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.
CCAIR, a USAir Express carrier, logged 11.5 million revenue passenger miles last month, a 10.3% decrease from the same 1994 period. Capacity rose 6.8% to 25.1 million available seat miles, the load factor dropped 8.8 percentage points to 46% and enplanements declined 8.6% to 68,825.
Tri Star Airlines is seeking additional time to start up service to Grand Canyon National Park. Slated to begin flights May 10, the Las Vegas-based new entrant attributed the postponement to delays in the acquisition of aircraft. Tri Star said it requires a specific type of aircraft for its planned Grand Canyon operations.
Keys Air, which operates to all of the Florida Keys, will add a second Cessna Caravan Amphibian land and seaplane to its fleet this week and expand its network by four points. The company will serve Key West, Fort Myers, Tampa, Key Largo, Marathon, Marco Island, Naples and Boca Raton, the last four of which are new. Key Largo, which has no airport, is served by landing in Key Largo Bay. The carrier said it plans further expansion in the near future.
National Transportation Safety Board yesterday put more aviation issues on its "most wanted" list of safety improvements, including stricter rules for regional airlines. FAA replied with its own list of actions that Administrator David Hinson said responds to all board recommendations. NTSB dropped two aviation safety issues for this year - brake wear limits and performance for transport aircraft, and structural fatigue testing.
The Commerce Department and Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown "have been active advocates of U.S. business overseas, particularly aerospace," Aerospace Industries Association President Don Fuqua said this week. Commenting on efforts in Congress to eliminate the department, Fuqua noted that aerospace exports totaled $37.3 billion in 1994 and said AIA "would certainly approach any change in the status [of Commerce] with great caution." He said AIA would want "clear assurance that the close relationship between our government and industry in promoting U.S.
The lineup for next Wednesday's Senate aviation subcommittee hearings on the U.S.-U.K. bilateral is not set yet, a committee staffer said, but it will include officials from DOT, the State Department, GAO, airlines and interested cities. American, Delta and Continental probably will be represented, said an industry official. United said it has not been invited to testify.
The value of worldwide demand for commercial aerospace equipment will grow at an average annual rate of 8.4% through 1998, when it will reach $148 billion, according to a study from the Cleveland-based Freedonia Group. Analyst Edward Hester cited three factors: increasing air traffic as the economies of industrialized nations recover; continuing strength in Asia/Pacific markets, and replacing older aircraft to comply with noise regulations.
Two committees of TWA bondholders are urging the bondholders they unofficially represent to vote for a pre-packaged Chapter 11 filing by the airline as a "cleaner" way to accomplish the carrier's proposed financial restructuring. The committees representing holders of TWA's 8% and 10% notes both support the restructuring plan. But according to one source, a pre-packaged bankruptcy would make it easier for noteholders to switch the collateral that secures their current notes to the new notes they will receive in a restructuring.
Denver-based startup Frontier Airlines' April passenger traffic declined to 23.3 million revenue passenger miles from 24.7 million RPMs in March, and its load factor slipped to 43.8% from 44.3%. The number of passengers boarded also fell, to 42,061 from 44,455. Year-over-year comparisons are not available because Frontier has been flying only since July. The airline currently operates from Denver to 10 cities in six surrounding states, using a fleet of five 108-seat Boeing 737s.
Senior airline operations and safety representatives, with FAA officials, are scheduled to meet May 25-26 for a briefing on a new safety program developed by American. Al Prest, senior-VP operations for the Air Transport Association, said yesterday proponents hope the program can be developed into an advisory circular that all carriers could use. But American's airline safety action partnership (ASAP), which combines and extends elements of some previous programs, will not replace the FAA-backed flight operations quality assurance program (FOQA), Prest said.
U.S. airlines will carry about 9.3 million during the May 24-30 Memorial Day holiday period, according to Air Transport Association figures issued yesterday. The busiest day likely will be Thursday, May 25, when 1.52 million passengers are expected to travel, and almost 80% of all airline seats will be filled. This summer, ATA expects its member airlines to carry a record 160 million passengers, with 48.1 million boardings in June, 50.9 million in July and 51.3 million in August.
Lufthansa Group reduced its pre-tax loss to 53 million Deutschmarks in the first quarter 1995 from DM87 million in the same 1994 quarter. The company said its earnings, boosted by "heft" increases in business volume and currency-related expenditure benefits, came in "well above target." Lufthansa AG, the airline, reported that its first quarter pre-tax loss shrank to DM38 million from DM87 million. Lufthansa Group's passenger volume gained 9.5%, and freight and mail volume jumped 22.5%.
United has taken delivery of the first of 34 Boeing 777 widebody twinjets it intends to use mainly on transatlantic service. The carrier, which has options for 34 more 777s, will begin operating the aircraft June 7 between Washington Dulles and London Heathrow, and will use it initially between Denver and Chicago, Chicago and Washington, and Chicago and Frankfurt. It will take delivery of 10 more 777s this year.
TWA, which has abandoned its travel agent commission cap, and United, which has not, recently increased the fee they charge passengers for changing or canceling restricted-ticket reservations to $50 from $35, and both are passing a larger portion of the money collected to travel agents. Airlines had received $5 of the $35 cancellation/change fee, but TWA and United are passing along $15 of the higher fee. United, like other carriers, said it imposed the increase to cover the cost of making the change, and because last-minute changes cause "breakage."
