Spot Image shareholders hope that new management can turn around the ailing French imaging company, which is beset by a slow-growing market and heightened U.S. competition. The company expects to announce a new loss at its shareholders' meeting on June 27, on top of a FF9-million ($1.2-million) shortfall a year earlier. A Spot Image official said the loss would be about equal to that in 2000. Sales were also down last year, to FF238 million, from FF260 million in 1999.
Jean-Marc Nasr has been appointed chief executive and Philippe Munier general manager of Spot Image. Nasr is scheduled to succeed Jacques Mouysset by midyear. Nasr was chairman/CEO of Fleximage. Munier was development director.
Congress has joined business in demanding that the Pentagon rein in gargantuan financial mismanagement, estimated at $1.1-2.7 trillion in auditing irregularities. A new Senate report castigates defense finances as a ``shambles'' and the Pentagon as an agency that ``wastes billions of dollars each year, and cannot account for much of what it spends.''
Air Force efforts to accelerate the Advanced EHF satellite program are foundering. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and TRW joined efforts last year, promising that they could deliver the first spacecraft 18 months ahead of schedule. But a year into the effort, it has become clear that the schedule can't be maintained at current funding levels. Rather than pay more, the Air Force has decided to forgo most of the acceleration. Advanced EHF now is slated for a first launch in 2005, only six months ahead of the earliest plan.
Mike Snyder has become chief operating officer, Peter Burn vice president-sales for the Americas and Edward Hernandez vice president-marketing of Polar Air Cargo. Snyder was president/CEO of TrafficStation.com., while Burn was vice president-cargo for North America and Europe for Air New Zealand and Hernandez a sales and marketing executive with multinational airfreight forwarders.
AgustaWestland officials are seeking a U.S. partner to jointly produce its EH-101 medium-lift helicopter for potential operations with the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. The Rolls-Royce Turbomeca or GE-powered helicopter is seen as qualifying for the search-and-rescue, vertical replenishment, mine countermeasures and executive transport roles in U.S. missions. A decision on its U.S. partner is due in the next several months.
The Galileo spacecraft appears to have taken the highest resolution photographs yet of Jupiter's moon Callisto after engineers fixed problems with its visual spectrum camera at the last minute during the flyby on May 25.
Hewlett-Packard and PricewaterhouseCoopers have joined forces to market aviation consulting and information technology services to airlines and airports as well as to aerospace manufacturers and suppliers. The partnership is being called the Aviation Solution Center.
George Muellner has been appointed Seal Beach, Calif.-based president of the Boeing Phantom Works in July, taking over from David Swain, who will remain senior vice president-engineering and technology.
Although military officials are complaining that the Bush Administration's request for $5.6 billion in supplemental defense spending for Fiscal 2001 is too small, several programs fared well. The Pentagon is actually asking for $6.1 billion in new money, but it's also rescinding $505 million it doesn't need. Most of the cut comes from the V-22 program, with the Marines having to relinquish $235 million and the Air Force $240 million because delays in the program have freed up production money in the near term.
The competition and lower fares produced by airline deregulation have enabled many more people to fly, and to fly more often, for both business and personal reasons. When I first started working on the creation of Southwest Airlines, only 15% of adults in the U.S. had ever flown on even one commercial flight. Today, that percentage is around 85%. The number of domestic trips by air has increased by more than 200% since deregulation in 1978.
Meanwhile, the Air Force Research Laboratory is paying for the development of scheduling software for automated spaceborne and airborne intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance. The small business innovative research award went to Frontier Technology (www.fti-net.com) to advance its space operations scheduling and management system (Sopsman). The Air Force sends up to 400 commands per day to about 100 satellites monitored by 15 antennas around the world. The manually written schedule can take up to 13 days to devise and is less than ideal.
NASA's inspector general finds the relationship between the agency and Dreamtime, the Silicon Valley startup it hired to wire the International Space Station for high-definition television, has gotten a little too laid-back for government work. While the IG's office finds NASA's management of the $100-million Space Act Agreement to be ``generally effective,'' it worries that agency managers aren't getting enough in writing as the deal unfolds.
Master Sgt. (ret.) John H. Bae is one of 12 new members of the AAAA Hall of Fame at Ft. Rucker. The others inducted earlier this year are: Brig. Gen. (ret.) John N. Dailey, CW4 (ret.) Billy J. Fulbright, the late First Lt. Gerald D. Green, Lt. Col. (ret.) William A. Howell, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Richard D. Kenyon, Col. (ret.) Hal Kushner, Lt. Col. (ret.) George L. O'Grady, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Richard E. Stephenson, CW4 (ret.) Cleveland Valrey and CSM (ret.) Hartwell B. Wilson.
Air New Zealand was assessed a $45,000 civil penalty by the U.S. Transportation Dept. for failing to disclose code-sharing arrangements in its advertising and during calls to reservation agents. The department cited an Oct. 8, 2000, ad that did not reveal that the U.S. leg of a Chicago-Los Angeles-Auckland flight would be operated by United Airlines. In a follow-up telephone survey by U.S. investigators, ANZ reservation agents failed 44% of the time to notify callers of code-share flights, and travel agent personnel failed more than 50% of the time.
It wasn't difficult to decipher what drove General Dynamics Corp. to the top of the 2001 ``large company'' rankings. Fixed-asset turns last year were about 50% higher than the industry average, indicating the aerospace/defense contractor did an exceptional job of leveraging its existing investment in plant and equipment to increase sales. Observed SG Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr, ``GD is the best-managed defense contractor.'' General Dynamics' ranking came as no surprise.
Under a proposed bill to be introduced by Japan's opposition Democrat Party, airline passengers will be fined for unauthorized use of electronic devices.The revision of the country's aviation law addresses monetary punishment for nuisance behavior. Fines of about $1,600 would be levied on any passenger who violates non-smoking rules, utters obscenities or exhibits drunken behavior. Passengers who defy crew instruction and continue to use electronic devices when not permitted face fines of about $800.
Pennsylvania-based Herley Industries Inc. has been awarded combined contracts totaling $3 million to supply microwave assemblies for the Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter.
Boeing has entered into an exclusive agreement with Borealis Exploration Ltd. to evaluate the London-based company's ``Cool Chip'' micro-cooling technology for potential aerospace applications. The solid-state Cool Chip is a form of vacuum diode which pumps heat from one side of the chip to the other when an electric current is passed through it to provide localized cooling. Boeing's Phantom Works is to appraise the thermionic chip which could be used to cool avionics and sensors.
U.S. President George W. Bush was slated June 1 to notify Congress of his intention to extend normal trade relations (low tariffs) for another year to China. Congress is expected to go along with the measure, which the American aerospace industry strongly supports. The renewal is necessary because of delays in China's accession to the World Trade Organization, which would pave the way for Washington to grant Beijing permanent normal trade relations without a yearly review.
SED Systems has won a $9.2-million contract from Public Works and Government Services Canada to provide operations and maintenance services for the Canadian Space Agency's Satellite Operations Directorate in Saint-Hubert, Quebec, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Air Vice Marshal Angus Houston has been named the new chief of the Royal Australian Air Force, replacing Air Marshal Errol McCormack. The chief of the navy, Vice Admiral David Shackleton, has had his tour extended another year.
What sets the aerospace and airline industries' top-performing players apart? If the Index of Competitiveness is any guide, it's knowing how to leverage their strengths to improve operating efficiencies and position themselves for profitable, and, it is hoped, sustainable growth. They also share what seems to be a spirit of entrepreneurship. In the following profiles, Northeast U.S. Bureau Chief/Senior Business Editor Anthony L.
David Bond has joined Aviation Week&Space Technology as senior transport editor, based in Washington. Bond was national affairs editor from 1989-92, when he became the editor of Aviation Daily. He left Aviation Daily in 1999, and has been a contributing editor to Aviation Week since last summer. Prior to joining Aviation Week in 1989, Bond covered military and space issues for Aerospace Daily. Both Aviation Daily and Aerospace Daily are publications of the Aviation Week group. Bond graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
