After six months riding out the collapse of demand following Sept. 11, the big U.S. airlines are beginning to collect their first solid evidence of how long it will take them to become profitable again. Signals are mixed so far. In March, the Air Transport Assn.'s compilation of the industry-wide passenger load factor showed a year-over-year gain for the third consecutive month. The decline in yields, which predates Sept. 11, may be bottoming out (see graph).
Lockheed Martin is recommending additional flight testing of the F-22 Raptor to generate data that will be used to support a decision on how to address a possible vertical tail buffeting problem with the aircraft. In almost 1,900 hr. of flight tests, F-22s have little more than one-half hr. of data, total, collected in 10-sec. intervals, during which the buffet was present. This is because it is difficult to enter and then sustain the conditions necessary to generate it, program officials said.
U.S. Army Gen. (ret.) John H. Tilelli, Jr., has been appointed to the board of directors of the Raytheon Co., Lexington, Mass. He is president/chief operating officer of Cypress International Inc. and had been commander-in-chief of the U.N. Command and Combined Forces Command for the U.S. Forces Korea. John R. Galvin and Alfred M. Zeien have retired.
The Transportation Dept. ended a dustup among U.S.-Brazil carriers by preserving the status quo until 2003. Citing continued weakness in the market, the department extended waivers of dormancy for four Continental weekly frequencies (Newark-Rio de Janeiro) and two American frequencies (New York Kennedy-Rio) until Dec. 31 and Jan. 8, respectively. It extended indefinitely Delta's temporary allocation of four of the unused frequencies, which enables the airline to operate daily Atlanta-Rio round trips.
Lawmakers are losing patience with homeland security czar Tom Ridge's claim that he has all the clout he needs, and they are equally fed up with the White House refusal to let Ridge testify at congressional hearings. What key members of Congress regard as Administration stonewalling has galvanized a bipartisan, bicameral move to create a Cabinet-level Homeland Security Dept.
Meanwhile, archrival Thomas Cook set up a new Belgian charter carrier and assigned line maintenance for its fleet to Lufthansa Technic. The carrier, Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium, will commence service with five A320 aircraft. Thomas Cook, which is partially owned by Lufthansa, already has extensive tour operations in Belgium.
The Defense Dept.'s high power computing modernization office at the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md., will more than double its computing power, to over 7.1 teraflops. Raytheon will procure and integrate the 800-processor IBM Power4 supercomputer, under a $14-million contract.
Cessna Aircraft Co. and FlightSafety International (FSI) have signed a 15-year agreement to continue Cessna's recognition of FSI as the official training representative for all Citation business jets and Caravan utility transports. The pact is an extension of an agreement forged between the two companies in February 1980. Since then, FSI has trained more than 90,000 pilots and mechanics on Citations and Caravans.
Goodrich Corp. has quietly bought up pieces of other companies in the past few years to assemble what it hopes will be a ``merchant supplier'' dealing spacecraft components and systems to all comers. Most recently the Charlotte, N.C.-based company has entered a patenting-and-licensing technology agreement with Britain's ARM Ltd.
Ivan A. Getting, founding president of The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif., has been inducted into the San Diego Aerospace Museum's International Aerospace Hall of Fame. He was cited for leadership and direction instrumental to the development of GPS.
Henry Kilpatrick has been named vice president-economics, Calvin Penewit vice president-security, H. Hadley McCann director of security and Tavis D. Anderson a valuation analyst, all at ACI Aviation Consulting, Warrenton, Va.
Preussag, Europe's leading leisure travel company, is to be renamed TUI, after the firm's better-known tour operator business. The company's six charter airlines--Hapag Lloyd (Germany), Britannia (U.K.), Britannia AB (Sweden), Corsair (France), Neos (Italy) and White Eagle (Poland)--will be operated under a new unit known as TUI Airline Management. Preussag flew 18.8 million passengers last year and reported after-tax earnings of 411 million euros ($372 million) on revenues of 22.4 billion euros, up from 21.9 billion euros the year before.
Ron Martin has become vice president-aviation solutions and services for Unitech Inc., Centreville, Va. He was senior director of the FAA Integrated Business Team for Arinc, Annapolis, Md., and executive director of subsidiary SkySource Inc.
NATO AWACS aircraft that have been providing radar coverage over the U.S. will return to Europe in mid-May. This is because the Pentagon is cutting back on continuous air patrols over U.S. cities conducted since Sept. 11.
Air Canada agents, outfitted with mobile check-in kiosks, are roving Air Toronto's Lester B. Pearson Airport. No, it's not the latest airline fashion rage. It's a trial program aimed at expediting passenger check-in, particularly during busy travel periods. A mobile computer and printer are attached to the agent's belt. The agent either inputs flight data on the computer's touchscreen pad or swipes the passenger's credit or frequent-flier card. When the reservation information is displayed on the 8-in.
Six weapons programs exceeding the 25% cost-growth redline in the Nunn-McCurdy amendment win a reprieve. Pentagon acquisition mogul E.C. (Pete) Aldridge, Jr., certifies to Congress that the programs--H-1 and CH-47F helicopter upgrades, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, LPD-17 amphibian, a chemical demilitarization effort and Space-Based Infrared System-High (SBIRS-High) (see p. 30)--are essential for national security, can't be replaced with something cheaper and now have reasonable cost estimates and sound management.
Out-of-production aircraft stored in the U.S. continue to trend upward, with the largest increase from Boeing 727 models, according to U.K.-based AirClaims. However, about half of American Airlines' TWA fleet of 29 717s is now parked, with the rest expected in the next 2-3 months.
Terrence S. Lomheim, an engineer at of The Aerospace Corp., has been named a fellow of SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering, for achievements in electro-optical sensors and visible and infrared imaging system analysis.
Modernization of the world's ATC systems is attracting companies from unexpected countries. Many were domestic suppliers, but are now vying for a piece of the international market, particularly in the less developed regions. Among the new competitors are a Russian company with a Slovakian partner, five Czech companies, two Polish, two Israeli and one Finnish firm. All were exhibitors earlier this year at Europe's biggest ATC show, Jane's ATC Maastricht 2002. Nita of St.
British Airways CitiExpress is cutting a dozen unprofitable routes as it attempts to save 20 million pounds ($29 million) a year by 2004. The BA subsidiary plans to cut 10 aircraft from its 92-aircraft fleet and reduce staff by 500. CitiExpress expects to add two routes to the schedule and increase frequencies on several key business routes. As part of its ongoing rationalization BA expects to roll up BA Regional and Manx Airlines into BA CitiExpress this year.
The U.S. Air Force is beginning definition of a space-based tracking range to oversee the launch and recovery of reusable launch vehicles fired from locations in the U.S. other than Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The initiative is noteworthy in that it illustrates the Defense Dept. is increasingly serious about a ``launch anywhere concept'' that unchains launch operations from the major infrastructures at the Eastern and Western ranges in Florida and California.
Paul J. (Pat) Hurley has been appointed general manager of Raytheon Electronic Warfare Systems, Goleta, Calif. He was president/CEO of BAE Automated Systems Inc., Carrollton, Tex.
Margaret Ng has been named director of Consolidators International's Chinese operation, Rapid Dragon Express. She succeeds Alice Hsiao. Ng was director of customer service for Emery Worldwide in Los Angeles.
The U.S. Air Force will implement sharp across-the-board space contractor performance tracking standards in the wake of $3 billion in overruns on its new missile warning spacecraft and growing concern that a trend toward contractor ``systems engineering problems'' is beginning to affect military space projects. The more rigorous assessments are designed both to peer deep into the subcontractor ranks and better track the performance of the primes.
As the world's airlines cope with new security screening requirements and the demands of convincing passengers to stay loyal and keep flying, some businesses are seeing opportunity. Unisys Corp. has created applications software for biometric identification systems for frequent travelers as well as airport and airline employees. Partnering with Unisys' Transportation Group in the project are Germany's Wincor Nixdorf for equipment kiosks, Materna for the operating system and Iridian Technologies for the biometric identification systems.
