadair RJ CF34-3A1 6 Air China 1 767-300 PW4056 1 Air Inter 1 A320-200 CFM56-5A1 1
Northwest has selected Minnesota firm Kraus-Anderson Construction Co. to build its Iron Range Reservation Center in Chisholm, Minn. Construction on the center will begin immediately, and it is expected to be operational by next spring. The center is designed to handle all telephone reservations and service activities for Northwest's WorldPerks frequent flyer program, and national and international ticket sales. The facility will employ more than 600 sales agents and other staff by 2001.
Legislation has passed in Texas that requires the state's travel purchasing unit, the General Services Commission, to approve as state vendors all travel agents that meet certain requirements, the American Society of Travel Agents reports. The bill (Texas Senate Bill 1295) also requires the GSC to give preference to Texas-owned businesses. ASTA's Southwest Chapter has worked on the legislation that it says could directly and indirectly affect $80 million in annual travel purchases.
American Eagle inaugurated its first transborder flights Thursday to Montreal Dorval Airport from New York Kennedy. American Eagle carrier Flagship Airlines, based in Nashville, is operating two daily roundtrips in the market with ATR-42 aircraft.
When the time comes for American to order aircraft again - after getting labor concessions - the proposed Airbus A340-8000 likely will be a prime candidate. When asked about plans for the airline's long-haul fleet, Chairman Robert Crandall said the carrier can retain some MD-11s or it can get longer-range planes "that will allow us to overfly Tokyo." He also said that if London Heathrow continues to be a "constrained market," American probably will want a version of the same airplane to serve the Atlantic.
United and Marriott Hotels, Resorts and Suites have agreed to a partnership that enables Marriott Miles members to earn 500 miles in United's Mileage Plus program for each Marriott stay. Members can earn an additional 2,500 miles for every fifth stay. No flights are required, and there is no limit on mileage earned. To launch the partnership, Marriott and United are offering a sweepstakes with a grand prize of a lifetime of free travel anywhere in the world on United and a lifetime of free stays at Marriott hotels.
Orange County Chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents will host a meeting for California travel agents June 8 that will feature tourism officials from Egypt, Israel and Jordan to promote travel to those countries. The meeting, which will include speakers, a trade show, dinner, entertainment and camels, is from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, 18800 MacArthur Blvd., Irvine, Calif.
Alaska Airlines says fares introduced by competitor Reno Air to celebrate its second anniversary are so low - $22 from Seattle to Portland and San Jose, and $44 to Reno - that it wonders if Reno "is going to be around for its third birthday." But the low tariffs were not too low for Alaska - it matched them.
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Continental and Alitalia have begun code sharing to Milan Malpensa Airport from Newark on Alitalia's 767 aircraft. Continental expects the flights to be as successful as its code-sharing service with Alitalia in the Newark- Rome market. Alitalia's Magnifica business class is available on the flights to Milan, and Continental's BusinessFirst product is offered on the flights to Rome. Until Aug. 31, Continental OnePass members will receive double miles when they fly to Milan in economy class and triple miles in business class.
DOT has found Merlin Express fit to conduct commuter operations. A subsidiary of Fairchild Aircraft, Merlin Express plans to operate commuter feeder service with Metro III and Metro 23 aircraft to support the hub-and- spoke operations of other larger airlines (DAILY, May 12). Its initial operations will be conducted under a wet-lease arrangement with Midway Airlines and will be designed to feed Midway's new Raleigh/Durham hub.
Granted orally an exemption to Bay Air Cargo to operate charter cargo service between a point or points in Brazil and a point or points in the U.S., and other charters...Granted orally an exemption to Servicios Aereos Litoral to engage in scheduled combination service between Hermosillo, Mexico, and Phoenix and between Tijuana, Mexico, and Los Angeles.
Attempts by Orange County executives to sell John Wayne Airport are "purely a mechanism to finance the sale or leveraged buyout of an existing airport," according to the Air Transport Association. In comments to Orange County's John Wayne Airport Revenue/Sale Task Force, ATA said the sale of the airport could be considered a diversion of airport revenue to non-aviation purposes or an offset of county debt to another agency (DAILY, April 19).
Mexicana is seeking authority to operate combination service between Morelia, Mexico, and Los Angeles. The carrier has asked for quick action on the application as it wants to begin operating twice-weekly roundtrip service on the route immediately, using Boeing 727-200 aircraft. Apologizing for the short notice of the application, Mexicana said it had been advised by the government of Mexico on May 31 of its authorization to serve the route and that the designation of TAESA for the route was canceled. (Docket 50378)
Airline industry still supports federal standards for child safety seats but is concerned that some FAA officials believe otherwise. The confusion arose after the Air Transport Association last month withdrew its petition for the standards at the request of FAA, which argued that the petition's existence limited the agency's ability to deal with the issue. "At this point, our priority is for FAA to develop standards for the seats," an industry official said.
DOT has issued its Air Travel Consumer Report for the first three months of the year. The on-time section of the report, issued last week, for the first time includes data on mechanical delays and cancellations and will continue to include the information until a proposed rule is approved (DAILY, June 2). The overall on-time performance for all reporting airlines for the three months was 77.3% That figure was well below the 82% for the last quarter of 1994 but better than last year's first quarter result of 75.7%.
The potential for U.S. actions against Japan was on hold Friday as U.S. and Japanese officials held talks aimed at breaking the aviation stalemate between the two countries. A Thursday meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale and Japan's Minister Shizuka Kamei was followed on Friday by "ministerial level talks," said a DOT official. The talks are a positive development, but if they fail, "we'll be right back where we started."
U.S.-U.K. talks were going well, said a DOT official, but still were going on as The DAILY went to press Friday evening. One remaining sticking issue was a British timeline for completion of a Phase 2 agreement, a DOT official said (DAILY, June 2). Also, regarding the first phase, or so- called "mini-deal," the two sides still were determining the U.S. gateways where British Airways would be allowed to bid for Fly America passengers and the size of aircraft United can use for the new Chicago-Heathrow service.
Continental is planning to inaugurate service to Nashville Sept. 7 from its principal hubs at Houston, Newark and Cleveland. It will operate three daily nonstop flights with 737s from Houston Intercontinental, two daily flights from Newark and two from Cleveland. One-way fares will be as low as $89 to Houston, $174 to Newark and $69 to Cleveland.
Qantas Chairman Gary Pemberton and Managing Director James Strong resigned from the Air New Zealand board of directors last week in what is seen as a prelude to Qantas selling its 19.4% stake in Air New Zealand and ANZ taking a 50% stake in Qantas's primary domestic competitor Ansett Airlines. Pemberton said that "growing areas of commercial competition between the two airlines" prevented him and Strong from participating in a broad range of board discussions.
USAir and El Salvadoran carrier TACA have quietly signed a letter of intent and are currently looking at ways to cooperate, USAir officials confirmed last week. Daniel Brock, the U.S. carrier's VP-marketing services, declined to go into detail other than to say the two carriers are looking at cooperative scheduling. "We're very impressed with TACA," Brock said. One source at last week's International Airline CEO Conference in Miami said the two airlines have discussed code sharing, but the statement could not be confirmed. USAir is the only U.S.
