Northwest and AmeriCares, a private disaster relief agency, this weekend will send a Northwest 747 freighter loaded with relief supplies for Japanese earthquake victims to the country's Kansai region. Northwest Chief Executive John Dasburg said pilots, flight and ground crews were donating their time for the effort and fuel suppliers were donating the fuel. He said the relief flight will be the first of many Northwest will make in the weeks ahead. The initial shipment will include medicine, medical equipment and cleanup supplies.
Costa Rican carrier Lacsa has asked DOT for authority to conduct combination service between San Jose, Costa Rica, and San Francisco via San Salvador and Guatemala City. If its request is approved, Lacsa intends to begin immediately daily Airbus A320 service on the route. The carrier notes that the new service "is merely a minor expansion" of its existing authority. It currently offers service between San Jose and Los Angeles via San Salvador and Guatemala City and is authorized to co-terminalize operations at Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Docket 50004)
The transfer of Delta's Detroit-London route to Northwest will "have an overall positive impact on airline employment," according to the two carriers. If the deal goes through, Delta expects to eliminate one permanent full-time and two temporary part-time airport customer service jobs. On the other hand, Northwest expects to hire about 60 flight attendants and 28 ground operations staff for the Detroit-London operation, beginning April. Earlier this month, Northwest agreed to purchase the route authority from Delta for $1.6 million (DAILY, Jan. 6).
Air New Zealand has signed an agreement to use Galileo International's GlobalFares product as its own in-house fares system. Air New Zealand's ticketing offices and retail travel agencies worldwide will have access to the system. GlobalFares is used by all of the 2,054 Galileo travel agency locations in New Zealand and Australia. The airline and Galileo have set March 1 as the target date for cutover to GlobalFares from the SITA Fareshare system.
Comair, which recently filed to provide Boeing 737-300 service between Cincinnati and both Toronto and Montreal under the Dec. 22 agreement between the U.S. and Canada, asked DOT Tuesday to dismiss the applications without prejudice. Senior VP-Marketing Chuck Curran said the application was made to protect the carrier's existing position in those markets - eight daily Canadair Regional Jet frequencies to Toronto and four to Montreal - in the face of an unknown competitive situation. He said the carrier was prepared to operate the 737 service, but saw no need.
Delta and its Air Line Pilots Association negotiators will meet next week to discuss a limited savings package offered by the company as what it hopes will be a catalyst in contract talks.Delta, searching for $340 million in annual cost reductions, said ALPA's contract opener would increase costs $250 million a year.
Amerijet International is seeking authority to operate scheduled all- cargo service between Toledo, Ohio, and Guadalajara, Mexico. The carrier is asking for permission to operate the service independently and in combination with its Toledo-Mexico City authority, awarded Jan. 3. It said it hopes to begin 727-200 service to Guadalajara Feb. 15, 1995, the same day it is slated to start the Mexico City operations. (Docket 50008)
America West plans to eliminate 318 jobs in the next few months by closing its reservations center in Colorado Springs Feb. 3 and outsourcing on-board food service support at Phoenix and Las Vegas, its two main hubs, on April 1. The changes are part of the strategic restructuring plan the airline unveiled last week.
System One will offer its travel agency subscribers ticketless travel on United, beginning in April. United, which offers ticketless travel on West Coast Shuttle by United flights, plans to begin the service across its domestic system this summer. "Our partnership with System One is another key step in opening up electronic ticketing to the entire travel agency community," said United VP and General Sales Manager Chris Bowers. System One said United is the first airline customers to ask it to make electronic ticketing available.
Freshman Congressman David McIntosh (R-Ind.) intends to offer an amendment to the so-called unfunded mandates reform bill (H.R.5) that would allow state and local governments to transfer to the private sector federally financed infrastructure, including airports, without repayment of federal grants, provided the facilities are used for their original purposes. The amendment will be similar to draft legislation prepared this month by attorneys for Lockheed Air Terminal (LAT), which leads one of four teams bidding on operation and management of Indianapolis Airport.
Air Transport Association said a new electronic data interchange (EDI) guide is available. The guide, called ASCX12 Implementation Guide for Corporate Procurement, is a computer-to-computer transmission of machine- processable business information, using standard formats, ATA said. Behind the effort was ATA's EDI Users Group, which wanted a more standardized process for corporate procurement with the air transport industry. For more information, call ATA at 800-497-3326, or 301-490-7951 outside the continental U.S.
McDonnell Douglas is making available its "Flashjet" coatings removal process to commercial and military aircraft manufacturers, operators and maintenance technicians. It said the process, which uses pulsed light energy and frozen carbon dioxide pellets to remove coatings, is cost- effective and environmentally sound, the company said.
Delta joined the chorus of industry representatives urging DOT to reorganize along modal rather than mission lines. "We believe that aviation functions and responsibilities must be preserved as a separate entity," said Rex McClelland, Delta's senior VP-corporate services. "A national air transportation system must be maintained to ensure the proper attention and resources will be devoted to aviation safety and the preservation of a strong national system," he added.
The government of Saudi Arabia, facing complications in talks with the U.S. Export-Import Bank, is exploring alternatives to financing up to $6 billion in commercial aircraft orders from Boeing and Douglas, according to Omar Bajamal, deputy general manager of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia. Speaking yesterday at an Air Finance conference in Dubai, Bajamal was quoted by Reuter as saying the complications arise from Saudi Arabia's refusal to offer a "sovereign guarantee" for the 85% of the purchase that Eximbank is willing to finance.
FAA said yesterday that it stands by statements it made last week about ATR roll forces but allowed that it had been "overly conservative." The agency was responding to an ATR Marketing statement that FAA extrapolation for the force required to keep ATR aircraft from rolling was "erroneous" (DAILY, Jan. 18&12).
American Aerospace Corp., Bay Shore, N.Y., said it has developed a hand- held device to measure strobe light intensity on the wing of aircraft. The device, called Flash Test Model ST-4000, is FAA approved, the company said. The device enables the operator to measure the intensity of all strobe lights without removing them from the aircraft, and it provides a digital readout in effective candellas for record-keeping purposes, the company said. It said aircraft can be tested during routine maintenance visits, indoors or outdoors, and needs no special equipment.
Hughes Canada's Systems Division has won a $17.8 million contract to supply seven en route air traffic control centers in China, as well as training and logistics support. The company also is conducting ATC projects for Switzerland and Indonesia in addition to its work on Canada's automated ATC system.
DOT officials expect a detailed air traffic control corporatization proposal to be introduced by Feb. 6, when the administration unveils its fiscal 1996 budget.Department staff are working out details of the plan, which is expected to be basically the same as last year's concept. A meeting between DOT Secretary Federico Pea and House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio) to discuss the measure, scheduled yesterday, was postponed because of scheduling problems. DOT officials and Kasich staffers have met previously.
McDonnell Douglas yesterday reported lower revenues but record operating and net earnings for 1994, and Chief Financial Officer Herbert Lanese said the company will have to "revisit" options for MD-11 production in 1996 unless its long-expected order from Saudi Arabia comes through. The Douglas Aircraft unit delivered only 17 MD-11s last year, down from 36 in 1993, and the outlook for this year is 18 or 19 deliveries, Lanese said.
DOT has delayed announcing progress in its efforts to persuade foreign carriers to stop spraying insecticide on flights arriving in their home countries. It has been waiting for a formal response from the government of Mexico, but it is expected to make the announcement today, with or without a Mexican reply. DOT is expected to name eight countries that have stopped the practice and announce further rulemaking to curtail it.
American parent AMR Corp. yesterday reported a fourth quarter 1994 net loss of $123 million and an operating loss of $43 million after taking into account a $278 million special charge included in operating expenses relating to employee severance and the company's ongoing restructuring efforts. AMR has reduced its work force by more than 5,000 in the past two years and will continue to downsize in 1995. The bulk of the special charge ($272 million) covers severance to be paid to employees in 1995, according to Chief Financial Officer Michael Durham.
FAA will host a forum Feb. 7-8 in Houston to evaluate and approve ground facilities designed to provide local area augmentation to the Global Positioning System. Local augmentation provides a means to transmit differential corrections and integrity messages to airmen. The meeting will be held at the Hotel Sofitel. For more information, call William Dixon at 202-267-9147.
DOT is proposing new, expanded disclosure requirements for change-of-gauge service - service operating under a single flight number that requires a change of aircraft. Consumers too often "book flights without being told that they will be changing planes," DOT Secretary Federico Pea said. "Many assume that a service with a single flight number is a nonstop or direct flight when in fact it may require a change of planes," he added. In its notice of proposed rulemaking, DOT proposes three requirements for U.S.
