Northwest Airlines logged an operating loss of $46 million and a net loss of $93 million during the second quarter, but CEO Richard Anderson predicted NWA will be the first network carrier to turn in a post-Sept. 11 quarterly profit. Like the other hub-and-spoke airlines, Northwest is keeping a rein on costs and capacity as it waits for traffic and yields to rebound. But its unit revenues are better than the industry's, showing a double-digit premium in May, Anderson said, and its load factors are the highest.
NASA chose two new Small Explorer missions from a field of seven finalists. An $89-million Boston University mission to map the hot gas that makes up half the normal matter in the nearby Universe was picked for launch in 2005. In 2006 the second mission--a $92-million effort led by Hampton University in Virginia--is set to launch. It aims to determine if mounting concentrations of greenhouse gases at high altitudes are responsible for an increase in the number of clouds in the upper atmosphere.
Russian authorities will pull the Su-30 MK fighter-bomber, upgraded MiG-29 fighter and MiG-AT advanced trainer from the Farnborough air show to prevent them from being seized for unpaid debts. Officials fear the planes could be impounded by court order under a ongoing legal dispute with Noga, a Swiss import/export company. The dispute prompted an early departure of Russian aircraft from last year's Paris air show and kept them out of a recent exercise in France as well (AW&ST June 24, p. 41).
Michelle Branham has been appointed public information officer for the Jacksonville (Fla.) Airport Authority. She was marketing manager for Elkins Constructors in Jacksonville.
Although the Airbus A380 is still almost a decade away from its first D check, Lufthansa Technik is already starting to reflect on a maintenance, overhaul and repair strategy for the new transport and its potential as a VIP aircraft. Officials at the German company, the world's largest independent MRO provider and the leading supplier of VIP conversions, noted that the size of the aircraft, and the relatively small number likely to be ordered in the initial years, demanded a novel MRO approach.
To kick off their merger plans against rival All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines and Japan Air System have outlined a series of discount fares, expanded routes and other incentives beginning in October. They are to operate more flights from Tokyo's Haneda airport, the country's busiest domestic hub, on routes where All Nippon is now dominant. Regular domestic fares will be cut 10% and a range of other discount fares introduced. Some frequencies will be reduced because slots have been lost at Haneda and at Osaka's Itami airport, Japan's second busiest domestic facility.
June is the most crowded month of the year to fly across the Atlantic on a U.S. airline, and this June was no exception, regardless of the persistent post-Sept. 11 traffic slump (AW&ST July 15, p. 39). Even though the number of passengers crossing the Atlantic was down 9.9% from June 2001 and passenger miles were down 11.1%, airlines flew 12.3% less capacity, so the load factor inched up 1.18 percentage points to 88.89%. Flights over the Pacific were almost as jammed, at 84.17%. The Latin America load factor was the lightest, 67.03%.
The European Commission's long-term near-schizophrenia over support for civil and military aerospace moved closer to resolution last week with the release of a watershed report underscoring the need for a coherent all-encompassing policy of fundamental provision for both. The European Commission's (EC) Strategic Aerospace Review for the 21st Century (STAR 21), presented to EC President Romano Prodi on July 16 an outline of the interdependence of the sectors.
David Crossett has been named vice president-business development for the Rogerson Aircraft Corp., Irvine, Calif. He was senior director of airline sales for Tenzing Communications Inc. of Seattle.
Itzhak Nissan has become corporate vice president/general manager of the Missile & Space Systems Group and Israel Livnat corporate vice president/general manager of the Elta Intelligence, Radar and Airborne Early Warning AEW Group of Israel Aircraft Industries. Nissan was general manager of the MBT Div. Livnat had been general manager of Elta. Reserves Brig. Gen. Uzzi Rozzen was named IAI corporate vice president-strategic planning. He was an assistant to several defense ministers.
These Copperhead brand transformers for point-to-point coupling and transceiver modules for buffered short- and long-haul applications support high data rates for military and aerospace applications. They are ruggedized to meet military standards and are used in satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, tactical ground communications systems and military aircraft. When used alone, transformer models T-330SCT, T-1062SCT, T-1250SCT and T-148SCT protect against static charges that may develop on cabling and prevent ground loop currents from being transferred between stations.
Randy T. Clark has been promoted to San Francisco-based senior vice president-sales and marketing for the Americas for DHL Worldwide Express from senior vice president-customer relations. He succeeds Jeff Corbett.
George Fink has become president/ chief operating officer of Tele Atlas North America, Menlo Park, Calif. He was CEO of Mirus Information Technology Services Inc. Fink succeeds Richard Selmeier.
Directed energy weapons--lasers and high-power microwaves--are emerging from the black world of classified projects as the time nears for their debut on aircraft, vehicles, ships and eventually even spacecraft. The first combat applications, probably involving high-power microwaves (HPM) used as antielectronics weapons, will appear within the next 4-5 years, say top Raytheon officials. A short, intense energy surge can scramble computer memories and damage electronic components. Raytheon is already involved in most of the major directed energy programs.
Weak yields stemming from industry-wide low fares was the chief culprit behind AMR Corp.'s staggering $465-million net loss for the second quarter, and senior executives at American Airlines expect the financial hemorrhaging will persist into the next quarter. AMR is the parent company of American. The latest shortfall follows a net loss of $548 million in the first quarter, and resulted in the loss of $3 per share of AMR stock. By comparison, in the second quarter of 2001, AMR lost $105 million, or 68 cents per share. Donald J.
Russia's partners on the International Space Station are willing to do what they can to help put a paying customer in the third seat the next time a fresh Soyuz capsule goes to the space station.
Commercial remote sensing and space launch are the top priorities of a national security presidential directive President Bush has signed. Dated June 28 and released last week, NSPD-15 sets a Nov. 30 deadline for the National Security Council and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to recommend changes in commercial remote sensing policy ``and on foreign access to remote sensing space capabilities.'' The NSC Space Policy Coordinating Committee and OSTP have until Dec. 31 to report on space transportation policy, and until Feb.
The WaveMaster digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) is designed for analyzing long, complex high-speed signals or very fast edges. It can capture very high-speed signals up to 5-GHz. bandwidth and provide measurements using a patent-pending architecture called X-Stream, which the company describes as a fast, streaming architecture for handling and analyzing data in a digital oscilloscope.
Southwest Airlines posted a profit of $102 million in the second quarter but faces weaker unit revenues in the third quarter if low-yield fares continue to dominate the airline industry. ``As predicted, our second-quarter earnings fell well below second-quarter 2001 income of $175.8 million,'' chiefly because of higher numbers of customers traveling on discounted fares, said James F. Parker, vice chairman and CEO of the Dallas-based airline. He said Southwest ended the quarter with $2.1 billion in cash.
Phillip M. Panzera has become president of California-based Pemco Engineering Inc. and Space Vector Inc., subsidiaries of the Pemco Aviation Group Inc., Birmingham, Ala. He was executive vice president of Hawker Pacific Aerospace.
Increased defense spending is helping to salvage the fortunes of the U.S. aerospace and defense sector against a sluggish civil space economy and the gloom of at least another year's torpid sales in civil and business aviation. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics reported gains in defense-related 2nd-quarter earnings last week, even if some of their overall performances were dragged down by underperforming civil business units.
Andrew Siegel has been appointed vice president-business development of InVision Technologies Inc., Newark, Calif. He was a Palo Alto, Calif.-based vice president in the Technology Investment Banking Group at Merrill Lynch & Co. and previously an associate corporate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York.
This family of multi-function PC/104 avionics interface cards for embedded systems communicate over Arinc and Mil-Std-1553 databuses. Typical applications for the PM429-1 and PM1553-1 cards include flight display systems, passenger entertainment systems, moving map displays, file loading, flight test, and situations where a PC/104 computer interacts with an avionics databus. Cards are available in commercial, industrial and military (-55C to 85C) temperature grades, and can be ruggedized for flightline or aircraft use.
This new magnet material has applications in high-performance stepping motors, synchronous motors, hall effect sensors, torque couplings, sputtering equipment and traveling wave tubes. S3069 high-energy rare-Earth samarium cobalt has a guaranteed high minimum energy product and a residual flux density that does not compromise on intrinsic coercivity, according to the company. This class of permanent magnet material can be used in applications with temperatures as high as 320C, as well as adverse demagnetizing conditions. In addition, the material does not oxidize.
