One of 34 couples planning to get married atop the Empire State Building today will receive a grand prize from Continental - roundtrip tickets for a honeymoon at San Juan, Puerto Rico.Host International, also involved in the Valentine's Day promotion, will provide a champagne toast after each ceremony.
FedEx said average daily volume of express freight, packages and documents increased 21.5% in January and 18% for the first eight months of its fiscal year. Average daily volume for the month was 2.3 million packages, up from 1.9 million, and for the year to date, it was 2.2 million, up from 1.9 million. International air freight rose to 42.5 million pounds from 32.4 million for the month and to 368.9 million from 309.3 million for the year to date.
TAESA is seeking renewal of its authority to operate between Morelia, Mexico, on the one hand, and the co-terminal points Chicago and Los Angeles, San Jose, Ontario and Oakland, Calif., on the other.
Continental, restoring some of the frills to its less-than-successful Continental Lite program, confirmed yesterday that it will put 10 first- class seats back into Lite aircraft. Slightly less than one-third of its 300 jets were converted to all-coach service, and these will be reconverted. The carrier said it is trying to be more responsive to its frequent flyers, who complained that they could not upgrade.
Continental plans to introduce three daily roundtrip flights to Raleigh/Durham May 1 from its Newark hub. Fares for a 21-day advance purchase ticket will be as low as $95 each way. Continental connects at Newark to London, Paris, Madrid and Frankfurt. The carrier said passengers in the area no longer will need to drive to Greensboro to catch a Continental flight.
Gov. Pete Wilson of California told Congress that federally mandated proposed air quality rules affecting his state should be eliminated on what House Speaker Newt Gingrich is calling "Corrections Day" - when "Congress would stop the federal government from being truly stupid." The proposed Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) would affect aviation in the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Ventura counties.
Air New Zealand has signed marketing agreements with Northwest and Polynesian Airlines. ANZ will participate in Northwest's WorldPerks frequent flyer program, and the carriers will share airport facilities and offer joint fares and sales support, the carriers said yesterday. Northwest does not serve the South Pacific, and the agreement, as currently structured, does not include code sharing.
United will launch the world's first Boeing 777 service June 7 on a flight from London Heathrow to Washington Dulles. Three 777s will be put into service that day, the other two from Chicago and Denver to Frankfurt. Launch customer United ordered 34 777s in October 1990, with 34 options. It will take delivery of 11 this year and five in 1996.
Air Transportation Holding Co. posted December quarter earnings of $384,000 on operating revenue of $8.1 million. In the December quarter the previous year, the parent company of Mountain Air Cargo and CSA Air Inc., had earnings of $371,000 on operating revenue of just under $7.3 million. Through the first nine months of its fiscal year, Air Transportation Holding Co. had net earnings of $1.25 million on revenue of $24.3 million, compared with a year ago, when it had nine -month earnings of $1.93 million on revenue of $22.9 million.
Air France expects to receive a firm Belgian offer soon for its stake in Sabena, but it discounted speculation yesterday that an agreement will be reached within the next couple of weeks. Responding to Belgian press reports that Sabena Chairman Pierre Godfroid said the repurchase of Air France's directly and indirectly owned 37.5% stake is as good as arranged, Air France said it expects a firm proposal soon but will take a few weeks to study such a proposal before making a decision.
FAA capacity expert Dorothy Etheridge will be the luncheon speaker Feb. 16 at the Women In Aviation monthly luncheon at the National Aviation Club in Arlington, Va. For more information, call 703-960-0014.
Delta Chairman Ron Allen will be the keynote speaker May 29 at the Travel Industry Association of America's 27th annual Discover America International Pow Wow May 27-31 in New York.
Lack of leadership at DOT as the agency develops intermodal agencies was blamed last week for indecision that has led to a lengthy delay in publishing the 1994 Federal Radionavigation Plan. The issue holding up the FRP is Coast Guard reluctance to continue its support of the Loran-C program through its 2015 phaseout date, and FAA's willingness to go along with the Coast Guard and bolster its own plan to make the Global Positioning System the sole source of navigation for aviators.
Unisys Corp. reported a fourth quarter net loss of $52.3 million and blamed it on a previously announced $186.2 million pre-tax charge for the cost of eliminating more than 4,000 jobs. The cutbacks are expected to create annual savings of more than $200 million. For 1994, Unisys earned $100.5 million on revenue of $7.4 billion.
Boeing ran its first 777 emergency evacuation drill Saturday, removing 420 "passengers" in 93 seconds through four of the aircraft's eight exits. Having missed FAA's 90-second requirement by three seconds, Boeing hopes to avoid a second demonstration by asking the agency for a waiver.
Delta Connection carrier Atlantic Southeast's January traffic fell 6.8% from a year ago on 0.3% more capacity, resulting in a load factor decline of three percentage points to 39.3%. The number of passengers boarded fell 8.3% from January 1994. "The airworthiness directive issued by the FAA on Dec. 9, 1994, prohibiting the operation of ATR-42/ATR-72 aircraft in known or forecast icing conditions severely impacted our operations during the month," said John Beiser, president.
Chinese authorities have closed air route A559 to westbound traffic, from Hong Kong to Europe, because of congestion over Guangzhou, according to Cathay Pacific. As a result, Cathay's Europe-bound flight must take a more southerly routing, R339, adding about 14 minutes to the flight time and reducing payloads by about four metric tons.
Preparing for today's unveiling of this year's Clinton administration air traffic control corporation plan and tomorrow's start of House aviation subcommittee hearings, DOT Secretary Federico Pena and subcommittee Chairman John Duncan (R-Tenn.) toured the ATC facility at Washington National Airport last week. Pena was to meet today with Dieter Kaden, head of Germany's ATC corporation, who is scheduled to testify after Pena.
Alitalia appointed Mario Russo general manager-North America. Northwest named Joseph Vreeman VP-engineering, inspection and quality assurance and Andrea Fischer regional VP-government, law and civic affairs/Michigan. Singapore Airlines named Joey Seow market planning manager-North America, succeeding W.K. Lim, who is now regional cargo manager-Europe.
Representatives of airlines will visit United's training facility at Denver Feb. 16 to observe its pilot training for "unusual attitude" emergencies. United's program is well established, and government and industry interest in it is heightened because of accidents last year in which a USAir 737 and an American Eagle ATR 72 left their flight envelopes and crashed. Bill Cotton of United said that after simulator training in which pilots are put in an unusual attitude, "if it ever happens in an aircraft, you feel like you have been there before."
China Airlines and UND Aerospace at the University of North Dakota have inaugurated the Jet Spectrum Airline Pilot Training Program. During ceremonies for the launch of the program, China Airlines (CAL) also accepted delivery of two Beechjet 400As from Raytheon Aircraft. The new equipment will be used in the Spectrum program. The Jet Spectrum initial program provides the pilots with a complete type rating program in the Beechjet 400A, including 60 hours of ground school, 30 hours of simulator training and 46 hours of flying the Beechjet.
Tower Air's scheduled passenger traffic increased 36.3% in January from the same month a year ago on 50.4% more capacity, causing its load factor to drop 7.1 percentage points to 68.7%. The number of revenue passengers increased 37.9%, and the total block hours flown, including scheduled and charter activity, rose 50.7% to 3,147 from 2,086 the previous year.
American and Northwest, almost simultaneously, announced Friday they will match Delta's cap on travel agent commissions for domestic tickets to reduce operating costs. The cap must be implemented industrywide if it is going to stick, analysts predict, or the carriers will lose bookings and quickly return to the 10% rate. Although Delta made the change effective immediately, American and Northwest will take until Feb. 27 to make the changes in computer reservations systems.
AirTran Airways will offer a $39 one-way introductory fare between Cincinnati and Orlando Feb. 20-28 with no advance-purchase or maximum-stay requirement. The Orlando-based carrier inaugurates service to Cincinnati Feb. 20 with four weekly 737 flights.
