Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, operator of Tampa Airport, has weighed in at DOT against the accelerated procedural schedule proposed for the transfer of two Canadian routes from Delta to American. American agreed last week to buy Delta's Miami/Tampa-Toronto and Miami/Tampa- Montreal routes for $1 million (DAILY, Jan. 23). The carriers asked DOT to expedite treatment of the deal, with deadlines of Jan. 27 for answers and Jan. 31 for replies, to enable American to begin service on the new routes May 1.
Swissair took delivery of its first Airbus A321 yesterday. The aircraft is one of 29 single-aisle Airbus aircraft - five A319s, 16 A320s and eight A321s - that the carrier is to receive by mid-1997. All are powered by CFM56-5B engines with dual annular combustors for reduced emission of nitrogen oxides. Swissair President Otto Lupfe said the "choice for our fleet renewal was not easy, but we took it anyway, for the environment's sake."
Boeing's 1994 net earnings dropped to $856 million from $1.2 billion in 1993 - the first descent below $1 billion in five years - as sales fell off to $21.9 billion from $25.4 billion, the company reported yesterday. Fourth quarter sales were $5.1 billion, down from $5.7 billion, and net earnings fell to $157 million from $304 million. Revenues from commercial aircraft sales declined to $16.8 billion in 1994 from $20.6 billion the previous year, and operating profit from this segment fell to $1.02 billion from $1.6 billion.
The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) submitted additional evidence to the National Mediation Board yesterday for its claim of unlawful interference by United management during an election last month in which AMFA competed with the Machinists to represent United's mechanics. AMFA challenged the election, claiming unlawful ballot collection, violence, forgery, misrepresentations of law and carrier favoritism. The union and airline management will respond by Feb. 7.
Thomson-CSF said it received a contract to supply radio direction finders for approach control centers for Toulouse, Bordeaux, Bale-Mulhouse, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier and Nice.
Alamo Rent A Car has become a partner of Midwest Express Airlines' frequent flyer program. Program members will earn 500 bonus miles when they rent an Alamo car in conjunction with a flight on Midwest Express or its commuter partner, Skyway Airlines, effective Feb. 1.
Wake vortices from a Delta 727 would have reached USAir Flight 427 at about the time the USAir 737 began its fatal nosedive last September, just short of Pittsburgh Airport, according to Boeing simulations presented yesterday at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing. James Kerrigan, a senior aerodynamics engineer at Boeing, and other researchers who testified also pointed out that none of the turbulence scenarios run through simulators at Boeing Commercial Airplane Group proved unrecoverable, adding that line pilots deal with severe turbulence every day.
The Next Generation Weather Observing System, built by AAI Systems Management, will debut at the Helicopter Association International's Heli- Expo show Jan. 29-31 in Las Vegas. The new radar was built under contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. More than 500 systems are in operation nationally for the National Weather Service, FAA, the Navy and the Air Force, the company said.
Sabre Decision Technologies (SDT) has signed a multi-million dollar contract with South African Airways for marketing systems, and will help the carrier re-engineer its marketing and planning operations. SDT conducted an on-site study and recommended that SAA adopt a network profitability management strategy. Gary Webb, SAA executive manager- marketing planning, said business decisions will no longer be made in isolation, and the new structure will enable the airline to make decisions "based solely on their impact on SAA's profitability."
DOT has approved an eight-carrier petition for antitrust immunity to discuss a voluntary ban on smoking on transatlantic flights. American, British Airways, Continental, KLM, Northwest, TWA, United and USAir proposed the meetings this month (DAILY, Jan. 10), and DOT found that their goal is "consistent with a clearly articulated U.S. policy." It noted a succession of U.S.
Honeywell said it has signed a pact with Pelorus Navigation Systems to jointly develop and produce a new local area differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) that will "revolutionize precision landing capability worldwide." Honeywell said the ground-based system will transmit satellite navigation information to aircraft for navigation and precision landing and will someday replace microwave and instrument landing systems. The company expects first production units to be certified for Category 1 landings in the third quarter this year.
At a time when "everybody flies," compared with pre-deregulation, the public and the press are holding the airline industry and its regulators to much higher standards and rightly so, FAA Administrator David Hinson told the Aero Club of Washington yesterday.
The governments of India and Brunei have signed an agreement for operating air services between the two countries, said India's civil aviation ministry officials. The designated carriers of each country will have the right to operate two frequencies with a maximum of 450 seats per week in each direction. The Indian carrier will operate co-terminal service between the capital of Brunei Bandar Seri Begawan, and Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, and the carrier of Brunei will operate services through Kuala Lumpur or Singapore to Calcutta and Abu Dhabi or Dubai.
The U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration is offering assistance in tracking true origin-and-destination patterns of Canadians traveling to the U.S. in light of the new opportunities for air travel between the two countries. USTTA surveyed about 16,400 passengers from Canada to the U.S. in 1993. It found travelers from British Columbia visited primarily the West Coast, and Los Angeles was by far the top destination. Visitors from Ontario headed mostly to Orlando, Tampa/St. Petersburg and New York, and the top destinations for residents from Quebec were Tampa/St.
Business Express will suspend service to Milwaukee from its Boston hub Jan. 31 because of lower-than-expected passenger demand. The Delta Connection carrier operates two daily flights with 70-passenger RJ-70s. Passengers holding tickets will be accommodated on Delta flights.
Canadian safety authorities are investigating why a 747 operated by Royal Air Maroc moved while it was being de-iced Saturday at Montreal Mirabel Airport. The aircraft struck an elevated de-icing platform. Three workers who were de-icing the aircraft were killed when they fell from the platform.
FedEx said average daily volume of express freight, packages and documents increased 26% in December compared with the same month in 1993. International air freight rose to 44.4 million pounds from 37.5 million.
The nation's airlines set traffic records for 1994 and for December, the Air Transport Association reported yesterday. Carriers held capacity to a negligible increase of 0.2% in 1994, causing the load factor to rise almost three points to 66.4% as enplanements jumped 6.6%, compared with the previous year. On international flights, capacity decreased 1.4%, while enplanements were up 1.7%, and the rise was enough to boost the load factor more than three points to 70.7%. Total revenue passenger miles increased 4.7% and 3.1% on international flights.
Continental will ground 16 727-200s in the next 12 months to save about $6 million in scheduled maintenance costs.The carrier already decided to ground 21 A300s and three 747s.
UAL Corp., in its seventh month of employee ownership and the fourth month of Shuttle by United operations, yesterday reported its first profitable fourth quarter in five years and its best full-year net, $51 million, since 1990. Citing a fourfold increase in operating earnings for the quarter, Gerald Greenwald, chairman and chief executive officer, credited employee ownership with cost reductions and improved operations.
The phone number for information on FAA's annual aviation forecast conference and annual general aviation conference is 301-949-7477, and the fax number is 301-949-5154.
China, one of the world's biggest steady buyers of new jets, plans to buy another 22 aircraft this year, the official Xinhua news agency said this week, but it is unclear if these are new aircraft or accelerated existing orders. Aviation Minister Chen Guangyi said traffic of the national airlines grew 19% last year, compared with 1993, forcing flag carrier Air China and the other state airlines to add capacity.
The first U.S.-Ukraine bilateral agreement will become effective April 1. Governed by the old Soviet pact, the two sides reached the new agreement during a recent round of talks in Washington (DAILY, Jan. 12). The pact includes provisions for third-party code-share service to Ukraine, while spelling out allowed destinations, capacity and designated carriers. Under the pact, the two countries can designate four combination and two all- cargo carriers. Each is allotted 18 weekly combination frequencies and four weekly all-cargo frequencies.
Pemco World Air Service has contracted with Aircraft Leasing to convert a 727-200 passenger aircraft to a freighter. A 12-pallet-position, cargo- handling system will be built by Pemco Engineers.
Milwaukee-based Midwest Express has become the 20th airline member of the Air Transport Association. ATA President James Landry said, "Midwest Express was created early in the era of airline deregulation and has proven its staying power through its profitability during some turbulent times for the industry." The carrier began operating in June 1984.
