Australia's Civil Aviation Authority today will be replaced by two new boards - the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the Airservices Australia. CASA, a government agency, will be responsible for aviation safety and compliance, aircraft registration, licensing, safety promotion and regulatory oversight of Airservices. Airservices, a government corporation, will be responsible for air traffic services, air navigation facilities, aeronautical information, firefighting, search and rescue, and environmental functions, such as aircraft noise monitoring.
Austrian carrier EuroSky Airlines has launched daily scheduled service from Vienna to Wroclaw, Poland, and Kosice, Slovakia. The airline said the new destinations represent a major step toward its goal of providing service to Central European destinations that complements Austrian Airlines flights. EuroSky also recently launched twice-daily service between Vienna and Trieste, Italy. EuroSky operates Fairchild Metroliners.
American flew 377.3 million revenue passenger miles on Friday, June 30, surpassing its previous one-day record of 372 million RPMs set on Aug. 1, 1992, the airline said. Its load factor for the day was 83%. "The record traffic is an indication that the peak summer travel season is off to an exceptionally good start," said Michael Gunn, senior VP-marketing. Northwest said it achieved a load factor of 85% on Saturday, July 1, and that its load factor for the week ended Saturday was 80.1%. Delta set a passenger boarding record on Friday at its Cincinnati hub.
The Jetstream 61, a derivative of the ATP certificated in 1988 featuring uprated engines and increased payload/range, has received its U.K. type certificate.
Three BAe 146-200s USAir is leasing to Frontier are from the batch of 146s USAir acquired when it bought PSA. The airplanes have been sitting in the desert for four years.
Japan Airlines recorded 458 bird strike incidents in fiscal 1995, but none of them "resulted in any significant consequences" to a JAL flight. The birds, and sometimes bats, did not fare as well.
USAir will complete its previously announced 5% schedule reduction this fall by cutting 72 more daily jet flights, the airline confirmed Friday. The Wall Street Journal quoted Robert Fornaro, senior VP-planning, as saying these reductions represent the last major revisions the carrier expects this year. USAir will cut flights from Lansing, Mich.; Portland, Ore., Pittsburgh and Kansas City.
The House Appropriations Committee last week approved the fiscal 1996 DOT appropriations bill, providing $8.343 billion for FAA. The panel approved no changes in the aviation portion of the bill approved last month by the transportation subcommittee. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) had been expected to offer an amendment to reallocate $100 million in transit operating assistance to AIP, bringing the House AIP recommendation to $1.7 billion. DeLay did not offer the amendment, but he suggested he might offer a measure on the House floor dealing with transit funding.
- In Federal Register dated June 23...Issued an airworthiness directive on certain Airbus A320 aircraft requiring inspections of the gap of seat track joints at Frame 64...Issued an AD on certain McDonnell Douglas DC-9/MD-80 series aircraft requiring inspection for chafing on the Firex pipe assembly of the No.
The U.S. and India are scheduled to conduct aviation negotiations this month. India wants to operate to Chicago via London with rights between London and Chicago. The U.S. will press India to accept United's proposed round-the-world service that would touch down in that country - authority the U.S. maintains is included in the U.S.-India bilateral. The U.S. will hold informal talks with Mexico July 20 on charter application procedures and cargo issues.
Express One requested a DOT waiver from regulations to enable it to conduct revenue flights as part of any proving runs FAA may require as part of the carrier's continuing effort to resume service.
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Systemwide Aircraft Utilization Per Day Fourth Quarter 1994 DC-10-10 American Continental United Number of Aircraft Operated 20 3 31 Total Fleet Operations Departures 40 5 81 Block Hours 178 28 270
Magdalena Jacobsen, a member of the National Mediation Board since December 1993, has been designated chairwoman of the three-member board, effective July 1. She succeeds Ernest DuBester, chairman since November 1993, who will remain a board member. The third member is Kenneth Hipp. When she came to the NMB, Jacobsen was a commissioner of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which mediates labor negotiations in all industries except airlines and railroads, the NMB's jurisdiction.
The steady decline in the U.S. aerospace trade surplus is accelerating, the latest Commerce Department data compiled by the Aerospace Industries Association show. First quarter 1995 figures, reported last week, reveal that the surplus fell by $515 million in the three months since 1994 ended, a 9% decline that left the industry's total trade surplus at $5 billion. The surplus fell last year for the second year in a row, the first time the surplus fell in consecutive years since 1965.
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.
