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.
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."
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.
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.
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."
Teamster President Ron Carey is urging President Clinton to intercede in the U.S.-U.K. aviation talks to "stop any proposal to waive the Fly America Act" for British carriers. "It is our understanding that the negotiators are now close to granting such a waiver at the expense of U.S. carriers and their employees," Carey said in a letter to Clinton dated May 11. "We find it entirely unacceptable to grant British carriers special privilege to transport U.S.
An official of Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Taiwan is prepared to end its ban on direct air links with mainland China as soon as China formally renounces the use of force to reunite the two sides and agrees to halt efforts to isolate Taiwan politically. Industry sources in Taipei say that direct air links between Taiwan and mainland China would save Taiwanese travelers more than US$400 million per year in air fares.
Airlines of Britain Holdings (ABH), the parent company of British Midland, has leased two 62-seat British Aerospace ATPs to Czech carrier Air Ostrava. According to ABH, the airplanes will enable Air Ostrava to operate from Prague, with key routes planned in the first year of the airplanes' operation to Amsterdam, Braunschweig, Copenhagen, Zurich and Verona. Air Ostrava operates a fleet of Jetstream 31s and Czech built Let-410s.
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.
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.
Amtran President and Chief Operating Officer John Tague has tendered his resignation and will leave June 23 to form a new company, Amtran's chairman and founder, George Mikelsons, said yesterday. Tague's responsibilities at Indianapolis-based Amtran - the parent of American Trans Air - will be absorbed by other members of Amtran's executive committee, which has been responsible for the overall management of the company since 1990. A new president will not be named.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chairman John Duncan (R-Tenn.) said yesterday his House Transportation aviation subcommittee will hold a hearing June 8 on a just-released General Accounting Office report questioning FAA's ability to meet its schedule for implementing the Global Positioning System. An FAA spokesman said yesterday, however, that the agency "continues to maintain that the system will be deployed in 1997.
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."
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.
United said yesterday political pressure from Congress on behalf of incumbents resisting any change in the U.S.-U.K. bilateral (DAILY, May 16) is costing it $7 million to $10 million a month in lost revenue. Most of that is also a loss for the U.S., he added, as British Airways already has authority to fly a daily double to Philadelphia until at least August.
Air France Chairman Christian Blanc has been appointed to succeed Michel Bernard as chairman of French domestic carrier Air Inter on what was described as a temporary basis until a new government is named, possibly as early as today, by French President-elect Jacques Chirac (DAILY, May 15). Blanc, whose Groupe Air France owns 75% of Air Inter, may be replaced after the Chirac government appoints a new transportation minister and formulates its own airline policy.
United's flight attendants will picket the carrier's annual shareholders meeting tomorrow in Los Angeles to protest the airline's plans to open a flight attendant domicile in Hong Kong July 1. The flight attendants also have scheduled a rally tomorrow at San Francisco Airport to protest the domicile. "United is taking the highest-paying jobs away from U.S. flight attendants," said Kevin Lum, president of the Association of Flight Attendants Master Executive Council at United.
FAA is preparing to punish two New York air traffic controllers who spoke to the press about the loss of an engine on a United 767 flight during an ETOPS flight. National Air Traffic Controllers Association was negotiating with FAA on the controllers' behalf, but the controllers and the union declined to comment on either the punishment or the negotiations.
Reno Air's April passenger traffic rose 13.7% from the same month a year ago to 151.8 million revenue passenger miles but failed to keep pace with capacity, which increased 19.8%. The result was a load factor decline of 3.4 percentage points to 61.8%. The number of passengers boarded increased 5.2% to 298,741.
